CHAP. V]

TEMPTATIONS OF MAN

85

a somewhat different signification from that which it had three centuries ago when it was used by the translators of the Gospels. Comfort now suggests relief from suffering or sorrow, or a certain measure of ease and well-being. But its old sense was support or assistance. The Greek word which is so translated is Paraclete, and means properly an Advocate. So that Christ's promise is of a Spirit which shall be the Advocate or pleader in our souls for that which is right; the helper and strengthener of our spirits in resisting temptation. This guidance, this support, this aid, it is for us to turn to, to accept, to rely on, when we are tempted as Adam was. It is breathed into our hearts when Satan assails us; it recalls to our thoughts the idea of a God present with us; it speaks of His love and of His terrors; it brings into our minds all motives for holiness; and if all these fail at last, sooner or later it brings remorse.

Thus therefore, says St. James,' 'Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth He any man: But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.' And again,' 'Submit yourselves therefore to God.

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Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.' And St. Peter, The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations.' And St. Paul,2 There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, Who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.'

Wherefore when the devil, whether within us or without God knoweth, suggests in our minds the pleasantness of what we know to be sins, whether they are sins of the body, sins of intemperate indulgence, or sins of the mind, evil desires, envying of our neighbours, longing for human success or praise; or sins against our neighbour, malice or anger, or the evil words and evil deeds which they engender; or sins against God Himself, distrust of His promises, doubt of His truth, rejection of His love, let us listen to that other Spirit, the helper, the advocate, and let us think of Jesus Christ, very God and yet man, who was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. So let us resist so let us triumph.

1 2 Peter ii. 9.

2 1 Cor. x. 13.

CHAPTER VI

DEATH

THE consequence denounced of the choice of evil was death: 'In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.' Up to this point creation had consisted in the preparation for life and the granting of life. We are led therefore to infer that had man resisted the tempter and remained in God's commandments he would not have died. Are we then to understand that this means that man alone would have been exempt from the fate of mortality; or that all animals would have been alike immortal? This last could not be, for death had already entered into the scheme of being. Geology shows us that, thousands of years before man appeared, generations of plants and animals had lived and died, and their remains are to this day visible in the strata of the rocks. But if we limit the idea of perpetual life to man alone we are met with insuperable difficulties. Our bodies

must in that case have been cast in a wholly different mould, and our physical nature been made wholly at variance with that of all other animals. For in a physical sense the essence of life is death. Every movement that we make, every effort of our bodies however trivial-nay, the involuntary expansion of our lungs and the pulsations of our hearts, and the countless unconscious motions of every organ-are attended by and effected by the death of some portion of our muscles and other parts of our bodies. The principle of life uses up for its own purposes these elements of our frame, and as they are used it casts them off as dead and expels them. Nor is it possible for our minds to conceive that the functions of life, while they are confined within our material bodies, could be carried on by any other means than that of perpetual death and renewal of these materials. Animals live by consuming plants, or in the case of some by consuming other animals, and to this rule we cannot suppose that man, with organs similar, could ever have formed an exception. And further, as man was bidden not only to use food, but to be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth, it would in a few thousand years have become too

CHAP. VI]

NATURE OF LIFE

89

densely populated to supply food, or even to afford room for the crowding generations if there had been no death to thin them down.

We cannot therefore accept the idea that it was merely physical death, or liability to death, that was declared as the penalty of eating the forbidden fruit. What then was the death? The answer is that death is the loss of life, and therefore to know what death is we must try to understand what life is.

We all think we know it perfectly, and yet it eludes every effort to define it. The nearest approach that scientific men can make to an explanation is that it is the capacity of growth. Living organisms are made up of an infinity of minute cells, and when these are living they have the capacity of forming other cells of the same nature, and so of growing. Thus when the skin is broken the surrounding skin throws out cells which form new skin to take the place of the old. The same process takes place with the flesh if it is wounded, with veins, and arteries, and nerves, and bones, if they are cut or injured; and the very same process of throwing out new cells is that by which all the organs of the body are renewed when they get worn out with the work they have done.