The Garden of Eden

THIS is the oldest story in the world. It began to be told when children began to ask questions; and that was very long ago. The children said, “Where did everything come from? Who made the hills and the sea? Who made the sun and the stars?” And their fathers and mothers answered as best they could.

In our time, after long study of the earth, there are wise men who know more about these things than anybody knew when the world was young. They ask the earth itself, and tell us what the earth says. But the oldest story is still the best, because it tells us that the world was made by God. And that is what we want to know.

In the beginning of all beginnings, so the story goes, the world was a wide sea without a shore. Up and down, and here and there, and all across, nothing could be seen but water. And it was all dark, like the ocean at night when there is no moon. And God said, “Let there be light!” And day appeared. And God made the sky; and under the sky, in the new light of day, in the midst of the vast waters, He made the land; and grass began to grow upon it, and then trees, with leaves and fruit.