Religion: Mormons and the Mark of Cain

For the faithful male member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, few matters are as important as the Mormon priesthood. He enters its lower ranks, the deaconry, for example, at puberty. By the time he is a middle-aged adult, he may well be a high priest. Some 70% of practicing Mormon males advance all the way through the priesthood, hoping thus to assure themselves and their families of a place in the highest level of the afterlife, the celestial kingdom. But the priesthood, and with it the key to that kingdom,...