Interpersonal relations -- Fiction; Spiritualism -- Fiction; United States -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction
This appeal Cartice answered by telling the story of her communion with
friends called dead, and she told this with a directness and simplicity
that went straight to the mark. To her it was clear enough that, if a
man die, he shall live again,--and shall grow, his growth depending
upon his aspirations. Genius itself has been described as a “faculty
for growth.” Being a citizen of the universe, man is destined to know
the universe as his native village. The form only changes. Death is not.
To this Kendall wrote:
“You have destroyed the last enemy for me. ‘Only the form changes.’
Need we dread that? We may even be said to be used to it. We haven’t
the same bodies we began life with. They have changed in every
particular, again and again.
“How extraordinary have been your privileges of learning those things
to which most of us have been so blind. Why not write the story out
more fully and publish it? Since it has helped me, might it not help
others? But don’t put it into a newspaper. There it would take no
higher rank than the traditional, blood-curdling ghost-story. Make a
book of it. That will place it on its own feet, to stand or fall by its
merits.
“Yes, tell your experiences with those who dwell in what we call
another world; in fact, however, another condition.
“I have had an instinctive, though not unwavering belief that this life
was not the end of us--perhaps not the beginning; but I had my hours of
gloomy doubt. The old twaddle of an eternity of happiness made up of
harps and golden streets did not appeal to either my intelligence or
taste. Perhaps, it was a shade less attractive than annihilation.
“Learning to grow and to do, that is what makes an immortality worth
having.
“I have lived on good terms with my conscience, which is of an
old-fashioned cut, not from fear of hell or hope of heaven, but because
I am that sort of man. I could not do otherwise. Yet I wish I might
have learned what you tell me, earlier. I think it would have made the
ills of life here of less moment and might have enhanced its joys and
beauties.
“Who, understanding the philosophy of continued life as it has been
revealed to you, could fail to try and acquire some of the capital,
thieves cannot steal, with which to begin the larger life that opens
to us, when we pass the gates of death? It is helping me to make my
remaining time of more value.
“You have influenced me as no other person has done ever since I knew
you. Now you light the road out of the world for me. I begin to see
that there are no accidents.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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