My
friend, there is nothing to fear in death. It is no harder than a trip to a
foreign country–the first trip–to one who has grown oldish and settled in the
habits of his own more or less narrow corner of the world.
When a man
comes out here, the strangers whom he meets seem no more strange than the
foreign peoples seem to one who first goes among them. He does not always
understand them; there, again, his experience is like a sojourn in a foreign
country. Then, after a while, he begins to make friendly advances and to smile
with the eyes. The question, "Where are you from?" meets with a
similar response to that on earth. One is from California,
another is from Boston, another is from London. This is when we meet on the
highroads of travel; for there are lanes of travel over here, where the souls go
up and down as on the earth. Such a road is generally the most direct line
between two great centres; but it is never on the line of a railway. There would
be too much noise. We can hear sounds made on the earth. There is a certain
shock to the etheric ear which carries the vibration of sound to us.
Sometimes one
settles down for a long time in one place. I visited an old home in the State of
Maine, where a man on this aide of life had been stopping for I do not know how
many years; he told me that the children had grown to be men and women, and that
a colt to which he became attached when he first came out had grown into a horse
and had died of old age.
There are
sluggards and dull people here, as with you. There are also brilliant and
magnetic people, whose very presence is rejuvenating.
It seems
almost absurd to say that we wear clothes, the same as you do; but we do not
seem to need so many. I have not seen any trunks; but then I have been here only
a short time.
Heat and cold
do not matter much to me now, though I remember at first being rather
uncomfortable by reason of the cold. But that is past.
