This is a wonderful story for children. It deserves to be placed at the head of all the others, for it inculcates the cardinal virtue of childhood--obedience. It is also a typical story of the beginning, the progress, and the culmination of temptation. Will you permit me to relate the story as I should tell it to little children? I shall endeavor to keep true to the outlines, and if I depart from the received version in other respects, may I not plead that liberty of interpretation to which I have referred above.
Once upon a time there were two children, Adam and Eve. Adam was a fine and noble-looking lad. He was slender and well built, and fleet of foot as a young deer. Eve was as beautiful as the dawn, with long golden tresses, and blue eyes, and cheeks like the rose. They lived in the loveliest garden that you have ever heard of. There were tall trees in it, and open meadows where the grass was as smooth as on a lawn, and clear, murmuring brooks ran through the woods. And there were dense thickets filled with the perfume of flowers, and the flowers grew in such profusion, and there were so many different kinds, each more beautiful than the rest, that it was a perfect feast for the eyes to look at them. It was so warm that the children never needed to go in-doors, but at night they would just lie down at the foot of some great tree and look at the stars twinkling through the branches until they fell asleep. And when it rained they would find shelter in some beautiful cavern, spreading leaves and moss upon the ground for a bed. The garden where they lived was called Paradise. And there were ever so many animals in it--all kinds of animals--elephants, and tigers, and leopards, and giraffes, and camels, and sheep, and horses, and cows; but even the wild animals did them no harm. But the children were not alone in that garden: their Father lived with them. And every morning when they woke up their first thought was to go to him and to look up into his mild, kind face for a loving glance, and every evening before they went to sleep he would bend over them. And once, as they lay under the great tree, looking at a star shining through the branches, Adam said to Eve: "Our Father's eye shines just like that star."