out
of eating that we can; and, therefore, we should avoid gluttony, and we
should avoid extremes in all our habits of eating; and as was told unto
Adam, so is it told unto us: Touch not these things; for in the day that
thou doest it thy life shall be shortened and thou shalt die.

"Here let me say that therein consisted the fall--the eating of things
unfit, the taking into the body of the things that made of that body a
thing of earth: and I take this occasion to raise my voice against the
false interpretation of scripture, which has been adopted by certain
people, and is current in their minds, and is referred to in a hushed
and half-secret way, that the fall of man consisted in some offense
against the laws of chastity and of virtue. Such a doctrine is an
abomination. What right have we to turn the scriptures from their proper
sense and meaning? What right have we to declare that God meant not what
He said? The fall was a natural process, resulting through the
incorporation into the bodies of our first parents of the things that
came from food unfit, through the violation of the command of God
regarding what they should eat. Don't go around whispering that the fall
consisted in the mother of the race losing her chastity and her virtue.
It is not true; the human race is not born of fornication. These bodies
that are given unto us are given in the way that God has provided. Let
it not be said that the patriarch of the race, who stood with the gods
before he came here upon the earth, and his equally royal consort, were
guilty of any such foul offense. The adoption of that belief has led
many to excuse departures from the path of chastity and the path of
virtue, by saying that it is the sin of the race, that it is as old as
Adam. It was not introduced by Adam. It was not committed by Eve. It was
the introduction of the devil and came in order that he might sow the
seeds of early death in the bodies of men and women, that the race
should degenerate as it has degenerated whenever the laws of virtue and
of chastity have been transgressed.

"Our first parents were pure and noble, and when we pass behind the veil
we shall perhaps learn something of their high estate, more than we know
now. But be it known that they were pure; they were noble. It is true
that they disobeyed the law of God, in eating things they were told not
to eat; but who amongst you can rise up and condemn?"--From an address
by the author at the Eighty-fo