Do you forget that it is the spirit and not the body that is to live forever?
Do you forget that you brought nothing into this world with you and that you can take nothing earthly away?
How can you be so blind to these things?
How can you wrap yourselves up in careless ease and indifference about a future state when you know that it will be forever and forever—that this life is only a short probation for that, and here you must make those preparations that may decide the destiny of your souls for ages?
We do not hold to the doctrine that punishment is eternal—we know it is not. But there are punishments in a future state quite sufficiently severe to make you earnest to avoid them if you rightly understood these things.
What an awakening is yours when the portals of the grave are passed and you enter that unknown spirit world!
There you will find a purgatory indeed from which no priest or prayer can save you—a purgatory from which you might have escaped had you only known how to act on this earthly plane.
Had your spiritual teachers taught you to work instead of pray—to cultivate the higher nature within you, the God-principle implanted in every breast—had they taught you to control yourselves, to love and help your fellow (wo)man, irrespective of degree or station, rather seeking out the debased and vile as objects of your care, and doing to everyone as you would be done by—how different your awakening would be in your spirit home!
But the (wo)man who has done his work while on the earth, cultivating the interior principle, while not neglecting the body—who has fed his spirit with deeds of kindness and mercy, following in the footsteps and example of Jesus, self-denying, patient, charitable, and full of love for his fellow (wo)man, not merely relieving his bodily wants, but also nourishing his soul with heavenly manna—he will find when he enters on his new state of existence what a beautiful spirit body he has prepared for himself—what crowds are waiting to welcome him and to see him clothed in it! All the poor afflicted ones that he may have relieved or soothed on their dying beds will be there—all the bright spirits who have aided and strengthened him in his daily walk will be there—these and many others that he never knew, but who have watched his course approvingly will welcome and conduct him to the bright and glorious home—the mansion he has prepared for himself in the Heavens!
No priest, no prayer can save you from your own evil deeds—in your own hands is the remedy. Cultivate your higher nature. Elevate your soul—that portion of God's nature implanted in you, and do deeds worthy of them. Let truth and love reign in your heart and universal benevolence guide your actions to your fellow creatures. If such principles obtain—if this brotherhood of feeling and acting be established, your soul and spirit will grow together in beautiful proportions, and the change called death will be looked upon as merely an opening to a better life instead of being regarded as a thing of dread and horror.
—L. D. In Spirit
_Star-Forming+Pillar+of+Gas+and+Dust+NASA,+H.+Ford+(JHU),+G.+Illingworth+(UCSC+LO),+M.Clampin+(STScI),+G.+Hartig+(STScI),+the+ACS+Science+Team,+and+ESA.jpg)
