"Then shall ye return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not"[A]
[Footnote A: Mal. iii:13-18.]
All which tends to establish the thought that this world is the scene of struggle and trial for man, not the place of his full triumph and reward. "In this world your joy is not full [saith the Lord], but in me your joy is full. Therefore care not for the body, neither the life of the body; but care for the soul, and for the life of the soul; and seek the face of the Lord, always, that in patience ye may possess your souls, and ye shall have eternal life."[A]
[Footnote A: Doc. and Cov., Sec. ci:36-38.]
3. Amid Broken Harmonies: We may be helped somewhat in our present earth-view of things, by holding in consciousness the fact that we live at present in our world amid broken harmonies, under the effects of "the fall," for a wise purpose in God; in a sphere of trial and test; in a purposely arranged department of God's great university for the instruction of the spirits of men in certain all-important matters,[M] involving also our union with earth elements, leading to a fulness of joy, and without which union men cannot receive a fulness of joy.[B] Therefore we may say that in our earth-life things are not in a normal state; but in confusion; under stress of special trial and development that shall ultimate in higher and better things—in the golden age of the earth and of humanity, predicted by sages and poets—the millennium of the seers and prophets of God, and the apostles of the Christ—these all bid us hope for higher and better things than we have known on our present plane of existence—a world where we shall no longer see as through a glass darkly, "but face to face;" when we shall no longer know only in part, but know even as we are known; when that which is in part "shall be done away," and that "which is perfect is come."[C]
[Footnote M: "Religion accounts for the existence of evil as probationary, resistence to the evil being a training of humanity to good." (Goldwin Smith in "North American Review," October, 1907. In connection with this statement see Seventy's Year Book II, Lesson III; also Lesson VIII, IX, X, which deal with "The Fall," "The Purpose of Man's Earth Life," and the "Problem of Evil.")]
[Footnote B: Doc. and Cov., Sec. xciii:32-35.]
[Footnote C: I Cor. xiii.]
There remaineth then a rest for the people of God.[A] They may look for a city "which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God."[B] The vision of St. John, in which he saw descending out of heaven the New Jerusalem, is yet to be realized in fact. Also what he heard proclaimed by "a great voice"—
[Footnote A: Heb. iv:9.]