Where are the DEAD?

For a man to declare himself uninterested in this subject would be to proclaim him idiotic -- thoughtless. If the ordinary affairs of this present life, food, raiment, finance, politics, etc., which concern us but for a few years, are deemed worthy of thought, study, how much more concern should we have in respect to the eternal future of ourselves and neighbors and mankind in general?
Of course, so important a question has had the most profound study, ever since the reign of Sin and Death began six thousand years ago. By this time the subject should be threadbare. The entire world should be so thoroughly informed respecting this question that there would be nothing new to say and nobody curious to hear. But the large audiences of intelligent, thoughtful people which come to hear, and which listen with breathless interest to what we have to say, imply that after all the study the subject has had, but few are thoroughly satisfied with their conclusions.

Before presenting what we claim is the Scriptural and only satisfactory answer to our query, we think it but proper respect to the intelligence and thought of our day and of past centuries to make general inquiries on the subject and have before our minds the most profound thoughts of the most astute thinkers of our race. We cannot, however, go into this matter elaborately and give lengthy quotations. We must content ourselves with brief, synoptically answers, which will be stated kindly and truthfully, and with a desire not to offend anybody, however much we may disagree with his conclusions. We recognize the right of every man to do his own thinking and to reach his own conclusions, whether these agree with our conceptions or not. My dear friends, you had before your minds the answers to our question from the highest to the lowest earthly authorities. None of them was satisfactory. Now you have heard the testimony of God's Word -- the divine declaration as to "Where be the dead?" Harkening to the voice from heaven we are assured that they are really dead and that all their hopes as respects the future are centered, first upon the redemptive work of our Lord Jesus, accomplished at Calvary, and secondly, upon the work or resurrection which, at his second advent, he is to accomplish for those whom he redeemed. If perchance you have a shade of disappointment as respects a saintly brother or sister, father or mother or child who you hoped was already in heaven, then as a consolation look at the other side of the question -- behold how many of your loved ones, kith and kin, friends and foes and neighbors, according to your theory and all the prevalent theories, have been suffering untellable woe since their death and would be suffering similarly for long centuries to come -- consider the relief of mind and heart you get from the knowledge of the truth: that they are not alive anywhere, but simply dead, or more poetically, they are "Asleep in Jesus," in the sense that he is their Redeemer, in whom all their hopes of a future awakening reside.