A Book Written by the Spirits of the So-Called Dead Part 16

EXTRACTS FROM EACH OF TWO FUNERAL DISCOURSES BY BISHOP SIMPSON AND REV. W.

H. THOMAS, D. D., WITH CONCLUSIONS OF C. G. h.e.l.lEBERG.

In closing it has been deemed advisable and proper to append an extract from each of two funeral discourses delivered by two eminent divines--one the eminent Methodist Bishop, Mr. Simpson, and the other a distinguished minister of Chicago, who, of late, experienced some little annoyance from his flock, who were mere sticklers for forms and creeds, and because their shepherd had grown a little beyond their cramped and narrow limits.

BISHOP SIMPSON.

"The very grave itself is a pa.s.sage into the beautiful and glorious. We have laid our friends in the grave, but they are around us. The little children that sat upon our knee, into whose eyes we looked with love, whose little hands have clasped our neck, on whose cheek we have imprinted the kiss, we can almost feel the throbbing of their hearts to-day. They have pa.s.sed from us, but where are they? Just beyond the line of the invisible. And the fathers and mothers who educated us, that directed and comforted us, where are they but just beyond the line of the invisible?

The a.s.sociates of our lives that walked along life's pathway, those with whom we took sweet counsel and who dropped from our side, where are they but just beyond us? not far away; but now it may be very near us. Is there any thing to alarm us in this thought? No. It seems to me that sometimes when my head is on the pillow there come whispers as of joy that drop into my heart--thoughts of the sublime and beautiful and glorious, as though some angel's wing pa.s.sed over my brow, and some dear one sat by my pillow and communed with my heart to raise my affections to the other and better world. The invisible is not dark, it is glorious. Sometimes the veil becomes so thin it seems to me that I can almost see the bright forms through it, and my bending ear can almost hear the voices of those who are singing their melodious strains. Oh, there is music all around us, though in the busy scenes of life we recognize it not. The veil of the future will soon be lifted and the invisible shall appear."

REV. W. H. THOMAS, D. D., OF CHICAGO.

"How can we linger over the bier of the departed and go in the eventide to their graves, and sit down in the stillness there, hoping in some way to come in communion with them. They carry their loves over to the other side, and is it unreasonable to suppose that a mother who has pa.s.sed from these sh.o.r.es should still seek to be the guardian angel of the children she watched over in this life? Is it unreasonable that the great hosts of life, column on column, world on world, that have gone out from this state, should seek to come with their higher wisdom and tenderer sympathy to minister to those they loved in this life, and help them to cling to the truth that saves? To me this doctrine of the spirit life, the eminence and presence of helping and guiding spirits is a comforting thought. It brings me into the presence of the innumerable host that people the spirit land. It gives me somehow a consciousness of the great fact of immortality. It gives me a sweet consciousness that my friends live on the other sh.o.r.e; that to me they will come as ministering angels in the dying hour to receive the spirit, tired by work, weakened by sickness, wearied with years, pale from death, and bear it to the love and life above."

If these utterances are not in harmony with spiritualism, and its central and prominent idea of the very nearness of our spirit friends and the spirit world, then I am wholly incapable of recognizing and understanding the force of plain and direct language. They can have but one meaning, and that in perfect accordance with spiritualism.

I find these extracts published in the Auburn _Advertiser_, of New York, from which I copied them. There they are; read them carefully, and then propound the question to your own heart and intelligence, namely: What does all this mean if spiritualism be false? And if spiritualism be true, how can these men and those holding similar views, oppose spiritualism and be consistent and maintain their self-respect?

C. G. h.e.l.lEBERG.

Footnotes:

[1] This has reference to forget-me-not seeds which she sent me from Sweden.

[2] This Polheim was Sweden's greatest architect, mathematician and builder, who projected the ca.n.a.l between Stockholm and Gottenburg.