R. LESTER DODSON RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD (DODSON), ELDER P.D. GOLD) 3

The Late ELDER P. D. GOLD (Owner, Editor, and Publisher of Zion’s Landmark, Wilson, North Carolina, for about forty years) DECAY – IMMORTALITY

[This is part 3 of Dodsom's book Resurrection of the Dead, which includes an opinion by Elder P.D. Gold - ed]

Exhaustion is evidence of finiteness and failure, and is the result of the wearing away of the agencies of nature. Vegetation springs forth in luxuriousness and with the promise of long life in its early growth. But towards autumn it bears marks of decay, and fades and perishes before winter. The soil in its virginity puts forth crops that show its fertility, but soon exhaustion follows unless aids are added to stimulate productivity. However, it may be replenished by feeding the soil with suitable fertilizers.

Man, the noblest creature on earth in his formation and rank, is equally as subject to succumb to the wear and tear of labor, and the taxing of his forces to compete with nature’s demands. So that emaciation and death follow. His limbs weaken, his nervous system loses its vitalizing sensitiveness, his taste fails to enjoy the youthful zest of food, his energies relax and weaken, and man soon wastes away and ceases to have pleasure in things of earth. Even that mysterious character known as a christian who, at times rises above the dull powers of mortality, and finds pasture in the Carmel heights of heavenly manna at times becomes so benumbed by the corrosions of earth, and the wasting of disease, and the gnawing of worldly care as to faint by the way. All such things of sorrow, decay and disappointment arrest our expectations of satisfaction in this transitory world of vanities, and furnish a ground of hope and expectation of another and enduring state of perfection – not created out of decay of this perishing state, but a resurrection where former things are done away, and all things become new – not old things made new but out of the old there springs up a new creation in which the desire of immortality dimly felt in the imperfect state as one is renewed in the spirit of his mind, as a vitalizing sense of love and divine joy warms in the soul, and kindles a flame of sacred love for things that never perish, and there appear the foundation and pillars, the frame and substance of a glorious building not made with hands, but eternal in the heavens, and its glories so entrance the soul as to persuade it of a better resurrection wherein mortality is swallowed up of life, and hope is perfected in fruition of eternal youth. (The italics are our’s. R. L. D.) 

P.D.G