Death was symbolized in the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil--in the day thou eatest of it, thou shalt surely die--hence the Tree of Death. Death we learn from other scriptures than Genesis, is both temporal and spiritual. What is here called temporal death is physical death, separation of spirit and body, the dust returning to the earth whence it came; but the spirit, being as we have seen a thing immortal, survives in conscious life and goes to the world of spirits. "Dust thou art, and to dust thou shalt return," was not written of the spirit of man. The spiritual death is the breaking of the union of the soul with God, separation, alienation from God. (See Alma, chapters 12, 13, 42.) Man's disobedience to God would break this union of the soul with God, and hence spiritual death. But while partaking of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge would bring death, both spiritual and temporal, yet it would bring also the knowledge that would make men as Gods, to know good and evil; and to this end, doubtless, was planned the whole scheme of man's earth-life. This to be developed in lessons that follow. LESSON VIII. (Scripture Reading Exercise.) THE ADAMIC DISPENSATION--II. ANALYSIS. I. The Fall-- 1. The Temptation and Fall of Adam. II. Sectarian View of the Fall of Adam. III. Book of Mormon View of the Fall. REFERENCES. Genesis ch. iii. Book of Moses (P. G. P.) ch. iv. II Nephi ii:14-20. Alma xii:22-27. Also Alma xlii:1-11. II Nephi; ii Alma xiii and xlii; and the treaties which takes the place of notes. NOTES.[A] The Fall of Adam--The Purpose of Man's Earth-Life. [Footnote A: In Lessons VIII and IX, in place of detached notes a brief treatise is given upon The Fall of Adam; and the Purpose of Man's Creation; recounting the various views entertained upon that subject by the great divisions of Christendom, as also the views set forth in the revelations of God. This treatment is rendered necessary by the nature of the subject.] In the second book of Nephi occurs the following direct, explicit statement: "Adam fell that man might be, and men are that they might have joy." This assertion concerns two of the mightiest problems of theology: 1st, The reason for Adam's fall; 2nd, The purpose of man's earth-existence. _Silence of the Creeds._ No where in the creeds of men--the creeds of men! those great crystallizations of Christian truths as men have conceived those truths to he; those embodied deductions of the teachings of Holy Scripture--no where in them, I repeat, are these two great theological questions disposed of on scriptural authority. _Presbyterian View._