Article February 20, 1902 Issue

Presumption or Fact?

BY ISABEL TESTUT.

The Bible tells us that God made all that was made, and without Him was not anything made that was made. We have also Scriptural authority for believing that those who do the will of God never weary in well doing. "They shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint." Does it not seem strange, then, that our good Christian people, who go about visiting the sick and poor, preaching the Gospel, and living, to their sense of things, a pure and Christian life,—does it not seem strange that these people should weary in their well doing, that they should become tired as they grow older, and manifest that most deplorable condition—age and decay? Why do we not grow stronger and more beautiful each day? Is it presumption to believe that we should if we understood these passages of Scripture? If we believe the Scripture in this respect, and still do not bring out the conditions promised therein, does this not plainly point out to us that our understanding is deficient?

If we live to understand more of God each day, and God is Life eternal and man the image and likeness of his Maker, why do we live with the firm conviction that man shall live threescore years and ten,—growing more worn and weary with each year,—and then die? Some will say that man lives here on earth for seventy years or more and then goes to eternal life after death. But how can we believe this if we also believe that in Him "is no variableness, neither shadow of turning"? If God changeth not, how can His idea, man, live first in one state of existence, die, and change into an entirely different state? We are told that God finished His work. How then can we change if we are created in his likeness and His work is finished?

There is a common saying that we cannot depend on anything in this world but death and taxes. But when this man-made world of doubts and fears is changed to faith and understanding, we shall depend on nothing but Life—not death.

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