Two New Tracts
Because Of A Rather Urgent Request For Tracts Immediately On The Subjects Of Mormonism And "Sabbath-Keeping" We Are Making A Slight Change In The Order Of Our "Tract-Of-The-Month" Series. Brother Robert H. West's Fine Study Of "Mormonism" Appears In This Issue; The Tract On "Sabbath-Keeping" By Brother Gordon Wilson Will Appear Next Month. After That We Resume Our Announced Series With A Tract By This Writer On The Subject, "The Church Versus The Churches". Many Congregations Are Now Subscribing To The "Tract-Of-The-Month" Series, And Uniformly Report Enthusiastic Reception Of The Tracts, And Contagious Interest On The Part Of The Members In Distributing Them.
"It Is Appointed...:'
"It is appointed unto men once to die, and after this cometh judgment." This solemn declaration of the Hebrew writer (9:27) is one which should ever be present in the planning and thinking of people of serious mind. Death is present with us every hour that we live. We cannot escape it; we cannot evade it; we cannot avoid it. All the skill of all the physicians of earth cannot long delay it.
Once again, death has been brought close to me personally. As I write these lines I have returned but a few hours ago from Cleburne, Texas, where we laid to rest on yesterday (April 10) the body of Dr. Lee Yater, the last of his generation. He was my mother's brother — the last of nine brothers and four sisters to cross over the great divide. He was a noble and great-hearted physician; strength of body and mind were matched by strength of character and spirit. But now his story is ended; the body shall return to the dust from whence it came, awaiting that final summons on the resurrection morn. And the spirit has returned to God who gave it.
Nearly ninety years of life were given to this man, far more than most of us can ever hope to attain. But the worth of a life is not measured by its length; rather it is determined by the use made of that time, whether little or much. For "time" does not exist for God. Yesterday, today, and tomorrow are one with him. And if that "yesterday" be stretched into infinite billions of years, and that "tomorrow" extend to an equal infinity, God is, has been, and always will be there.
Have you ever considered the alternatives to dying? Let your mind dwell on it for a time, seriously, honestly, and with all the imagination and perception of which you are capable. How horrible it would be to live forever upon this earth if you were the only one to have that gift? What a hideous thing to contemplate — year after miserable year you bury those you have learned to love. Friendship, companionship, all the hopes and dreams and lovely things of earth are brought to an end — by the death of those with whom you have shared them. No, I would never want immortality for myself alone. Let me share the fate of those I love, living or dying; let me be with them in the heavens above, or in the depths below. Let me walk the path my fathers before me have walked, and taste the same cup of death from which they drank. I would not have it otherwise. As they moved on and left this lovely earth for me and my generation, let me, in turn, make room for those who are to follow.
But how sweet the promise God has given concerning that life beyond the grave! It is far beyond any human capacity to understand, or ever to apprehend. So long as the sun is shining brightly in the heavens, this present world is all we can see, but when the sun sets, millions of other worlds leap into our view — worlds indescribably greater than ours. So may be the setting of the sun of our lives. Death is not an eternal farewell to all we have known and loved, but rather is the opening up of an infinitely greater and more wonderful world beyond the horizons. Quite conceivably, death may be the most glorious and ecstatic moment that humanity can ever experience!
What we have said, of course, is only for the Christian — that one who by reason of acceptance of God's terms of pardon has the right to hope for that better and brighter world. How trivial and insignificant are even the greatest things of this life in comparison with the infinite gift of a loving God!