EXTRACTS FROM EACH OF TWO FUNERAL DISCOURSES BY BISHOP SIMPSON AND REV. W.
H. THOMAS, D. D., WITH CONCLUSIONS OF C. G. HELLEBERG.
In closing it has been deemed advisable and proper to append an extract
from each of two funeral discourses delivered by two eminent divines--one
the eminent Methodist Bishop, Mr. Simpson, and the other a distinguished
minister of Chicago, who, of late, experienced some little annoyance from
his flock, who were mere sticklers for forms and creeds, and because their
shepherd had grown a little beyond their cramped and narrow limits.
BISHOP SIMPSON.
"The very grave itself is a passage into the beautiful and glorious. We
have laid our friends in the grave, but they are around us. The little
children that sat upon our knee, into whose eyes we looked with love,
whose little hands have clasped our neck, on whose cheek we have imprinted
the kiss, we can almost feel the throbbing of their hearts to-day. They
have passed from us, but where are they? Just beyond the line of the
invisible. And the fathers and mothers who educated us, that directed and
comforted us, where are they but just beyond the line of the invisible?
The associates of our lives that walked along life's pathway, those with
whom we took sweet counsel and who dropped from our side, where are they
but just beyond us? not far away; but now it may be very near us. Is there
any thing to alarm us in this thought? No. It seems to me that sometimes
when my head is on the pillow there come whispers as of joy that drop into
my heart--thoughts of the sublime and beautiful and glorious, as though
some angel's wing passed over my brow, and some dear one sat by my pillow
and communed with my heart to raise my affections to the other and better
world. The invisible is not dark, it is glorious. Sometimes the veil
becomes so thin it seems to me that I can almost see the bright forms
through it, and my bending ear can almost hear the voices of those who are
singing their melodious strains. Oh, there is music all around us, though
in the busy scenes of life we recognize it not. The veil of the future
will soon be lifted and the invisible shall appear."
REV. W. H. THOMAS, D. D., OF CHICAGO.
"How can we linger over the bier of the departed and go in the eventide to
their graves, and sit down in the stillness there, hoping in some way to
come in communion with them. They carry their loves over to the other
side, and is it unreasonable to suppose that a mother who has passed from
these shores should still seek to be the guardian angel of the children
she watched over in this life? Is it unreasonable that the great hosts of
life, column on column, world on world, that have gone out from this
state, should seek to come with their higher wisdom and tenderer sympathy
to minister to those they loved in this life, and help them to cling to
the truth that saves? To me this doctrine of the spirit life, the
eminence and presence of helping and guiding spirits is a comforting
thought. It brings me into the presence of the innumerable host that
people the spirit land. It gives me somehow a consciousness of the great
fact of immortality. It gives me a sweet consciousness that my friends
live on the other shore; that to me they will come as ministering angels
in the dying hour to receive the spirit, tired by work, weakened by
sickness, wearied with years, pale from death, and bear it to the love and
life above."
* * * * *
If these utterances are not in harmony with spiritualism, and its central
and prominent idea of the very nearness of our spirit friends and the
spirit world, then I am wholly incapable of recognizing and understanding
the force of plain and direct language. They can have but one meaning, and
that in perfect accordance with spiritualism.
I find these extracts published in the Auburn _Advertiser_, of New York,
from which I copied them. There they are; read them carefully, and then
propound the question to your own heart and intelligence, namely: What
does all this mean if spiritualism be false? And if spiritualism be true,
how can these men and those holding similar views, oppose spiritualism and
be consistent and maintain their self-respect?
C. G. HELLEBERG.
Footnotes:
[1] This has reference to forget-me-not seeds which she sent me from
Sweden.
[2] This Polheim was Sweden's greatest architect, mathematician and
builder, who projected the canal between Stockholm and Gottenburg.
Transcriber's Notes:
Passages in italics are indicated by _italics_.
Punctuation has been corrected without note.
Errata corrections have been applied to the text.
Errors in the Errata page and line number references have been corrected
without note.
The following misprints have been corrected:
"Erhenborg" corrected to "Ehrenborg" (ToC)
"the the" corrected to "the" (page 19)
"Swendenborg" corrected to "Swedenborg" (page 45)
"acqainted" corrected to "acquainted" (page 54)
"enternal" corrected to "eternal" (page 69)
"farcial" corrected to "farcical" (page 70)
"achievment" corrected to "achievement" (page 92)
"enlightment" corrected to "enlightenment" (page 93)
"spiriritual" corrected to "spiritual" (page 161)
"righteouness" corrected to "righteousness" (page 168)
"afteward" corrected to "afterward" (page 177)
"Chistian" corrected to "Christian" (page 199)
"succeessful" corrected to "successful" (page 201)
missing "by" added (page 216)
"beyong" corrected to "beyond" (page 239)
"J." standardized to "T." (page 211)
Other than the corrections listed above, inconsistencies in spelling and
hyphenation have been retained from the original.