estimate its relative value, and assign to it its proper rank. Thus the lamb and the dove element—the innocence of the soul—would be elevated; but the serpent element—the sensual nature—would be used as a servant and not as a master. So among the other beasts of the field, to give the serpent its name was to estimate sensuous things at their true value, to understand their office as being simply to enable man to perform his duties in this world, to permit them to testify concerning earth as a representative of heaven, and to use them as testimonies to the existence of the Lord, and to his nature, love and care. But that sensuous reasonings should close up the spiritual plane of the mind, cut off the power of spiritual thought, darken the pathway to immortality and heaven, or deny their Creator and Lord, such a thought could not be even entertained.
But when man began to incline to his selfhood, to desire to be guided more by himself and less by the Lord, then the power of the serpent began to assert itself. While men were conscious of the Lord as their guide, the serpent could have nothing to say on spiritual subjects. He went his way quietly on his destined earthly round of duty. True, after the inclination to the proprium, there was love, and innocence, and peace, still in a modified form, breathing through all the fields of Eden. But self-love or the proprium
