What is the greatest surprise of all in dying?

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.