Page:The Last Judgement and Second Coming of the Lord Illustrated.djvu/128

 view than this, it seems to us, can be consistent with the Divine character; and, therefore, man's fear of an event which is the natural conseqnence of his existence in this world, must be a feeling entirely opposed to the Divine intention. Men have declined from that primeval character in which the purposes of Providence, above adverted to, were thoroughly understood. If men loved God more truly, they would know the beautiful laws of His providence with more certainty; and, in that case, death would not be feared as an evil, but be regarded as the orderly means for transferring the "living soul" from the material body to the spiritual world. "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear; because fear hath torment." Fear is a feeling which has fixed itself upon men, in consequence of transgression and the evil into which they are now born: it is the partner of conscious guilt: the innocent do not feel it: it does not haunt the infant, or the wise and good: true religion, with its light and life, removes this "torment" from the mind, and gives an antepast of those spiritual things which it has been revealed to teach.

The Lord has most encouragingly said, "If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death;" and again, "Whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die." Those who thus obey, who live and believe, know and feel the fact of their immortality so well that the fear of death is with them an impossibility. Their bodies may suffer disease; they will surely experience separation from their "earthly house," but they "never die;" and therefore they never see death; they are never distressed by the idea that the event so called will be an extinction of their life; they will regard it only as that necessary occurrence by which