But they could not receive His heavenly laws or bide His presence. Thus the holy man was forced again to veil the past in mystery, and in the beginning of his history assign to man an earthly origin. Man, moulded from the earth as a brick! Woman, manufactured from a rib! Thus, parents still would fain conceal from budding manhood the mysteries of procreation, or the sources of life's everflowing river, by relating some childish tale of new-born life, engendered in the hollow trunk of some old tree, or springing with spontaneous growth like mushrooms from out the heaps of rubbish. O man! when wilt thou cease to be a child in knowledge?"--Parley P. Pratt's "Key to the Science of Theology" chap. VI. _3. "Be Fruitful":_ It has already been shown (Lesson II) that the purpose of God in the earth-life of man was to bring to him an increase of joy, by enlargement of capacity to enjoy, by adding upon him new powers of self expression; by adding an earth-body to a heavenly-born spirit; "for man is spirit:" but "spirit" in order to receive "a fulness of joy" must be inseparably connected with element (Doc. & Cov. Sec. xciii. 32-35, also note 2 Lesson II); hence the earth-life of Intelligences; hence the advent of Adam and his wife Eve upon our earth; hence the commandment "Be Fruitful;" hence the importance of man obtaining his body (Lesson II note 2); hence the resurrection from the dead, which brings to pass the eternal union of spirit and body (element), to be sanctified as a "soul;" for "the spirit and the body is the soul [the whole] of man." (Doc. & Cov. Sec. xxxviii:15). These principles enlarge the view of the importance of the earth-life of man, and give the idea of sanctity to the commandment, "Be Fruitful." Undoubtedly the most important thing in life is life itself, since there flows from life all other things,--experiences, joys, sorrows, sympathies, achievements, righteousness, honor, power--it is the root, the base of all. To protect and preserve life, whence spring all things else, God has issued his decree, "Thou shalt not kill"--the Everlasting's cannon, fixed alike against self-slaughter and the killing of others; and on the crime of murder is placed the heaviest of all penalties--"whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed;" (Gen. ix; 6); "No murderer hath eternal abiding in him" (I John iii; 15.)