Page:The Garden of Eden (Doughty).djvu/45

Rh enunciations would be received without a doubt or question, and perceived intuitively. This is the highest faith known. It is the only testimony which admits of no discussion. When man loves God above all things, this faith is his. It is ours so far as we are in Eden, no further. Love perceived as the wisdom of life, and perceived as implanted by the Lord for that purpose, is the tree of life. With this planted in the soul, all argument is ended. We know because we love.

Now the tree of knowledge would be the exact opposite of this. It would begin to grow vigorously just so far as we desired to be in our own self-intelligence. The pride of one's own intelligence is a terrible thing. The desire to feel that one is one's own and not the Lord's, the vanity that would say, This truth I reasoned out myself; the pride that would claim that the integrity I possess is my own, and that the merit of my good deeds belongs to me; the self-sufficiency that asserts one's self as the origin and center of what he is and feels and acquires, is the tree of knowledge sending its roots down deep within the spirit. It first separates its life from God's life; then it claims the merit of its goodness and understanding; then it denies God and makes self the center, circumference, and all in all of its own little world. It loses its perception of love to the Lord as the controlling element of its nature: it loses sight of