I am here to testify to death.

Given through the mediumship of Mrs Cors L. V. Richmond, Spirit Epes Sargent recounts  his advent into spirit life. 

There is no pain in dying. 

It is as the ebbing of a tide—

The flowing away of a stream—

The passing out of daylight into twilight—

The coming on of autumn sunsets, where the whole of the western sky is flooded with a glow of light—

It is a wonderful surprise, even to one who is accustomed to think of a future state when on earth—

To one whose mind has been carefully trained in all the schools of thought concerning immortality—

To one whose religion and intellectual conviction both hinge with absolute certainty on the spiritual state. 

To find oneself floating out from the fastnesses of time into the immeasurable space of eternity is such a matchless experience that only those who pass through the portal of death can understand.

The greatest surprise of all is that you feel the gliding away of human things without a pang or regret or grief or pain. 

You feel that pain itself is departed—

A pure, ineffable flood is coming to you just across the harbour's bow. 

The loosening of the human affections—

The pang that comes to the heart when you hear the sob of loved ones close beside you, and cannot reply, is overbalanced by the thrill that accompanies this loosening of the mortal tie—

You feel glad of death even while it is upon you. 

One cannot understand unless one has passed to mountain heights and seen the glory of the sun rise far out upon the sea—seen it suddenly come up—tipping, for the moment, the waves with crimson and gold, and then rise in full glory, as though never night had been there.

The realism of life besets one continually, and one longs to drag the mortal part into the immortal world, the shell into pinions, the root and germ into the flower.

You forget that for every stage of life, there is preparation and growth, and it is as though you wished to take your baby garments with you and wear them in manhood. 

You cling to the rags of clay.

You cling to the fastenings of time. 

The moorings of the senses beset you here and gird you roundabout. 

Oh, what a sublime thing it is to feel suddenly grown to full manhood—

Those barriers broken—

The bonds of sense dispersed—

To know that every inch of one's self is alive—

To feel not only all present consciousness, but all past consciousness, and I might say all future consciousness crowded upon you.

The greatest wonder of all is that everything in material life remains the same, but transfigured. 

All sensation and consciousness grows more and more palpable until the very heartbeats of one's friends are audible, as the spirit is passing away. 

As an overstrung instrument responds to every sound, so the consciousness of the departing one is more and more exhilarated until the very thought, which you think becomes palpable to the one who is not dying, but about to be born. 

You stand in the presence of death. 

To you, it is a receding wave. 

In my mortal past, I have stood there many times—

Watching with questioning mind, the receding wave of life—

The passing from the mortal to the immortal—

Before I knew the great splendour of spiritual truth, I watched with sadness and deep regret, with indefinable doubt and horror, the condition that men call death—

In the great measure of late manhood—

In the full strength and power of the last years of life, I knew of spiritual existence—I did not conceive what it could be like.

If you have inhaled the perfume of a flower, but have never seen one—

If you have read musical notes, but have never heard them expressed—

If you have dreamed a dream of loveliness, but never saw it embodied or impersonated—

If you have thought of love, but never loved, then you can imagine what the mortal state is compared to the immortal—

Awake, alive, active—

The dull lethargy of pain and suffering departing, as with a breath, and the strong strength of active life, with its full vigour, surging around, above, beneath—

The ineffable rest, floating out into an infinity of certainty, while all material things, save love and consciousness, seemed evanescent—

This was the experience. 

I could feel all thoughts of those who stood near me. 

I could contemplate the mind and heart wrung with bodily anguish, but glad for me, for the release. 

I could hear my friends thinking afar of—

This is now about the time that he must go—

When the news spread with electric speed, I could hear them say—

One more worker is gone—

I knew thousands of miles intervened between them and where my body was. 

I could hear my friends think the world over. 

There were silent heartthrobs answering to my life, and the ineffable questioning of what he is doing now that would rise to the lips of those who heard afar off that the mortal frame had ceased to breathe.

Oh, but the quickening of the spirit! 

I cannot tell you what it is like. 

It is like a symphony compared to one note—

Like an oratorio compared to the simplest melody—

Like the poem of Dante—

Like ineffable Milton—

Like the crowning light of Shakspeare—

All-pervading—

All-glorious—

Like love itself, that vanquishes the night of time and pain and death. 

I was presented to myself. 

My thoughts, all of my past life, were impersonated. 

Everything I had done or thought came before me in form—in beauty or deformity. 

Children, the waifs of my fancy, supposed to have been conjured out of the teeming brain of mortal life were before me in reality. 

Characters whom I had supposed purely ideal and imaginative, drawn with fanciful pen and sent forth to illustrate a moral principle, came up before me, as living realities, saying—

I was the one of whom you wrote. 

I was the spirit inspiring such and such thought—

Every crowded fancy became impersonated until, like little people seen in fairy visions, all ideals were realised, and I laughed with these children of my fancy to find them so real, standing around me, claiming me, for their spiritual parent, and saying they were mine forever.

Could you believe this? 

It is no imagination, but a reality, that those of whom we write, and of whom poets weave solemn and grand songs, and that fairies who are pictured in vision, for children to read, become realities in spirit life, and are clothed with spiritual substance, peopling all the air with rich and varied images. 

Love itself, most populous of the peopled cities of the skies, and deities, as it were, of usurping splendour, come thronging around one, as one awakens from the dream of life. 

Loves, told long ago, and seemingly half buried beneath the withering hopes of manhood, came up and claimed again their recognition. 

Friendship, that in the crowded and busy mart of human things had been well nigh forgotten, came up again, as a living image and asked for its own return. 

All love survives, and how it peoples the space that elsewise would seem infinite and void!

I cannot think what death would be to him who has never thought a truth, or dreamed a noble thing for humanity, or loved anyone. 

I am told there are barren wastes in human souls devoid of love. 

I am told there are wildernesses in spirit life devoid of flowers and children's faces and sweet smiles—of grateful acknowledgment from those whom one tried to succour and redeem in outward life. 

I am told this, but I cannot think what the spirit would be without the peopled cities of the imagination.

I cannot think what it would be without the created images of thought. 

Mine, crude as they were, unbeautiful, as they seemed in the clear light of the spirit, dimmed somewhat by the faults and failings and fallacies of my material nature, seemed very dead to me, and this city is awake—

Its peopled habitation is my new world. 

I did not pass through space to find them. 

I did not go to a distant planet. 

Space seemed to come to me, and was at once inhabited. 

I saw all friends of the earthly life, as really as I saw them before passing away, but from a different vision. 

I saw them afar off—

On the line of light of memory. 

I saw them more clearly because I saw their spirits—

This friendship that I had valued too little—

Another that I had valued too much. 

This mind that seemed a brilliant and shining light through the human lens grew, perhaps, less brilliant, while another that I had scarcely recognised suddenly loomed up before me as a burning, shining planet.

In the spirit, all things become real. 

You are no longer masked by selfish desires and impulses. 

You see things without the tinge of the external body. 

Even the material brain loses its power to delude you.

You are no longer a sophist. 

There is nothing upon which sophism can weave its web or tissue of falsities. 

All things are made clear. 

You are spontaneous. 

You grow to become what your thought is—

Your light and life are made beautiful by the grandeur of the image that you have built for humanity.

Upon a thin and slender foundation of goodness, you rear the matchless fabric of immortality and eliminate all faults, of which you instantly become more aware than in material life.

I cannot veil from you the fact that it must be a disappointment to him who has no conception of the immortal state. 

The realistic mind of earth will find things so much more real in the spiritual state that his shadows will vanish, and then, for a time, he is lost. 

I was grateful, for the birth out of materialism that gave me consciousness of a spiritual life. 

I was grateful, for the slight touch of fancy that could weave around human things, the splendour of great thought for humanity. 

I know now why I have ineffable hope, for every race beneath the sun—

All races are peopled from the skies. 

I now know why I had every hope, for the uplifting of every child of earth to the highest splendour. 

I now know why womankind forever appealed to me with mute lips and longing eyes to be released from the thraldom of the subtle chain that the ages have woven around her. 

It was because of the spiritual firmament I learned that the angel of life is dual, and man and woman are fashioned in the image of God. 

I know now why every secret hope, whether veiled within the skin of the African, or bound down by the narrow limits of Oriental custom, or veiled in the red man, appeals to me, as belonging to somewhat beyond what matter and man had bestowed. 

It was because of the spiritual life that foretells everything, makes speechless the wrongs of the nations, that they may rise one day in magnificence and be redressed through the power of the spirit. 

I know now why the world of politics—

Struggles for mammon—

All things that men pursue for gain had no allurements for me, not because I was wiser or better, but because I was chosen to do some other thing, and that other thing was to hope always, ineffably and sublimely, that out of the darkness light would come, and out of the seeming evils and intricate threads of human existence, there would rise the blessed humanity of the future.

Coming toward me, space seemed to be filled with all I had hoped and prophesied, and in the very antechamber, which I entered immediately after death, I could see so much of eternity that it would take the mortal breath away, as it almost did the breath of the spirit. 

There was no low, dim twilight. 

There was no simple fading of existence and inanition. 

There was no uncertainty. 

There was no bewilderment. 

There was no pausing, as if in sleep, upon the threshold of that immortal side, while tender hands would prepare, as they sometimes do, the immortal state. 

Suddenly, and with full power, I sprang upright, and was aware immediately of being a form—

A being whose intensity pervaded and thrilled me until I seemed a part of the universe around—

A form, so like the one, which lay at my feet that I was startled at the resemblance, save that one was shadowy, pale and wan with disease and suffering and labour, while the other was more than crowned with the vigour of youth and manhood, so like myself that I was fain to put away one form, so distressing is it to see one's own very resemblance so near, and, as one has sometimes seen oneself in a mirror and wondered who it could be, so I gazed upon the form, and I considered the reality, and wondered, for an instant, which would endure, but, as that was already the shadow, as no part of the individual me remained—

As there was not even breath, nor warmth, nor colouring, as it was really but the shadow, I was glad when it was laid away out of earthly and human sight, since it could no longer mock the eyes of the loved ones—

All the while, I was there with the great longing of my heart, with the enfolding arms and the love that spoke audibly to the spiritual ear, yet they did not hear. 

To talk forever to one's loved ones and not be heard was insufferable. 

To think forever in spirit toward those who are left behind and find no response would drive me mad. 

I do not know what those spirits do whose friends put them away in the tomb or in heaven and never let them talk to them. 

If I were such a spirit, day and night, I would haunt the chambers of their souls. 

I would speak out from the silence of the air and compel them to hear.

Already, I have spoken elsewhere—

Already, I have reported myself, but my word must be received here. 

I must speak until the ears of the spirit shall hear—

Until the quickened understanding of the human brain shall know what a measureless thing is death—

Until you shall know what enfolds you, encompasses you, girds you roundabout, encircles you with its lifegiving arms—

The very thing that men call death is that which makes life endurable and fills you with the possibilities of being. 

But for those who were dead to outward life, who existed in the air about me and in my consciousness, I would have had no peopled fancies of brain, no thought of philosophy, no aspiring hope, but for those whom you call dead, your days and nights would be void of ambition. 

You would have no mental air to breathe. 

The higher strata of existence would be cut off. 

The supersensuous nature would be starved. 

You would be stifled and famished in the prisonhouse—

The little, feeble spark of life would die out, leaving the bodies shriven, shrunken, lifeless automatons. 

But for that which you call death—

That vital breath—

That living condition of being—

That sheltering and protecting power—

That harmony and splendour of all things, you would not be here this night—

There would be nothing to move you here. 

The spiritual impulses of the universe would be forgotten—

There would be no fountains of inspiration, no thought of religion, no touchstone to immortality.

Men are played upon by spiritual beings as harps by the wind. 

They hear the sound, but they do not know the source, and, as the red man turns his ear toward the pine trees, listening to the solemn music and thinking it the voice of the Infinite, or of those who have gone to the hunting ground afar off, so when you hear this solemn music in the air above you, you wonder what it is and turn away to your daily task, forgetting that without it, you were lifeless, cold and dumb.

I am here to testify to death. 

As I once testified to humanity—

Feebly and faintly, as one human being might who hoped for the best and strove always to find the truth, so now with a greater strength and with this born not alone of thought but of being, 

I am here to testify of death. 

It is the living splendour of the universe. 

Without it, there is no springtime blossom. 

Without it, there is no rare transmutation of things that charges night into day. 

Without it, there is no struggling of the atom toward diviner possibilities of being. 

Without it, there is no removal of the relentless rule of nature, which is a hardened form and dull tune and space and sense. 

Without it, the ebb and flow of human affairs would become solidified and crystallised, and man today would be petrified in the midst of all his sin and crime, forever to remain a solemn mockery in the great book of eternity. 

Without death, you could never rid yourselves of your errors. 

Without it, you could not grow into diviner manhood and womanhood. 

Without it, love would be voiceless—

There would be no clasping of immortal hands—

No tremblings of immortal thoughts along the corridors of being. 

Without it, all life would be meaningless, for there would be no love. 

You would be immured in sepulchres. 

Your bodily existence would be a bane and mockery. 

The breath of the spirit taken away—

There could be no time and eternity.

In the midst of this solemn splendour, where all of life throngs around one, and where that which is basest and meanest departs and slinks away into the shadows—

In the midst of this splendour, where every good thing survives, and every base thing perishes of its own inactivity and inanition—

Where gradually, the shadows, the infirmities of time, and the deformities of sense give place to the perfections of spirit and mind, I testify that what has come to me is the result of death. 

I am transfigured. 

The being that was seen and known on earth is I—

I am more than this. 

I am all that I hoped to be. 

I am all that I aspired to be. 

I was not wicked or sinful. 

I was imperfect, as human beings usually are below—

Struggling for higher possibilities. 

But I am now more than I dared to dream. 

I am better than I dared to hope. 

I am the humblest in the kingdom of the spirit, but I am greater than the greatest aspires to be. 

So are you unveiled from your mortal elements—

The worst side of which reveals itself in human life. 

You become also transfigured. 

You are no longer the weaklings that you seem. 

Humanity is no longer that which through time and pain and sense bears the mocking image of the divine, but humanity becomes divine. 

Even the slave—

I do not mean him who wears the shackles in form—

But even the slave in soul who comes cringing into the world of spirit by the gateway of death—

Even he who creeps and crawls with terror toward the tomb is greater in spirit than he seems—

Greater than you would dare to dream that he might be.

Oh! what a revelator is death!

I stand before you this night, not of you, but perceiving that which is highest and best in every soul—

Knowing that every thought, feeling and inspiration toward goodness has its prototype in splendour in the spiritual being—

I could show how, to your other selves, that which is the possession of your immortal part is as grand, as divine, as glorious, as you dream, and the best of it is, death makes all this possible to be known. 

It gives you the key to the temple of your own life. 

There is but one other way by which you can know it, and that way dimly. 

I mean by inspiration or spiritual perception. 

It was denied me to have the direct inspiration that many have. 

I was obliged to take the testimony of others largely, but when I know that there are those endowed with windows, through which they can look heavenward, yet I know they cannot begin to see the glory that is mine, and I wonder sometimes that they do not burst the barrier, and be free. 

But the restraining hand of life is upon them, and the higher restraint of that wisdom, which forbids the bursting of a bond until you have won your freedom. 

He who seeks to avoid any difficulty in life by hurrying into the world of spirit finds the same impenetrable barrier before him—

Himself! 

He has not escaped from himself, nor from any weakness that was within him. 

He must now meet it face to face. 

It comes nearer and nearer. 

It crowds upon him. 

He must overcome it in spirit, as he failed to overcome it in earthly life.

Ah! do not think that death will lead you to escape any responsibilities. 

It brings you all your treasures. 

It yields to you all your possessions. 

It restores to you all your faded hopes. 

It gives back every blessed and good promise of life, but it will not relieve you from responsibilities.

These are yours—

You inherit them. 

They belong to you, as part of the infinite plan—

Sooner or later, in one world or another, in one state of being or another—

You must meet and vanquish them—

One by one.

Sublime is death! 

Beautiful is the gateway! 

Intense as is the rapture of the spirit when conscious of being and form and life—

There is nothing to allure one to the neglect of any duty or the fulfillment of any promise, for your poverty of spirit is revealed by death, as is your riches, and you must bear the test, which the divine scrutiny brings.

Again, I encompass you with this life—

Again, I stretch out the hands of my spirit in greeting to all who have known me—

Again, I say that which I believed I knew and that which I testified to is now mine. 

That which I bore evidence of through human intellect and brain, and such power, as was given me, I now bear evidence of in the oversweeping and overwhelming power of spiritual existence. 

Through whatever brain I may best speak, in whatever form I may best manifest, I will come to those on earth whom I love. 

There is a need of the added voice—

I must speak to their hearts in anyway. 

They must hear my voice audibly in their souls. 

They must make room for me in their lives, for I would cry aloud and make them hear, though they were in the midst of the thunders of Niagara.

To the world, there shall be a voice—

Not one, but many—

Not feeble and faint, as of one man crying in the wilderness, but the voice of multitudes—

Millions upon millions of souls speaking audibly by the gateway of life, and speaking to the hearts of humanity. 

You will hear them. 

They cry—

Father. 

You will hear them. 

They cry—

Mother—

Husband—

Wife and child—

You pause in your daily career and wonder what voice resembles one long silent in death. 

I tell you they will crowd upon you until you must hear. 

They will speak to you until you cease to put them afar off. 

They will look into your eye from the spiritual world until you see that they live, and recognise them.

They will parade your streets. 

They will image themselves in every form that is possible. 

They will manifest by signs and tokens to the senses. 

They will grapple with your understanding. 

They will make you aware of the philosophies of being. 

They will solve to you the mysteries that you have put far from you, and will not listen to. 

They will have you know that life, not death, is the destiny of man, and that the sweet messenger you have named Death is no longer noxious, dark and terrible, but the beauty of all existence—

The crown of all being—

The freedom of all slavery—

The triumph of all vanquishment—

The gateway beyond the walls of human limitations in which you live, leading to the celestial and eternal city where all are free in the light of their wisdom and love.

Oh! voiceless, yet audible sounds! 

Oh! millions of souls that come thronging out of space! 

Ye speak with a sound more mighty than the surging of the sea—

More vocal than the voice of the thunder of Niagara—

More potent than the sweeping winds over myriads of forests—

More divine than the rushing melodies of the many mighty masters attuning their harps in sublime oratorios of existence. 

Death and life are one—

These voices are the voices of your loved ones.