narrative of events which really happened in the infancy of the world. If the trees of life, and of the knowledge of good and evil, were designed to convey a mystical and spiritual meaning, it would be no argument against their actual existence. They would still be real trees, though with a symbolical signification, just as the emblems of our Lord’s body and blood in the holy sacrament are real bread and wine, though they are made the visible means of an inward and spiritual grace. If the serpent