This Life | AdventAI

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Jul 25, 1878

This Life.

If this life were all, if we could look to no blissful hereafter, then indeed might we droop in despair. The lot of all here is mixed with suffering and sorrow. There is no brow that does not wear its crown of thorns. Sickness and death will take up their abode in the fairest homes, and the cold clods of the valley ofttimes hide from us our dearest treasures. What consolation is there for the stricken mourner if no ray of hope pierces the darkness of the tomb? if he has no faith in Him who has said, "I am the resurrection and the life"?

There is nothing in all the wide world on which the tempest tossed soul can rest but the religion of Jesus. Ask the man whose locks are white with age, who has toiled all his life long for gold, if his riches yield him satisfaction, and he will tell you, No.

And yet though religion is all that can really benefit any, how lightly is it esteemed. The world! the world! is the cry of nearly all. Give me this first, and perhaps afterwards I will attend to eternal things. Oh, fatal mistake! How many will rush on in striving to gratify pride and ambition until it is too late to be saved.