should be necessary for us to achieve an intimate knowledge of matter, and why Jesus should die to permit the current of eternal life to flow freely between the earthly body and the eternal spirit, are not fully known. Through Adam man was brought on earth, subject to death; through Jesus, the Christ, he was lifted out of death to continue an eternal life in association with the earth-acquired body.

**Man's Part in the Great Plan.** In this great gathering in the heavens many questions arose. By Adam man was to come on earth; by Jesus he was to be resurrected. In both of these great acts, man had no part, beyond permitting himself to be acted upon. In the plan, what was to be man's part?

Lucifer, a great leader in the Council, proposed that, since others were acting for man in bringing him on and taking him away from the earth, it was not necessary for man, during his earth-career, to exercise his own will. Lucifer proposed that, in spite of himself, his will, his desires and his individuality, man should be placed on earth, and be taken from it, and without effort, be filled with a knowledge of earth conditions. All men should be forced into salvation. Jesus Christ, who became the Savior of men, objected to this change in God's plan, as it interfered with the essential right of intelligent beings to act for themselves. Jesus insisted that, as without will there can be no growth, man, placed on earth through the agency of Adam and resurrected and brought into a full life through the agency of Jesus, should retain, during his earth-career, his full free agency. Though he might walk an forgetfulness of the past, and have no visions of the future, he would yet be allowed a free and untrammeled agency as he walked in the clearness of the earth's day. While upon earth he might learn much or little, might accept a law or reject it, just as he had been, privileged to do in all the days that had gone before.

These two views regarding man's part in the plan led, we are told, to a great difference of opinion among the spirits. Naturally, the first proposition appealed to many, for it is the easy way of obtaining victory, if victory it may be called. The other way seems always somewhat hard and bitter, though in the end the joy obtained surpasses that attained without effort. Lucifer, who led the fight for the first method, could not agree to the original plan which was finally accepted; and so, in that great, dim day, many of the spirits followed Lucifer, and have not yet entered upon their earth-careers, but are independently and in opposition to God's will, following paths that are not leading them onward. The majority accepted God's law, as championed by the Son, though it is said that many weak and fearful spirits remained neutral, daring neither to accept nor to reject either proposition. The hosts who accepted the plan of God, girded themselves with the necessary strength to begin the pilgrimage, ending in an earthly death, but reaching, through the resurrection, into an eternal life of exceedingly great progress.

**Free Agency.** On the earth, as elsewhere, then, the free agency of man, as expressed in the individual will, is supreme. Though our environment is that of gross matter, and though we dwell in forgetfulness of the past, our free agency is as vigorous as ever. However, the free agency of man cannot transcend the plan which all of us of earth accepted, together, in the day of the Great Council. Man's will is always circumscribed by great laws that are self-existent or that are formulated or may be formulated for the benefit of the race. The many must devise laws whereby individual and community progress are simultaneous. It is the full right of the individual to exercise his will in any way that does not interfere with the laws made for the many; and, under proper conditions, the laws for the many are of equal value to the individual. Under the law we are free.