It is well known to those who may be interested in reading these pages
that during all the years of my mortal life (since the age of eleven)
I have been brought before audiences and assemblies of people--many
thousands; among them were hundreds who became friends--some of them
life-long, some of later years. I had known of the “passing on” of very
many who had been members of those audiences and of my own “Flock,” but
I was not prepared for the _vast congregation_ that came out of their
respective groups composing a still greater concourse to meet me, nor
was I prepared to realize that I knew most of them as friends on Earth!
There were those who had heard the utterances of my Guides through my
lips when I was a child; those who had attended and were my personal
friends when I was “still in my ’teens”; and those who in later years
had been of the audiences in many places; and those of my own beloved
Congregation!
How difficult to realize that they were all gathered into the larger
“Congregation of the skies.” Each and all unfolding, working in
whatever line of knowledge and work was theirs to attain and achieve!
And to find all the treasured jewels of friendship more bright in the
added lustre of the larger life; the flowers in the Garden of true
Affection growing more and more transcendently fair!
This is indeed Heaven! Next in blessedness to the Homes of the Best
Beloved which are the very _Kingdom of Heaven_!