THE Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was not in itself evil. It was among the trees which "God planted," "pleasant to the sight and good for food." But God reserved it to Himself, as he had a right to do, and as His own wisdom, exercised for man's good, dictated. As the Tree of Life had the property of imparting life to God's children, so the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was given those properties which would enable its rightful partakers instinctively to know good from evil, even as God knows, without being partaker of the evil. But not yet could mankind partake of the tree. Character is the only thing of worth in man. The development of good character was the most important part of the existence of Adam and Eve. But character means test in respect to some standard erected by some one having authority. The standard for Adam's character was God's holy law, and the One who gave it was Adam's Creator. The real test came, involving a half dozen eternal principles of truth, over the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. A necessary element in character development is faith in God. No man can of himself form a character worthy of continued preservation who has faith only in himself. He can not grow larger than himself; for he sees nothing beyond. He can not become a better man; for he makes himself the standard of good. He necessarily condemns all who are not in agreement with him, because they do not accept of his standard. Those without faith, trusting in self, actuated by the same principles, must, unless self-interest dictates, always be at enmity. The preventive of such a condition, the antidote of its evil, is faith in the infinite God. The man of faith looks to God instead of self. He sees God's holiness, goodness, greatness, beauty; and he loses sight of self, only as he sees it in the light of God's glory. He longs to be like God. He opens heart and mind toward God. He drinks of the great Fountain. He quaffs knowledge, wisdom, goodness, power, continually growing, continually progressing in the path of life. He gives all to God, and receives more abundantly in return. While the faithless man, choosing self, is left to wither and die, the faithful man, forgetting self, is filled with the larger life. For this reason God wished to call man away from himself. He wished him to learn what was good and what was evil from an eternally wise and kind Father. God wished him to learn of the only One who could guide and save to the end. He therefore forbade the tree, and asked the man to come to Him that he might learn the perfect ways of God and the opportunities for constant growth. Man chose otherwise, and partook of the tree. In doing that very thing he transgressed God's law, the law of his being. He came to know evil, not to abhor it, not to shun it, but as a partaker of it, in harmony with his own being. The knowledge he gained was a perverted knowledge, not true, because it came not in God's way, but in the way of the serpent. The perversion of man and his faculties was not in the tree of itself, but in partaking of the tree unlawfully, in disobeying God. Now man must come back to God in the rejected way, the way of faith, the way of what God says. When man has perfected character before God, he may then have access to the fruit of that tree which carries in all its legitimate partaking the instructive knowledge of evil before it is ever carried into purpose, or act. Till that time, God's Holy Word is our Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and Christ is our Tree of Life.