it was up to god to judge whether or not they were sinning by taking those pills ( and not to that baldheaded old fart in rome - mother abagail had been a methodist all her life , and she was damned proud of not having any truck with those mackerel-snapping catholics ) , but abagail knew what they were missing : the ecstasy which comes when you stand on the lip of the valley of the shadow , the ecstasy that comes when you gave yourself up to your man and your god , when you say thy will be done and thy will be done ; the final ecstasy of sex in the sight of the lord , when a man and a woman relive the old sin of adam and eve , only now washed and sanctified in the blood of the lamb .