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Chosen no: R-5790 a,   from: 1915 Year.

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Prof. Frederick Palmer, A.B., D.D., Harvard Divinity Faculty, in his book entitled "The Winning of Immortality" says: "I have endeavored to sketch the growth of the doctrine of a future life from its appearance in Hebrew history through the line of Christian development to the present time. In doing this we come upon the fact that the belief which was counted orthodox in the first Christian centuries was different in one notable respect from that generally counted orthodox today. For while we regard it proper and Christian to hold that immortality is necessarily inherent in humanity, this was then regarded as improper and unchristian, the only true Christian view being that immortality was a victorious prize to be won through fellowship with Christ.

"I cannot but think that their orthodoxy was wiser than ours. For I am sure that one great deterrent to believing in a future life is, with many persons, the dread thought of the vast multitudes, the majority of mankind, according to some theologies, who, it is asserted, are condemned to conscious existence in wretchedness and torture forever. Such must be the result if perpetual existence is a necessity inherent in humanity. But if it is contingent; if the soul is not necessarily immortal, but may become so; if the failure to attain immortality proceeds along ordinary non-arbitrary lines, and reaches a result which we see here imaged in the gradual elimination of decadent life, then the processes of the next world are redeemed from horror and made intelligible, almost verifiable.

"Immortality as a necessity seems to me to have little to say for itself. As a goal to be attained, it is the prize of the High Calling of God in Christ Jesus."

W.T. R-5790 a – 1915 r.