Testimonies for the Church Volume 1 - A New You Ministry

to repentance. Besides, it does not seem a proper way to win souls to Jesus, byappealing to one of the lowest attributes of the mind, abject fear. The love of Jesusattracts; it will subdue the hardest heart.”It was some months after this conversation before I heard anything furtherconcerning this doctrine; but during this time my mind had been much exercised uponthe subject. When I heard it preached, I believed it to be the truth. From the timethat light in regard to the sleep of the dead dawned upon my mind, the mystery thathad enshrouded the resurrection vanished, and the great event itself assumed a newand sublime importance. My mind had often been disturbed by its efforts to reconcilethe immediate reward or punishment of the dead with the undoubted fact of a futureresurrection and judgment. If at death the soul entered upon eternal happiness ormisery, where was the need of a resurrection of the poor moldering body?But this new and beautiful faith taught me the reason why inspired writers haddwelt so much upon the resurrection of the body; it was because the entire being wasslumbering in the grave. I could now clearly perceive the fallacy of our former positionon this question. The confusion and uselessness of a final judgment, after the souls ofthe departed had already been judged once and appointed to their lot, was very plain tome now. I saw that the hope of the bereaved is in looking forward to the glorious daywhen the Life-giver shall break the fetters of the tomb, and the righteous dead shallarise and leave their prison house to be clothed with glorious immortal life.Our family were all interested in the doctrine of the Lord’s soon coming. My fatherhad long been considered one of the pillars of the Methodist church where he lived, andthe whole family had been active members; but we made no secret of our new belief,although we did not urge it upon others on inappropriate occasions, or manifest anyunfriendliness40