Life Long Enough
 
Life is long enough for the sinner and for the saint. Seventy years are a sufficient period to try the character. Were the sinner to continue longer in the world, he would still be equally hopeless and more guilty. Habits of wickedness, strengthened through so long a period, seldom permit either removal or hope. Whither shall we go to find penitence after this period has passed? The antediluvian world was immensely more wicked than the present, because man lived a thousand years. Their plans of sin were vastly more extensive, their sagacity in pursuing them greatly superior, their opportunities amazingly more numerous, and their hopes of success beyond comparison better founded. In this manner their evil habits became fixed beyond recall, while death was at such distance as to make the present life seem not a little like an eternal duration. What existed then would, in like circumstances, exist now. Were human life to be equally protracted, mankind would soon become as profligate as they were before the Deluge. That the present life is a sufficient period of probationary existence to the righteous will be readily acknowledged by all men. Every person of this character secures, within this period, an everlasting inheritance beyond the grave. This is the end for which we live—the only end of real importance. Plainly, therefore, the present period of human life is well suited to the circumstances of both saints and sinners, and wisely appointed by God.—President Dwight