2. The introduction and earliest promulgation of the Gospel, for which the Law of Sacrifice had prepared the way. 3. The initial exercise of the Patriarchal Power, in behalf of the whole human race. The Law of Sacrifice.--The Law of Sacrifice was revealed from Heaven soon after our First Parents were banished from Eden. God, from whose presence they were shut out, spoke "from the way toward the Garden," commanding them to "offer the firstlings of their flocks for an offering unto the Lord." Adam obeyed, and after many days an Angel appeared to him, saying: "Why dost thou offer sacrifices unto the Lord?" Adam replied: "I know not, save the Lord commanded me." The Angel then said: "This thing is a similitude of the sacrifice of the Only Begotten of the Father. Wherefore thou shalt do all that thou doest in the name of the Son, and thou shalt repent and call upon God in the name of the Son forevermore." So runs the sacred story, as rendered by Joseph the Seer. [2] The Past Obscured.--It is not to be supposed, however, that this was Adam's first knowledge of the sacrificial statute, concerning which he must have known before it was revealed to him in mortal life. Adam was no ordinary man. He was a great and wonderful character, and the world has not seen the last of him. Undoubtedly he was among those who sat in the eternal councils when the Gospel plan was instituted and its mighty Executor chosen. Surely he knew about the Lamb of God, already slain in the spirit before the creation of the world, and, in Adam's time, yet to be slain literally in the world--an event symbolized by the very sacrifice that the first man was offering when the Lord's messenger appeared to him. But Adam had lost the knowledge of his spirit past. It had been temporarily taken from him in order that his agency might be free and untrammeled, his conduct uninfluenced by any recollection of a former experience. Hence the need of the Angel's coming to enlighten him, and the further need of revelation by the Holy Spirit, bringing things past to remembrance and showing things to come. Acceptable and Unacceptable Offerings.--Adam's worship was acceptable to God, for he was in every way obedient to the divine instruction; his offering truly symbolizing the heavenly Lamb, subsequently foretokened in the Feast of the Passover. Abel made a similar offering--of the firstlings of his flock; "and the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering." [3] But Abel's elder brother, Cain, who also had been taught the Law of Sacrifice, took it upon himself to deviate from the course marked out. Instead of a lamb, he "brought of the fruit of the ground"--an offering in no way symbolical of the Savior. His offering was rejected; [4] for "the ordinances must be kept in the very way God has appointed." [5]