earth

EARTH LIFE with its joys and sorrows is a necessary part of our eternal existence. Its purposes are to prepare us to return to the presence of our Heavenly Father and to provide the way whereby we may receive a fulness of joy.

Even the Savior of the world, the Only Begotten Son of God, was obliged to come to earth and to take upon himself an earthly tabernacle. He experienced joy and sorrow, happiness and grief, lasting satisfaction and frequent disappointments. As Paul has written, "Though he were a Son yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered; and being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him." Hebrews 5:8-9 KJV

John declared that "Christ received not of the fulness at the first," but that he "continued from grace to grace until he received a fulnesss and thus he was called the Son of God, because he received not of the fulness at the first." Thus is it with us all. We must work out our salvation and exaltation by coming to this earth. Man must be born into mortality and live and die that he may continue in his progress toward eternal life and exaltation.

God has a plan of justice, mercy, truth, cooperation and brotherhood which will bring peace upon this earth. As we worship God these qualities become part of our nature and we become fit inhabitants of the world God created. Human beings should worship God not alone to show their allegiance and dependence upon their Creator, but to absorb from Him the essential qualities of a permanent civilization.

Who knows but on their sleep may rise Such light as never heaven let through To lighten earth from Paradise?

The merely well-informed man is the most useless bore on God's earth.

Nature's Laws are the invisible government of the earth.

The air is like a butterfly With frail blue wings. The happy earth looks at the sky And sings.

Unlike most heritages, Western civilization is not primarily a geographical place or a genetic bloodline. It is a state of mind. No matter where on earth one was born, to become heir to Western civilization's ancestry, one need only pledge allegiance to reason and individual liberty-the civilized, life-affirming values that represent the "West at its best."

Love THE fierce exulting worlds, the motes in rays, The churlish thistles, scented briers, The wind-swept bluebells on the sunny braes, Down to the central fires, Exist alike in Love. Love is a sea Filling all the abysses dim Of lornest space, in whose deeps regally Suns and their bright broods swim. This mighty sea of Love, with wondrous tides, Is sternly just to sun and grain; 'Tis laving at this moment Saturn's sides, 'Tis in my blood and brain. All things have something more than barren use; There is a scent upon the brier, A tremulous splendour in the autumn dews, Cold morns are fringed with fire. The clodded earth goes up in sweet-breath'd flowers; In music dies poor human speech, And into beauty blow those hearts of ours When Love is born in each. Daisies are white upon the churchyard sod, Sweet tears the clouds lean down and give. The world is very lovely. O my God, I thank Thee that I live!