WOMAN AS A TEMPTER.

It will be admitted by all who will read the history of man’s ruin, as recorded in Genesis, the third chapter, and sixth verse, that woman first partook of the forbidden fruit, and “gave also to her husband, and he did eat.”  Admit the truth of history, and woman appears as man’s first tempter.

“Woman as a Helpmeet” described her condition before the fall; “Woman as a Tempter” describes her in the fall; and, alas! while it is the high privilege of woman to be a helpmeet in the midst of the ruin wrought by sin, it is unwise to disguise the truth that as a tempter she has not abandoned her vocation.

Plain speaking may prove to be disagreeable.  God grant that it may prove to be profitable.  There is need of it.  Disguise it as we may talk as we choose about man in his narrowness, in his degradation, a wicked woman was, and to a large extent is, the means employed by Satan in leading astray the unwary.  The manner of her fall has been declared.  It may be profitable to review the steps of her downward descent from the bliss of Eden to the woe of the desert; from the position of an equal to the position of a subject.

1. Satan, in the form of the serpent, undermines woman’s confidence in God.  The serpent, the most subtle beast of the field, said to the woman, “Is it even so, that God has said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?” Thus he attempted to weaken the child-like confidence she reposed in her Creator, and endeavored to inspire in its place a spirit of unbelief and distrust.  This done, and the battle was half won, and the work was well nigh accomplished.  Truly has it been said, “The sure basis of simple trust in God as the all-loving and the all-wise, once shaken, there is little left to be done.”  This is the rock on which character builds its hopes.  There is nothing so essential to woman as faith in God.  Destroy this, or let woman attempt to live without it, and she is in imminent peril.  It was an infidel woman who declared, “It has been said that marriage is a divine institution, because all power comes from God. We know very well that all power comes from God’, and therefore we wish neither God nor power.” Shall professedly Christian women, by action, give their assent to such an utterance?

2. Satan rouses woman’s suspicion.  “And the woman said to the serpent.  Of the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat.  But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden God has said, Ye shall not eat of it, and ye shall not touch it, lest ye die.  And the serpent said to the woman, Ye shall not surely die.  For God knows that in the day ye eat thereof your eyes will be opened, and ye will be as God, knowing good and evil.”

“Your eyes will be opened,” expresses the power of mentally apprehending things before unperceived and unknown; but, of course, both in an intellectual and moral sense.  The position taken appeared reasonable, and had a semblance of truth, and exerted its consequent influence.