-
"You all know that you must pass through the change
called death; you have heard from one and another a
little about life in the next stage; you have been
delighted when mothers and fathers, those who had hard
lives, have come back to you and have told you that
they have a lovely Home and that it will be there waiting
for you when your time comes to join them.
-
"They do not mean that you will not have your
own Home but it is always pleasant to feel that when
we go into a far country there is someone there who
loves us, waiting to say: 'Welcome Home, my dear! I
have waited for you such a long time but now separation
is over for evermore and we are together again!'
-
"But in thinking of a New Existence, it is wise
perhaps to be a little more searching because it is
a very interesting subject. If you were going to another
land while still in the body you would want to get
what information you could about the climate, about
the scenery, about the people and living conditions.
-
"Well, is it not more important still, to know
a little about that great life which you will enter
for certain? Sometimes plans on Earth fall through,
sometimes a change is made and the traveller goes to
another place. But in regard to the transition you
have a New Existence in another world.
-
"I know that there are some here who would say
to me: 'My idea of the Spirit World is to be with those
I love, to feel that they have not changed towards
me. I am not looking for anything very important or
anything very special; where they are there my happiness
lies!'
-
"How wise you are not to set your mind upon any
particular thing that you wish to find in the Spirit
World, but more upon those persons you want to be there.
Because there is this point to be considered: on Earth
you are surrounded by material things.
-
"They have their place; with some people as you
know they have too big a place, they seem to be of
all importance and such as these are not concerned
about any other state nor do they build up those conditions
here which will help them in the Hereafter.
-
"So when they pass through the change called death
- and they cannot escape it, very often it comes when
least expected - they are aghast, it seems to them
they have awakened in a strange world where all those
things which mattered most are absent. Beloved, they
were not as the wise virgins, they did not prepare
for the bridegroom; and so instead of finding light
and beauty and love and power in the next world, as
God intended, they are lonely people, solitary people,
and sometimes very frightened over the change in their
conditions.
-
"But I want you here with your life of service
and kindness of heart, your compassion over the sick,
to prepare your mind for certain changes. Those things
so familiar around you will be reproduced but in a
different guise. As you know with Nature, it passes
through different stages. Consider the tiny seed buried
in the ground. In due season a little shoot is shown
piercing the earth. That again is a very early stage;
you do not have to be content with that.
-
"You want maturity, you want blossoms, or if it
is in regard to fruit, you want results for your labour
and you are entitled to them.
-
"So this tiny simile will show you that everything
in life changes in its appearance. There are as it
were changing moulds. What resemblance does the tiny
seed bear to the plant in its full maturity? It is
very difficult to find a connecting link. The seed
holds the germ of life but in order to express itself
according to the law of Nature it must change and change
again.
-
"So let us think in regard to the next body. Of
course that will be changed. Some may say: 'Well, how
shall I recognise my loved ones?' Personality persists.
Many realise that the body has changed considerably
from the time when they were young. Think of the babe,
think of the little boy or girl, think of the youth
or maiden, think of the mature man and woman.
-
"You see, just the same as in the seed, so there
have been many, many changes. Often you feel those
changes as they come are not to your advantage; the
body becomes troublesome or heavy or out of repair.
The things you took as a matter of course seem to be
failing you one by one as age comes along, and a man
and woman feels very weary of it all. What a wonderful
change for them to cast off the old and to put on the
new! No longer is the body an encumbrance; it is something
that bears signs of beauty.
-
"But this could not be unless during the Earth
stage you had faced discipline. Yes, you have had your
troubles and in degree you have fought through them.
So you see there is one thing on which you can count
and that is on having a very pleasant body to use and
look upon.
-
"The sufferer might say: 'That to me would represent
something of heaven! I am tired of illness, tired of
weariness, tired of pain and of growing old.' But,
beloved, it is only for a little while. Have courage,
let not your heart fail you because the road seems
over long; the milestones are passing quickly, you
are climbing rapidly, and the time will come when the
'door' will be opened and the dimness of the Earth
will be no more and you will be received into the brightness
of the Spirit.
-
"Now that is one thing. The next thing I want
to draw your attention to is this: you must remember
that when you have shed the body and the physical mind,
in due course your ideas will have changed; the things
that seemed very important to you when upon the Earth
plane will then appear rather trivial, 'second-rate'
or 'third-rate' - according to your own language -
and you will look back and you will say: 'Fancy worrying
over losing that; fancy wanting to have anything which
had such a short life! I had Nature, I had the flowers
and the trees, I had my friends. These were the things
that mattered; the material things are of the Earth,
Earthy.'
-
"You see how you change in your ideas; the things
you desired once, you have now fallen out of love with
- you want something better, nearer to the spirit's
desire, something that has a longer life. So I remind
you in regard to your lives, you will get accustomed
to changing moulds, the changing appearance of things.
-
"Those articles you so prized, which you would
not have lost for anything - well, they have gone,
and in their place there is something which no longer
is a substitute, but something that is real. You do
not like substitutes; you are tired of them, you know
that they represent an inferior article. Well, when
the Earth life is over you can lay aside the thought
of substitutes for you then have the real thing.
-
"But God will not hurry you, there is no Spirit
Power on the other side to change you abruptly; you
will grow in grace like the tiny seed piercing its
way through the earthly soil stretching out to a wider
area altogether.
-
"I want you to think of this in regard to your
talents. You may say to me: 'I don't think I have many.'
You cannot judge, you are only looking at things from
a physical standpoint; we judge from what is in your
heart and mind, what you want to do and what you are
denied doing because of circumstances.
-
"You see, beloved, what a wonderful vista lies
before you? When in the Spirit World, you will find
that you possess gifts you never dreamed were your
own. Why is this? Because the real you, in taking on
the physical body, chose a restricted life in the sense
that there should be limited gifts.
-
"How was that? It was built up by suffering, by
patience, by hoping when the dark clouds of physical
life seemed to close them in; it was built up by resisting
seen and unseen enemies. So they thanked God with grateful
hearts. Some may say: 'Oh, I have always wanted to
sing or to be able to paint pictures, or to bring into
being something that would demonstrate my idea of beauty.'
You may have tried and the result was so poor that
you dropped the idea altogether and became resigned
to a certain amount of limitation.
-
"But can those thoughts ever die? No! Beloved,
you shall see them in an enhanced form, and by not
having during this stage, you take up those gifts in
a wider expression of the gift, in the happy Home which
is then your own.
-
"I have only one warning to give and that is:
Do not allow the circumstances of Earthly life to tarnish
your ideals or to kill your good ideas; remember that
they are laid aside, as it were, in storage.
-
"The conditions of the Earth world were not suitable
for their fruition; but they are only laid aside as
the bulbs are laid aside, and as they were during the
war for years and years, buried deep down in the earth
so that the enemy should not find them. But they are
yours. And however deep the burial had to be through
circumstances, they are there, and the life is teeming
within them only waiting for the opportunity to express
itself.
-
"That is the way character is being built up -
the testing stages, the failures, and the individual
struggling on still. And the time will come, beloved,
when you will fail no more; for what is not possible
in this stage, then - with the shedding of the physical
body - will be possible; and your character will be
according to your heart's desire: free from the tarnishing
influences of the Earth world, free in its spiritual
guise and beautiful to look upon and ready for use.
-
"So you see your New Existence is full of interest.
The little ones who pass over certainly will be older
when you join them; but every night in the sleep state
you meet them, so there will be nothing strange then.
-
"The poor tired mother who wearily laid her head
upon the pillow and asked God to take her, well, she
will be changed in guise, too; she will be in maturity
in its best sense, full of energy, full of love, because
during the Earth stage she tried to do her little best.
And what is possible for her, naturally is possible
for you.
-
"And in regard to your idea of beauty, you will
find certain changes will take place there as well.
The things you prize here will not seem to fit in with
God's World; they were only substitutes; but you will
find the real thing there, and those things will grow
nearer and nearer to beauty as you gain experience;
and as you grow in spirit, so changes will take place
in that Home which seems to you as you pass over almost
perfect.
-
"You will be evolving fast, and as you evolve
so your ideas will change and change again. You will
always strive for something better, something nearer
to the Christ ideal, and your Home will ever have the
door ajar, as it were, to welcome in the wayfarers.
And as you try to stem the tears, or to give cheer
to the broken-hearted, to restore the faith of those
who have turned from God, so then that desire of yours
will be increased a hundred-fold, and, later on, a
thousand-fold, and the opportunity will be there to
do that which you will desire to do with all your being.
-
" - 'Behold, I make all things new!' - That statement
does not mean that annihilation of the things that
were. No! God makes all things new; they shed their
material guise, they get rid of the sordid influences
of the Earth, rid of all the base thoughts. 'Behold,
I make all things new!'
-
"And those words for you mean that the old things
have passed away. The new things in all their beauty
and power await you, and as you grow ready so, as I
have said, they shall change and change again, shedding
that which held the remembrances of the Earth until
they are akin to the Spirit, and that word 'Spirit'
expresses unlimited love and joy and light and health
for evermore.
-
"Now I would come amongst you, for I know there
are many here who would like to shed the old and to
take on the new, and at times it appears to them that
they have to wait and wait and the body, instead of
improving, seems to grow worse. Remember all those
over the generations who have been through the same
tests.
-
"They asked God in prayer to help them, and it
seemed to them that no answer came to their entreaty.
You are only one of millions, beloved, but when those
past generations found themselves in their new Home,
how glad they were, how thankful they were that God
had not answered their prayers, for they came into
that new life with a wonderful equipment.
-
"God knows what the real you wants so much better
than the physical mind can instruct, for now you see
through a glass darkly. But the time will come when
you will face reality and you will know then that the
purpose of the Earth life was to gain experience, and
if you have not gained experience, then the purpose
will be wasted.
-
"Beloved, sometimes those in the flesh rail against
fate or ask themselves and others what God is doing
to allow such misery to take place. But God is on the
side of the spirit within mankind, and He is working
out His purpose so that all things shall be made new,
new in a lovely guise, and these new things are for
you.
-
"So then let not sorrow hold your heart; remember
your New Existence in another world. How gladly you
will look to this side and that, and what you will
see will far surpass your highest hopes. You will say
within: 'I was but a child, I did not understand; but
now I do understand, and because I understand I am
satisfied!'
-
"As you know, during the Earthly stage very few
people are ever satisfied. It is wonderful to think
that when the Earth-life is over we can be satisfied,
and that means that the old restlessness has gone for
evermore; it means that although we take on other experiences
we find the strength within to master them, we are
not mastered by them, and that makes all the difference.
-
"Once you become conquerors, then the so-called
'blows' which fall upon you, they merely touch the
surface; the heart and the mind and the soul are in
God's keeping.
-
"So you see, beloved, your New Existence is going
to fulfil your highest hopes; yes, and what is more,
you will have renewed energy. Then all the obstacles,
the disappointments and the heartaches on the Earth-plane,
will be seen as stepping-stones to better things. How
happily you will climb, and at last you have what you
want. Your New Existence in another world has justified
all the sorrows of the past, and the pilgrim spirit,
then released within you, knows no fear for evermore.
-
"So little ones, all members of the flock of Jesus
Christ, I bless you! What is the blessing? I bless
you with renewed hope, with a greater courage, with
a hardened determination to see the battle through.
Then the future can be glorious to behold.
-
"We shall meet in that other state and once again
the bands of workers from the different churches upon
the Earth-plane will celebrate their anniversary -
the anniversary of a friendship which nothing of the
Earth has had the power to destroy. What a wonderful
promise lies in that one sentence!
-
"So I bless you all, and love pours from my being
to each and everyone, for I know your conditions, I
know the difficulties that surround many - the difficulties
of temperament. So I appeal to one and all while the
time on Earth is yet their own, to give out still more
love to their fellow workers for the sake of the sweet
By-and-bye. When they enter their New Existence in
another world, they shall see what the sacrifice of
personal feeling has built up for them in opportunity
and in power.
-
"Farewell! The Cross is on the brows of you all.
Allow it to remain, for you are missionaries in Spirit,
and it is sign and symbol to those who have lost their
way that in you they have a friend. Farewell."
