110
The Retirement Years
My brother, one night I seemed to be leaning over you, and saying:
“Only a little longer, only a few more pangs of pain, a few more
suffering hours, and then rest, blessed rest. In a special manner you
will find peace. All humanity must be tested and tried. All of us must
[152]
drink the cup and be baptized with affliction. But Christ has tasted
death for every man in its bitterest form. He knows how to pity, how to
sympathize. Only rest in His arms; He loves you, and He has redeemed
you with His everlasting love. Be thou faithful unto death, and thou
shalt receive a crown of life.
“All who live in our world from henceforth will know the meaning
of trials. I know that God will give you grace, that He will not forsake
you. Call to mind the promise of God: ‘Write, Blessed are the dead
which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that
they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them’
(
Revelation 14:13
). Be of good courage. I would be with you now if I
could, but we shall meet in the morning of the resurrection.”...
I was also speaking words of comfort to Sister C. I was encour-
aging her, and the room seemed to be filled with angels of God. Let
both of you be of good courage. The Lord will not leave nor forsake
you.—
Selected Messages 2:256
.
Deeds Preserved Through Eternal Ages
God’s messengers are to hold aloft the standard of truth until the
hand is palsied in death. When they sleep in death, the places that once
knew them know them no more. The churches in which they preached,
the places they visited to hold forth the word of life, still remain. The
mountains, the hills, the things seen by mortal vision, are still there.
All these things must at last pass away. The time is coming when the
earth shall reel to and fro and shall be removed like a cottage. But
[153]
the thoughts, the purposes, the acts of God’s workers, although now
unseen, will appear at the great day of final retribution and reward.
Things now forgotten will then appear as witnesses, either to approve
or to condemn.
Love, courtesy, self-sacrifice—these are never lost. When God’s
chosen ones are changed from mortality to immortality, their words
and deeds of goodness will be made manifest, and will be preserved
through the eternal ages. No act of unselfish service, however small or