A MAP OF LIFE Now Adam is not to be thought of simply as an individual: he was the human race. God, then — in the very beginning, and, so to speak, as a matter of course — had conferred upon the human race the three gifts necessary. For Adam the simplest elements of the road of human life were two, not three — his entry into life was at one end and Heaven was at the other : death did not lie in between. That, simply and directly, was God’s scheme : man had knowledge of the end of his existence, knowledge of the laws by which he might attain the end, the Supernatural Life which put the end within his power. Arid man wrecked the scheme. Adam sinned, rebelled against God ; and thereby lost the Supernatural Life, for this life cannot exist where the love of God is not, and love of God cannot exist where there is rebellion against Him. Scripture represents the sinful action as the eating of the fruit of the forbidden tree. There is some mystery here. But two things about it we know. The first is that it was a sin of disobedience to God. The second is that the devil played a part in it. It has already been said that among the creatures of God were certain purely spiritual beings, the angels ; and that these angels had the same purpose as man — to attain to Heaven — and like man they had a period of testing. Some succeeded and are now in Heaven. Some failed in the test, chose their own will rather than God’s, and so lost Heaven eternally. In the affairs of the human race angels good and bad 40