D. Mortimore

“ Therefore, behold, the time cometh when "all that are in their graves, shall hear His voice"—even the voice of God—and the angel shall sound the trumpet, and its tones of melody and the voice of love will move earth and seas, from centre to circumference, and awake into immortal life the decayed bodies and mouldering dust of His sleeping children. "For the dead in Christ shall rise first," and "blessed are they who have part in the first resurrection, for on such the second death hath no power." "They shall have a right to the tree of life." ”

“ We believe it one of God's eternal lamps, placed by His own Omnipotent power to light up the sphere which He has appointed unto it, and to give its warmth and animation to this, and all other worlds belonging to its domain. Cast your eye upward at noon-day, when no clouds intervene, and behold that brilliant orb, whose light pales that of all else, and seems to make all dark in illimitable space beyond its own empire. Look at it but for one second of time only, for a steady gaze at that bright flame for one minute alone, is fatal to the sight of the eyes. ”

“ When death shall come and claim you for its victim, with the cessation of mortal life, there is cessation of all the sensations and faculties of your human nature. You will not be moved upon to the enjoyment of pleasure by human passions or desires. These, as realized here, will forever cease, and the spirit can no more be controlled by flesh and blood, nor by human desires. Yet that immortal principle—the soul—will be susceptible of ineffable happiness, or of intense misery. Will it be any comfort or pleasure to you to know that others are, like yourself, doomed to suffer eternal torments? ”

“ With what just propriety of thought has light been called the 'voice' of the stars. * * * In the 'speechless' voice of light the stars proclaim to us from the depths of space, the existence of innumerable other worlds which, like our own, share the Creator's care. * * * With mute argument stars prove to us that, in those far-off regions, gravitation—the power that brings the apple to the ground—still reigns supreme, and with suggestive whispers of probability, they persuade us that, like our own Sun, they bathe attendant worlds in floods of light ”

“ God's own revelations, the lights afforded through the sciences, Nature around us, true philosophy and reason, all confirm our hypothesis. Cut loose now from this, and we can anchor nowhere, save in a blind incomprehensible faith, ever floating and drifting as in a sea of ether, and surrounded by impenetrable mystery and gloom.
All hold and teach that the spirit, when it leaves the body, flies away from mortality and Earth, and goes to the place prepared for it by its Creator. ”

“ We implore you, quench not that spirit-fire of love, or it will change to a consuming SPIRIT-FIRE OF WRATH, and when your soul is released from the body, that spirit-fire will become an intense burning flame, and will be your torment forever and ever.
The very thought of enduring forever—after this short life has past—should startle the mind of every intelligent being, and cause the most serious reflections. None can save but God, and this salvation is through His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. ”

“ We have presented to your mind—as far as we are able to comprehend—the Infinity of God's wisdom and power, as manifested in his wonderful Creations; not only in creating this Earth on which we live, and all pertaining thereunto, but of Heavens, Suns, Planets and Worlds, whose numbers are millions, as they are seen standing out and peopling the realms of boundless space, and yet we know that so vast is the infinity of His wonderful creations, that we have given to the mind only a bird's-eye view within the borders of His boundless Empire. ”

“ There, perhaps, is the place wherein your young and beautiful daughter will be immured to spend a weary life in crucifying herself, and doing penance daily for imaginary sins she has never committed. Thus, shutting herself up within that living [67] tomb from all the outside world, and the happiness to be enjoyed in social life; she is as dead to you, and to the world, as though in her coffin, and in her grave; while the mind is as obscured as to the true lights and freedom of eternal truth and salvation, as though reason were dethroned, and she a maniac. ”

“ Now fix your mind's eye upon that brilliant orb of—seeming—eternal day; that Sun which is ever shining, ah! whose light never pales, nor fails its vast empire. No storm-clouds obscure its brightness in the higher realm, neither is there waning of light, nor a wasting of its substance. Possibly, from all eternity of the past it has been, and through eternity to come it will remain the same. We, on this Earth, have our days and nights, our sun-shine and shadows, tempests [90] and storms. ”

“ And yet we see that the element itself is ethereal; it will consume by combustion, yet its heat and flame always tends upward, and disappears in its own ethereal element, and we can recognize no solid substance in it. We can feel and realize its warmth and vivifying influence; we enjoy the light, as one of its productions, yet all are ethereal, and we cannot grasp, mould, or retain it. We know that the Sun—that volume of heat—is the active source and agency of life and animation, and it imparts its blessings to us in a thousand ways ”

“ There the crystal fountains play their sparkling waters in the light of eternal day, and the "river of life" flows "from beneath the throne of God," onward and onward, meandering through, and encircling the vast realm of that heavenly empire. There perennial spring, and never-fading flowers. There old age and decrepitude are never known, but all clothed upon with "garments of righteousness," will live and dwell in perpetual immortal youth, through the ever-recurring cycles of endless eternity. Angels of God are there. The Prophets, Apostles, and Martyrs are there; ministers of God are there ”

“ Thus, we see that the Sun is the active agency for the dispensing of His blessings to man and all animation on this Earth. Its rays of light and heat penetrate the bosoms of oceans and seas, and draw up from "the fountains of the deep" the "liquid element" in ascending vapor, and condensing it into clouds, scatter and return it in rains, and gentle showers, to water and replenish the Earth and make it bring forth for sustenance of man and beast, and renew the verdure of nature. ”

“ How startling the fact of these plain revelations! God is now made manifest to our daily and hourly comprehension. How dare we trifle with Him, and our own soul's immortal interest? We are daily and hourly rushing on to our own eternal destiny. Ere another year, a month, a week or day is past, we may realize that "it is not all of life to live, nor yet of death to die." No one can escape the eternal fiat of Jehovah, "dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return." ”

“ We now stand on the frontier of the Sun's domain, and are, in imagination, looking across one of those broad gulfs which, like impassable ramparts fence off the different systems of the universe from each other. It seemed needful that the great Architect should interpose some such barrier between the contending attractions of the giant masses of matter scattered through space; that there should be a sea of limitation in which forces, whose action might disturb each other, should die out and be extinguished. ”

“ In gazing at our fellow-planets on a clear night, as we see them stand out with pre-eminent brightness among the twinkling stars, who has not longed to penetrate the mystery of their being, and to know whether they, like our own Earth, are worlds full of life and movement? The vast distance that intervenes between us forbids us to expect a direct solution of the question, for no instrument yet made, or that we can hope to make, will bring their possible inhabitants within the range of our vision. ”

“ But, far distant, yonder, we behold the beauteous Capella, in all its splendor and glory, throwing its effulgent rays across the wide expanse of universe, and yet these rays of light, travelling at the same mentioned rate—192,000 miles each passing second of time—require about seventy years in transit, before the inhabitants of [80] our Earth catch a glimpse of their brilliancy and beauty. And yet now the mind has only entered the borders of 'the starry regions'—far beyond, in illimitable space, lie the 'Hosts of the Stars;' their vast distances cannot be computed even by light itself. ”

“ No old age or decrepitude; no gray hairs to distinguish ages. The old seers and prophets; neither are Adam nor Methuselah, who dwelt on the earth nearly a thousand years, known here by age; neither do our own aged fathers and mothers show here any signs of decrepitude or advanced years, but, even as their own children—our brothers, our sisters, our husbands, our wives, and our own children, who have found an inheritance here—all are as in the bloom of youth and maturity, and will thus remain forever through succeeding cycles of eternity. ”

“ Plato, Socrates, and Demosthenes held the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, and of a future state of existence; while such belief almost universally prevails in every land and clime where civilization and Christianity are known. Thus we see it an inherent law of human nature, and, in the minds of all, there is "a longing after immortality."
May we not ask, from whence comes this intuition, that all feel that death to the body is not the end of existence? Is it not that immortal spirit-life which God breathed into our first parents? that spirit-fire which is eternal in its nature? ”

“ Our pilgrimage on earth is one of unrest, is one of toil, sorrow, and affliction. Here we have no abiding place, "no continuing city." Our "days on earth are few, and are full of trouble." There is no permanency here. From the time of the first infant breath and short unconscious slumber on a mother's bosom to the latest hour and moment of life, we are ever restless and moving onward, and endure all the disquietude and sufferings of mind and body incident to our mortal existence. The original sin of our first parents, blighted all hope of permanence or enduring happiness on this earth. ”

“ John, the revelator, when, catching but a glimpse of the Son of man in the midst of the golden candlesticks, he "fell at his feet as dead." Ah, it is possible that all seeming natural light to us, while in mortality, may become as darkness to our spirit vision; and we are assured by the word of God, that none shall see the light of His glory save those who seek regeneration through LOVE and FAITH, for the wicked shall go into outer darkness, and dwell forever in death, while the righteous shall enter into and enjoy eternal life. ”

“ It is all gain and no loss. May you all yield to the gentle drawings of the spirit, which now whispers to your heart in loving tones with accents of mercy, and your spirits finally be gathered in the fold of angels' wings, and by them borne to the Paradise of God, where His glory is the light of eternal day. ”

“ And immediately I was in the spirit, and, behold a throne was set in heaven, and one sat on the throne, who, to look upon was like jasper, and there was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald, and around the throne sat four and twenty elders in raiment of white, and out of the throne proceeded lightnings, and thunderings, and voices, and there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven spirits of God. ”

“ We have told you that we could comprehend that it was an agency pervading and controlling all things. But you have doubtless noticed the fact that as we have followed up and grasped the revelations made by Philosophers and Astronomers, that the ablest of them have failed to comprehend the nature of the eternal source of fire. All agree in the one fact, however, that it is derived from the Sun. No finite mind ever has comprehended, nor, it may be, ever will be able to fully comprehend it. We know that it exists. We apply to it properties and principles, or components which form the element. ”