“As I laid her head back on the pillow, there was a warm, peaceful smile on her face. Her golden-brown hair lay carelessly on the pillow. I took a white flower from the vase and placed it in her hair. With her petite, trim figure, her wavy hair, the white flower, and the soft smile, she looked once more—and permanently—just like a schoolgirl.”

The mention of her cousin Ruth by the dying girl and the evident fact that she saw her clearly is a phenomenon that recurs again and again in the incidents which have come to my attention. So repetitive is this phenomenon and so similar are the characteristics of this experience as described by many that it amounts to a substantial evidence that the people whose names are called, whose faces are seen, are actually present.

Where are they? What is their condition? What sort of body have they? These are questions that are difficult. The idea of a different dimension is probably the most tenable, or it may be more accurate to believe that they live in a different frequency cycle.

It is impossible to see through the blades of an electric fan when it is in a stationary position. At high speed, however, the blades appear to be transparent. In the higher frequency or the state in which our loved ones dwell, the impenetrable qualities of the universe may open to the gaze of one passing into the mysteries. In deep moments of our own lives it is entirely possible that we enter to a degree at least into that higher frequency. In one of the most beautiful lines in English literature, Robert Ingersoll suggests this great truth, “In the night of death, hope sees a star and listening love can hear the rustle of a wing.”

A famous neurologist tells of a man who was at death’s door. The dying man looked up at the physician sitting beside his bed and began to call off names which the physician wrote down. The doctor was personally unfamiliar with any name mentioned. Later the physician asked the man’s daughter, “Who are these people? Your father spoke of them as if he saw them.”

“They are all relatives,” she said, “who have been dead a long time.”

The physician said he believes his patient did see them.

Friends of mine, Mr. and Mrs. William Sage, lived in New Jersey and I was often in their home. Mr. Sage, whom his wife called Will, died first. A few years later, when Mrs. Sage was on her deathbed, the most surprised look passed across her face, and it lighted up in a wonderful smile as she said, “Why, it is Will.” That she saw him those about her bed had no doubt whatsoever.

Arthur Godfrey, famous radio personality, tells of being asleep in his bunk on a destroyer in World War I. Suddenly his father stood beside him. He put out his hand, smiled, and said, “So long, son,” and Godfrey answered, “So long, Dad.”

Later he was awakened and given a cablegram telling him of the death of his father. The time of his passing was given, and it was the precise period during which Godfrey in his sleep “saw” his father.

Mary Margaret McBride, also a famous radio personality, was overwhelmed with grief upon the death of her mother. They had been very close to each other. She awakened one night and sat on the edge of her bed. Suddenly she had the feeling, to use her own words, that “Mama was with me.” She did not see her mother nor hear her speak, but from that time on, “I knew that my mother isn’t dead—that she is near by.”

The late Rufus Jones, one of the most famous spiritual leaders of our time, tells about his son Lowell who died at twelve years of age. He was the apple of his father’s eye. The boy took sick when Dr. Jones was on the ocean bound for Europe. The night before entering Liverpool, while lying in his bunk, he experienced an indefinable, inexplainable feeling of sadness. Then he said that he seemed to be enveloped in the arms of God. A great feeling of peace and a sense of a profound possession of his son came to him.

Upon landing in Liverpool he was advised that his son had died, his death occurring at the precise hour when Dr. Jones had felt a sense of God’s presence and the everlasting nearness of his son.

A member of my church, Mrs. Bryson Kalt, tells of an aunt whose husband and three children were burned to death when their house was destroyed by fire. The aunt was badly burned but lived for three years. When finally she lay dying a radiance suddenly came over her face. “It is all so beautiful,” she said. “They are coming to meet me. Fluff up my pillows and let me go to sleep.”

Mr. H. B. Clarke, an old friend of mine, was for many years a construction engineer, his work taking him into all parts of the world. He was of a scientific turn of mind, a quite restrained, factual, unemotional type of man. I was called one night by his physician, who said that he did not expect him to live but a few hours. His heart action was slow and the blood pressure was extraordinarily low. There was no reflex action at all. The doctor gave no hope.

I began to pray for him, as did others. The next day his eyes opened and after a few days he recovered his speech. His heart action and blood pressure returned to normal. After he recovered strength he said, “At some time during my illness something very peculiar happened to me. I cannot explain it. It seemed that I was a long distance away. I was in the most beautiful and attractive place I have ever seen. There were lights all about me, beautiful lights. I saw faces dimly revealed, kind faces they were, and I felt very peaceful and happy. In fact, I have never felt happier in my life.

“Then the thought came to me, ‘I must be dying.’ Then it occurred to me, ‘Perhaps I have died.’ Then I almost laughed out loud, and asked myself, ‘Why have I been afraid of death all my life? There is nothing to be afraid of in this.’”

“How did you feel about it?” I asked. “Did you want to come back to life? Did you want to live, for you were not dead, although the doctor felt that you were very close to death. Did you want to live?”

He smiled and said, “It did not make the slightest difference. If anything, I think I would have preferred to stay in that beautiful place.”

Hallucination, a dream, a vision—I do not believe so. I have spent too many years talking to people who have come to the edge of “something” and had a look across, who unanimously have reported beauty, light, and peace, to have any doubt in my own mind.

The New Testament teaches the indestructibility of life in a most interesting and simple manner. It describes Jesus after His crucifixion in a series of appearances, disappearances, and reappearances. Some saw Him and then He vanished out of their sight. Then others saw Him and again He vanished. It is as if to say, “You see me and then you do not see me.” This indicates that He is trying to tell us that when we do not see Him, it does not mean He is not there. Out of sight does not mean out of life. Occasional mystical appearances which some experience indicate the same truth, that He is near by. Did He not say, “… because I live, ye shall live also.” (John 14:19) In other words, our loved ones who have died in this faith are also near by and occasionally draw near to comfort us.

A boy serving in Korea wrote to his mother, saying, “The strangest things happen to me. Once in a while at night, when I am afraid, Daddy seems to be with me.” Daddy had been dead for ten years. Then the boy wistfully asks his mother, “Do you think that Daddy can actually be with me here on these Korean battlefields?” The answer is, “Why not?” How can we be citizens of a scientific generation and not believe that this could be true? Again and again proofs are offered that this is a dynamic universe, surcharged with mystic, electric, electronic, atomic forces, and all are so wonderful that we have never yet comprehended them. This universe is a great spiritual sounding house, alive and vital.

Albert E. Cliff, well-known Canadian writer, tells of the death of his father. The dying man had sunk into a coma and it was thought he was gone. Then a momentary resurgence of life occurred. His eyes flickered open. On the wall was one of those old-time mottoes which said, “I Know That My Redeemer Liveth.” The dying man opened his eyes, looked at that motto, and said, “I do know that my Redeemer liveth, for they are all here around me—mother, father, brothers, and sisters.” Long gone from this earth were they all, but evidently he saw them. Who is to gainsay?

The late Mrs. Thomas A. Edison told me that when her famous husband was dying he whispered to his physician, “It is beautiful over there.” Edison was the world’s greatest scientist. All his life he had worked with phenomena. He was of a factual cast of mind. He never reported anything as a fact until he saw it work. He would never have reported, “It is very beautiful over there” unless, having seen, he knew it to be true.

Many years ago a missionary went to the South Sea Islands to work among a cannibal tribe. After many months he converted the chief to Christianity. One day this old chief said to the missionary, “Remember the time you first came among us?”

“Indeed I do,” replied the missionary. “As I went through the forest I became aware of hostile forces all around me.”

“They did indeed surround you,” said the chief, “for we were following you to kill you, but something prevented us from doing it.”

“And what was that?” asked the missionary.

“Now that we are friends, tell me,” coaxed the chief, “who were those two shining ones walking on either side of you?”

My friend, Geoffrey O’Hara, famous song writer, author of the popular World War I song, “Katy,” also “There Is No Death,” “Give a Man a Horse He Can Ride,” and other songs, tells of a colonel in World War I whose regiment was wiped out in a bloody engagement. As he paced up and down the trench he says he could feel their hands and sense their presence. He said to Geoffrey O’Hara, “I tell you, there is no death.” Mr. O’Hara wrote one of his greatest songs using that title, “there is no death.”

Of these deep and tender matters I personally have no doubt whatsoever. I firmly believe in the continuation of life after that which we call death takes place. I believe there are two sides to the phenomenon known as death—this side where we now live and the other side where we shall continue to live. Eternity does not start with death. We are in eternity now. We are citizens of eternity. We merely change the form of the experience called life, and that change, I am persuaded, is for the better.

My mother was a great soul, and her influence on me will ever stand out in my life as an experience that cannot be surpassed. She was a wonderful conversationalist. Her mind was keen and alert. She traveled the world over and enjoyed wide contacts as a Christian leader in missionary causes. Her life was full and rich. She had a marvelous sense of humor. She was good company, and I always loved to be with her. She was considered by all who knew her an unusually fascinating and stimulating personality.

During my adult years whenever I had the opportunity I would go home to see her. I always anticipated the arrival at the family home, for it was an exciting experience in which everyone talked at once as we sat around the breakfast table. What happy reunions—what glorious meetings. Then came her death, and we tenderly laid her body in the beautiful little cemetery at Lynchburg in southern Ohio, a town where she had lived as a girl. I was very sad the day we left her there, and went away heavy-hearted. It was in the fullness of summertime when we took her home to her last resting place.

It came autumn, and I felt that I wanted to be with my mother again. I was lonely without her, therefore I decided to go to Lynchburg. All night long on the train I thought sadly of the happy days now gone and how things were utterly changed and would never be the same again.

So I came to the little town. The weather was cold and the sky overcast as I walked to the cemetery. I pushed through the old iron gates and my feet rustled in the leaves as I walked to her grave where I sat sad and lonely. Of a sudden the clouds parted and the sun came through. It lighted up the Ohio hills in gorgeous autumn colors, the hills where I grew up as a boy, which I have always loved so well, where she herself had played as a girl in the long ago.

Then all of a sudden I seemed to hear her voice. Now I didn’t actually hear her voice, but I seemed to. I am sure I heard it by the inward ear. The message was clear and distinct. It was stated in her beloved old-time tone, and this is what she said, “Why seek ye the living among the dead? I am not here. Do you think that I would stay in this dark and dismal place? I am with you and my loved ones always.” In a burst of inner light I became wondrously happy. I knew that what I had heard was the truth. The message came to me with all the force of actuality. I could have shouted, and I stood up and put my hand on the tombstone and saw it for what it is, only a place where mortal remains lay. The body was there, to be sure, but it was only a coat that had been laid off because the wearer needed it no longer. But she, that gloriously lovely spirit, she was not there.

I walked out of that place and only rarely since have I returned. I like to go back there and think of her and the old days of my youth, but no longer is it a place of gloom. It is merely a symbol, for she is not there. She is with us her loved ones. “Why seek ye the living among the dead?” (Luke 24:5)

Read and believe the Bible as it tells about the goodness of God and the immortality of the soul. Pray sincerely and with faith. Make prayer and faith the habit of your life. Learn to have real fellowship with God and with Jesus Christ. As you do this you will find a deep conviction welling up in your mind that these wonderful things are true indeed.

“… if it were not so, I would have told you.” (John 14:2) You can depend upon the reliability of Christ. He would not let you believe and hold convictions so sacred in nature unless they are absolutely true.

So in this faith, which is a sound, substantial, and rational view of life and eternity, you have the prescription for heartache.