Page:Science and Health.djvu/40

36 Life and Intelligence in matter, there will be great tribulation such as has not been since the beginning.

When pleasures of sense perish, they are taken away through anguish, even the amputation of right hands, and plucking out of right eyes. Man at ease in error, when stricken suddenly down by death, cannot understand Life. Mortal man knows nothing about Life that is learned by relinquishing pleasure and pain of sense; and how long the pangs necessary for error's amputation continue, depends on the tenacity of the belief of happiness in personal sense. When remembering God is our only Life, and contemplating our present adherence to the belief of Life in matter, we may well tremble for the days in which we shall say, “I have no pleasure in them.” The false views entertained of pardoned sin, or universal and immediate happiness in the midst of sin, or, that we are changed in a moment from sin to holiness, are grave mistakes. To suddenly drop our earthly character, and become partakers of eternal Life, without the pangs of a new birth, is morally impossible. We know, “all will be changed in the twinkling of an eye when the last trump shall sound,” but the last call of Wisdom is not the first call in the growth of Christian character; while man is selfish, unjust, hypocritical and sensual, to conclude the last call of Wisdom has been heard that awakens him to glorified being, is preposterous! Science forbids such feats of imagination, and looks us in the face with reason and revelation.

“As the tree falleth, so shall it lie;” as man goeth to sleep so shall he waken; when the belief of death closes our eyes on this phase of the dream of Life in