Many of us are familiar with the colloquialism, "He sold me a bill of goods," or, "I sold him a bill of goods." Once these expressions had to do with legitimate business transactions, but now in many cases they imply that one has put over or sold something with shrewd manipulation or with split-hair legitimacy. Today, by mesmerizing mankind into accepting evil as real, error would sell the world a bill of goods—a bundle of international discord and atomic disaster. What are we doing about it? Are we persistently rejecting its sales talk for materiality with inspired declarations of the truth, the truth of the ever-presence of Spirit and God's spiritual, perfect creation, wherein "order is Heav'n's first law"? In other words, are we ever constantly alert to the allness of God and the nothingness of the claims of evil, or are we being taken in by error's sales talk, as were Adam and Eve, who were sold the first deceptive product of material-mindedness because they did not heed the voice of Truth?
The mythical serpent, as recorded in the Scriptural allegory in the third chapter of Genesis, began its cunning but fallacious sales talk thus: "Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?" Was not this a test question, feeling out sales resistance by inviting discussion with the nothingness named evil?
Eve, all unsuspectingly, said, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die."
