Death then, being the Way and Condition of Life - William Penn

And this is the Comfort of the Good,
that the Grave cannot hold them,
and that they live as soon as they die.

For Death is no more than a Turning of us over
from Time to Eternity.

Nor can there be a Revolution without it;
for it supposes the Dissolution of one form,
in order to the Succession of another.

Death then, being the Way and Condition of Life,
we cannot love to live,
if we cannot bear to die.

They that love beyond the World,
cannot be separated by it.

Death cannot kill, what never dies.

Nor can Spirits ever be divided
that love and live in the same Divine Principle;
the Root and Record of their Friendship.

If Absence be not death, neither is theirs.

Death is but Crossing the World,
as Friends do the Seas;
They live in one another still.

For they must needs be present,
that love and live in that which is Omnipresent.

In this Divine Glass,
they see Face to Face;
and their Converse is Free, as well as Pure.

This is the Comfort of Friends,
that though they may be said to Die,
yet their Friendship and Society are, in the best Sense,
ever present, because Immortal.

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