Page:The Last Judgement and Second Coming of the Lord Illustrated.djvu/142

 sumed. He also tells us that he saw "the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held:" and doubtless they presented all the appearances of living men, although they had not resumed their material covering. Indeed he declares that he saw in the spiritual world "a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and peoples, and tongues, standing before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms im their hands." These, it is said, had come out of great tribulation; they had passed, by death, from the earth into the spiritual world, without resuming their natural bodies, and yet they were living people, with all the forms, faculties, and powers which are necessary to praise God for the salvation they had experienced. The book of Revelation is abundant in narratives which show that men continue to live as men, independently of the "earthly tabernacle" which has died and passed into all the elements of nature. We, who yet remain on this side of the eternal world, as it has been said, call the separation of man from his natural body, death; but, by this separation, the man is liberated from the trammels of mortality; and may not the angels who dwell upon the other side, see that it is the promised resurrection? Surely every one, as he becomes the subject of it will feel that it is so: he will experience that it is a transference of all that is proper to his living humanity, from the natural to the spiritual world. To us it is amazing that any other view should have obtained currency among mankind, when the Scriptures are so explicit in their statements on the subject, and so replete with examples to confirm it. Still such other view prevails. It is said that justice requires the body to be raised, that it may share the consequences of the deeds in which it has par-