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Birth is the morning of a new day, and death is the evening of that day, and the period between lives is the period of sleeping and dreaming. Or you may turn it the other way and say that life is a dream and death the awakening to reality. But the rhythm is sure.
    Falling asleep is a passing through the astral world, much as a soul passes through it after death. You who write for me, and a few others, pass through it in full consciousness. Some day all men will pass through it consciously and will bring back the memory. You who grieve for the dead, remember that a lifetime is but a day to the immortal spirit. Often have you parted from a loved one for a day and felt no grief thereat. The loved one left home to perform a duty and you felt sure that the next day you would see him again. Can you not feel that in the next day of the soul, the next lifetime (it is all the same in eternity), you will greet your loved one again? Friends do not meet in every life unless they are very intimate. As you do not see one friend or another oftener than once a week, so in the greater days of the soul you may not meet all your friends every day. You part from one on Monday with a definite engagement to meet on Friday. Four days, four lifetimes, it is all the same in eternity.
    But from some you only part for a few hours, from noon to sunset, and meet again in the evening in the intimacy of home. Those who have left you now in the midday of life will perhaps come home to you at the sunset; which is only another way of saying that they may meet you at the end of this day of the soul, the end of this life, and be with you in the twilight period of the astral life and in the sweet dream of heaven beyond. Do not grieve. Love waits for its own. Some friends you may meet again two, four or seven lifetimes away; but those who are really your intimates, your lovers, your own, you will meet again at the sunset, or at the latest tomorrow—the next day of the soul on earth. How will you prepare for the meeting? Will you not work cheerfully all day, knowing that at dusk Love will come back to you? As sunset approaches, will you not robe yourself in the white garment of faith, the evening garment, and watch for Love at the window? Love will come. Can you not in anticipation hear his footstep on the gravel? Can you not hear the click of the lifted latch? Will you not go forward with a smile to greet Love? Surely, one day shall be as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day.
    I took counsel with the soul of an English officer who died in leading a charge. His death was quick and painless. A shot through the heart and he found himself—after a period of unconsciousness—still, as he supposed, leading a charge. But there was no enemy before him, nothing but the tranquil fields above the tumult; for so great was his exaltation of spirit—he had died with the thought of his Love in his heart—that he had gone up and up to the region where Love may have room. Seeing nothing before him he paused, looked round and saw me. “Brother,” I said, “you have left the war behind you.” He understood. Those who have lived for weeks in the tents of Death are not slow in recognizing Death when he lifts the curtain. “And what of the charge?” he asked eagerly. “Was the charge won?” “Yes,” I replied, “the force of your spirit won it.” “Then all is well,” was his answer. “Rest a little,” I said. “Rest and talk with me.”
    “Have we met before?” he asked. “For your face is familiar to me.” “My face is familiar to many on the battlefields,” I said. “When did you come—out here?” “Three years ago.” “Then you can teach me much.” “Perhaps I can teach you something. What do you want to know?” “I would know how to comfort one to whom my death will bring great grief.” “Where is she?” I asked. He named the place. “Then come,” I said, “I will go with you.” We found a beautiful woman in a little room in