“He came toward me smiling. I thought I had never seen him look so well, so handsome, so young or so benignant. He was ever the soul of kindness, not only ready but always anxious to serve others; and he had a particular fondness for meeting friends at the railroad station when they came back to the city after an absence--especially those who had no near kindred to welcome them. “‘I’m glad to see you, Gordon,’ he said; but I thought I saw something in his face more than the words implied, and a foreboding of unwelcome news came to me. “‘How is this, William?’ I asked. ‘Am I dreaming? I thought I helped to bury you five years ago.’ “He smiled significantly and said, ‘Has it not occurred to you that somebody may be arranging to do the same service for you?’ “‘What do you mean, William?’ I asked, calling upon my soul to sustain me against the shock of the reply. “‘Well, Gordon,’ he said, gently, kindness making his face shine like a lamp, ‘tell me if a dead man’s arm has any bones in it?’ “Instinctively I grasped my left arm with my right hand. Lo! the hand passed through it. No bones were there. “Can you imagine one already dead fainting from fear? The sensation I experienced was more startling, more fearful than anything I had conceived of before. I sank down, down into immeasurable depths. “A feeling of shame at my cowardice took possession of me. Why was I afraid? I had died, to be sure; my condition was changed; but the experience was something millions and millions of other souls had undergone. Gentle, timid, delicate women had trodden that solemn path before me. Little children, too, had traveled it. Why should I, a man, vain of my strength and courage, be affrighted? A vast compassion for all humankind in this trying moment welled up in my heart, and instantly I was lifted into light, and beheld about me loving and familiar faces, beautiful vistas, and heard melodious sounds. The loving thought I held had borne me upward; but I did not then know it. “Many times I sank into a dark, bottomless void, and as often by some mysterious power rose into ineffable light. I encountered massive walls from time to time, before which my feet were stayed. Impassable and impregnable, they seemed to bar my way, I knew not why. Eventually I learned that the sinking and the rising, and the barriers I met, were not external experiences, but all took place within my own consciousness, and were but the picturing or appearances of my inner condition. They were my own thoughts externalized, for _thought_ is the only _thing_ in the _Universe_. We think, therefore we are. Existence is thought. Man is thought made objective. Thought is the creative principle: it is creation.