This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1864 Excerpt: ...was the reward of obedience to God's laws, and temporal miseries were the penalties for disobedience. This period corresponded with that of schooltraining in childhood, before our duties resulting from the risks of the spiritual world are made practical in efforts to save others. Thus the Jewish dispensation is called "a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ." But," when the fullness of time had come," in preparing mankind for another advance, Jesus Christ came and " brought life and immortality to light." Then, for the first time in this world, the true Church was instructed in its highest mission as the co-laborer with God to save our race from the dangers of the future life; and these so dreadful, that every earthly plan and hope, in comparison, are to be of no account. This enlarged plane of duty was not revealed to those who were training men in the preparatory stages. They walked by faith in some future Messiah, whose aim and mission they dimly foresaw. It was this to which Christ referred when he said, " I call you not servants, for a servant knoweth not what his Lord doeth, but I have called you friends." This is to say, now my Church are to understand the great end for which they are to labor--the great-principle fo govern all individuals, all nations, and all worlds--the great law of sacrifice, demanding that each shall make the best good of the whole, and, in reference to the eternal state, the first concern, and be ready to suffer even to the death to save, as far as possible, the whole family of God. The Lord of Glory came to teach this great law, not only by word, but by his blessed example, while he endured poverty, shame, sorrow, and death to save the whole world from the awful dangers of the life to come...

Reprint of the original, first published in 1875.

This book has been likened to a sermon trying to roust men out of apathy.