THE Scriptures inform us that, prior to his transgression in Eden, Adam held direct and personal communion with God; and that one of the immediate consequences of his fall, which was brought about through disobedience, was his forfeiture of that exalted association. He was shut out from the presence of God, and though he heard the Divine Voice he no longer was permitted to behold the Presence of the Lord. This banishment was to the man spiritual death; and its infliction brought into effect the predicted penalty, that in the day of his sin he would surely die. See Gen. 2:17; Pearl of Great Price, p. 14. Through partaking of food unsuited to their condition and against which they had been specifically forewarned, the man and his wife became subject to physical degeneracy; and, eventually, as Satan the arch-tempter had foreseen, both the man and the woman had to suffer bodily death. Their offspring were directly affected by the hereditary enthralment, to which Abel fell a victim even during the life-time of his parents. Death came into the world through sin; the imperfections and frailties incident to the mortal state are conducive to sin; and man is prone in an inexcusable degree to readily yield thereto. So general is sin operative in the world that the wise comment of the ancient preacher stands unchallenged: "There is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good and sinneth not." (Eccles. 7:20). And the admonitory precept given by John the Apostle has lost none of its inspired forcefulness with time: "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." (1 John 1:8). This sinful and fallen condition of mankind and the universal infliction of death are dominant elements of Satan's diabolical scheme to subdue the embodied spirits, whom he, as the rebellious son of the morning, had failed to draw to his standard in the conflict of primeval hosts. See Rev. 12:7-9; Isa. 14:12; also D&C 29:36-38 and 76:25-27. God provided a way by which His spirit-children would become embodied as a means of advancement; Satan introduced degeneracy and death in an attempt to thwart the Divine purpose. Death may claim its victim in infancy or youth, in the period of life's prime or when the snows of age have settled heavily upon the venerable head; it may come through disease or accident, by violence, or as what we call the result of natural causes; but come it must, as Satan well knows; and in that knowledge lies his present though but temporary triumph. But the ways of God, as they ever have been and ever shall be, are infinitely more potent than the deepest designs of men or devils; and the Satanic machinations to make death perpetual and supreme were foreseen and provided against even before the first man had been clothed in flesh. The Atonement wrought by Jesus Christ was ordained to overcome death, and to provide a means of ransom from sin and consequent deliverance from the dominion of Satan.