“‘I daily have you all in grateful remembrance; and rejoice that so many of you continue steadfast in the faith once delivered to the saints, looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God, even our Saviour Jesus Christ. I pray God that your faith may fail not, and that you may continue working together in harmony, building up one another in the most holy faith, and, by your blameless lives and godly conversation, commending this gospel of Christ to the hearts and consciences of dying men. “‘I have but little hope, in my present weakness and infirmities, of seeing the faces of many of you in the flesh. Permit me, therefore, to exhort you not to be ashamed of the doctrine of the kingdom of Christ, nor of acknowledging on all proper occasions your confidence in the nearness of his coming. “‘My belief is unshaken in the correctness of the conclusions I have arrived at and maintained during the last twenty years. I see no reason to question the evidence on which rest the fundamental principles of our faith. I cannot avoid the belief that this earth is to be restored to its Eden state, and become the eternal residence of the saints; that Christ is to come personally, to reign on the earth; that he will redeem us from death, and ransom us from the power of the grave; that he will change our vile bodies into the likeness of his glorified body, and destroy those who destroy the earth; and that at his coming will be the restoration of all things, spoken of by the mouth of all the holy prophets since the world began, the establishment of the new heavens and new earth, the resurrection of the righteous, and the change of the living wicked from the earth,—whose resurrection will not transpire till after one thousand years. “‘The evidences of Christ’s coming are continually thickening; it hasteth greatly; and should this earthly house of my tabernacle be dissolved, my hope is still strong that I shall shortly meet him in the air. The political clouds in the Eastern horizon indicate to me the near approach of the battle of the Lord God Almighty, the destruction of the kingdoms of the earth, and the establishment of the kingdom of God. We may not know the precise time, but I entreat of you all to be prepared for the approaching crisis.