might be, and not only "be," but have that existence under conditions essential to progress. 2. _Book of Mormon Doctrine of the Atonement:_ The atonement, its effects and operation, is dealt with at length in II Nephi ii, and in Alma xli and xlii. According to the doctrine there set down the effect of Adam's transgression was to destroy the harmony of the world. Man as a consequence of his fall was banished from the presence of God, and made subject also to a temporal death--the separation of the spirit and body--which conditions would have remained eternally fixed, the nature of inexorable law--"called the justice of God"--admitting of nothing less. But this was justice untempered by mercy: "And thus we see that all mankind were fallen, and they were in the grasp of justice; yea, the justice of God, which consigned them forever to be cut off from his presence." But mercy must in some way be made to reach man, and that without destroying justice: "And now the plan of mercy could not be brought about, except an atonement should be made; therefore God himself atoneth for the sins of the world, to bring about the plan of mercy, to appease the demands of justice, that God might be a perfect, just God, and a merciful God also." (Alma xlii: 14.) The atonement brings to pass "the resurrection of the dead; and the resurrection of the dead bringeth back men into the presence of God." In other words, the atonement redeems men from the effects of Adam's moral transgression; and also brings the element of mercy into God's moral economy respecting man's earth-life. That is to say, the atonement frees man from the consequences of Adam's transgression; leaves him free to choose good or evil--both of which are in the world--as he shall elect; but he is responsible for the consequences of that individual choice, which is only another way of saying that man is responsible for his own sins. Still under the operation of Mercy, which has been brought into this world's moral economy through the atonement of Christ, man may obtain forgiveness of sin through repentance; for "mercy claimeth the penitent." "A law is given, and a punishment affixed," but "a repentance [is] granted; which repentance mercy claimeth; otherwise justice claimeth the creature, and executeth the law, and the law inflicteth the punishment." (Alma xlii: 23.) (Y. M. Manual, No. 9, chap, vii.)