ain and Seth the sons of Adam married
their sisters. But in the law of the Pentateuch revealed by Moses these
marriages were forbidden and their custom and sanction abrogated. Other
laws formerly valid were annulled during the time of Moses. For example,
it was lawful in Abraham's cycle to eat the flesh of the camel, but during
the time of Jacob this was prohibited. Such changes and transformations in
the teaching of religion are applicable to the ordinary conditions of life
but they are not important or essential. His Holiness Moses lived in the
wilderness of Sinai where crime necessitated direct punishment. There were
no penitentiaries or penalties of imprisonment. Therefore according to the
exigency of the time and place it was a law of God that an eye should be
given for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. It would not be practicable to
enforce this law at the present time; for instance to blind a man who
accidentally blinded you. In the Torah there are many commands concerning
the punishment of a murderer. It would not be allowable or possible to
carry out these ordinances today. Human conditions and exigencies are such
that even the question of capital punishment,--the one penalty which most
nations have continued to enforce for murder,--is now under discussion by
wise men who are debating its advisability. In fact, laws for the ordinary
conditions of life are only valid temporarily. The exigencies of the time
of Moses justified cutting off a man's hand for theft but such a penalty
is not allowable now. Time changes conditions, and laws change to suit
conditions. We must remember that these changing laws are not the
essentials; they are the accidentals of religion. The essential ordinances
established by a Manifestation of God are spiritual; they concern
moralities, the ethical development of man and faith in God. They are
ideal and necessarily permanent; expressions of the one foundation and not
amenable to change or transformation. Therefore the fundamental basis of
the revealed religion of God is immutable, unchanging throughout the
centuries, not subject to the varying conditions of the human world.

Christ ratified and proclaimed the foundation of the law of Moses.
Muhammad and all the prophets have revoiced that same foundation of
reality. Therefore the purposes and accomplishments of the divine
messengers have been one and the same. They were the source of advancement
to the body-politic and the cause of the hono