Homos. I, for
one, should like to hear you express yourself fully."
It was always the unexpected, certainly, that happened from the Altrurian.
"It is merely this," he said: "Having come to live rightly upon earth, as
we believe, or having at least ceased to deny God in our statutes and
customs, the fear of death, as it once, weighed upon us, has been lifted
from our souls. The mystery of it has so far been taken away that we
perceive it as something just and natural. Now that all unkindness has
been banished from among us, we can conceive of no such cruelty as death
once seemed. If we do not know yet the full meaning of death, we know that
the Creator of it and of us meant mercy and blessing by it. When one dies
we grieve, but not as those without hope. We do not say that the dead have
gone to a better place, and then selfishly bewail them, for we have the
kingdom of heaven upon earth already, and we know that wherever they go
they will be homesick for Altruria; and when we think of the years that
may pass before we meet them again our hearts ache, as theirs must. But
the presence of the risen Christ in our daily lives is our assurance that
no one ceases to be, and that we shall see our dead again.
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