“I hope you are better than I am, dear; and think you are,” said Marion.

“Oh, no!” quickly returned Anna.

“Do you purpose evil in your heart?” asked Marion, seriously.

Anna seemed half surprised at the question.

“Evil!  Evil!  I hope not,” she replied, as a shadow came over her face.

“It is an evil purpose only that should make us fear death, Anna; for therein lies the only cause of fear.  Death, to those who love themselves and the world above every thing else, is a sad event; but to those who love God and their neighbour supremely, it is a happy change.”

“That is all true,” said Anna.  “My reason assents to it.  But, in the act of dissolution—­in that mortal strife, when the soul separates itself from the body—­there is something from which my heart shrinks and trembles down fainting in my bosom.  Ah!  In the crossing of that bourne from which no traveller has returned to tell us of what is beyond, there is something that more than half appals me.”

“There is much that takes away the fear you have mentioned,” replied Marion.  “It is the uncertain that causes us to tremble and shrink back.  But, when we know what is before us, we prepare ourselves to meet it.  Attendant upon every one who dies, says a certain writer, are two angels, who keep his mind entirely above the thought of death, and in the idea of eternal life.  They remain with him through the whole process—­protecting him from evil spirits—­and receive him into the world of spirits after his soul has fully withdrawn itself from the interior of the body.  The last idea, active in the mind of the person before death, is the first idea in his mind after death, when his consciousness of life is restored; and it is some time after this conscious life returns before he is aware that he is dead.  Around him he sees objects similar to those seen in the natural world.  There are houses and trees, streams of water and gardens.  Men and women dressed in variously fashioned garments.  They walk and converse together, as we do upon earth.  When, at length, he is told that he has died, and is now in a world that is spiritual instead of natural—­that the body in which he is, is a body formed of spiritual instead of natural substances, he is in a measure affected with surprise, and for the most part a pleasing surprise.  He wonders at the grossness of his previous ideas, which limited form and substances to material things; and now, unless he had been instructed during his life in the world, begins to comprehend the truth that man is a man from the spirit, not from the body.”

Anna, who had been listening intently, drew a long breath, as Marion paused.

“Dead, and yet not know the fact!” said she, with an expression of wonder.  “It seems incredible.  And all this you fully believe?”

“Yes, Anna; as entirely as I believe in the existence of the sun in the firmament.”

“If these doctrines can take away the fear of death, which so haunts the mind of even those who are striving to live pure lives, they are indeed a legacy of good to the world.  Oh, Marion, how much I have suffered, ever since the days of my childhood, from this dreadful fear!”