Page:The Garden of Eden (Doughty).djvu/58

52 have. He was somewhat discontented. And then it is added that the Lord said "I will make a helpmeet for him." But Arius Montanus, one of the best authorities in Hebrew idiomatic difficulties, gives as the exact translation, "I will make one, as it were himself, before him." The proper rendering of the whole passage, to put it in idiomatic English, seems to be this: "And the Lord God said, It seemeth not good to man that he should be alone; I will make for him one which shall be, as it were himself, before him." This helps us much in tracing the spiritual sense. Adam in his high Eden state, had been altogether the Lord's. He had no consciously lived selfhood; so high and holy were the people of that age; so close were they to the Lord; so receptive of the Lord's life and influence; so completely under the control of his Spirit, that they had a distinct perception, a realization from actual experience and knowledge, and they were simply living out on earth the Lord's inward influence. It is not more certain to us, as a physical fact, that the blood is coursing through our veins and giving life to the whole body, from the heart to the utmost extremities, than it was to them, as a spiritual fact, that the Lord's influence and life permeated heart, soul and mind, descending into each and every act.

It was a glorious life! Yet the restless spirit