o death; life is everlasting. So to speak, when the atom entered
into the composition of the tree, it died to the mineral kingdom, and when
consumed by the animal, it died to the vegetable kingdom, and so on until
its transference or transmutation into the kingdom of man; but throughout
its traversing it was subject to transformation and not annihilation.
Death therefore is applicable to a change or transference from one degree
or condition to another. In the mineral realm there was a spirit of
existence; in the world of plant life and organisms it reappeared as the
vegetative spirit; thence it attained the animal spirit and finally
aspired to the human spirit. These are degrees and changes but not
obliteration; and this is a rational proof that man is everlasting,
everliving. Therefore death is only a relative term implying change. For
example, we will say that this light before me, having reappeared in
another incandescent lamp, has died in the one and lives in the other.
This is not death in reality. The perfections of the mineral are
translated into the vegetable and from thence into the animal, the virtue
always attaining a plus or superlative degree in the upward change. In
each kingdom we find the same virtues manifesting themselves more fully,
proving that the reality has been transferred from a lower to a higher
form and kingdom of being. Therefore non-existence is only relative and
absolute non-existence inconceivable. This rose in my hand will become
disintegrated and its symmetry destroyed, but the elements of its
composition remain changeless; nothing affects their elemental integrity.
They cannot become non-existent; they are simply transferred from one
state to another.

Through his ignorance, man fears death; but the death he shrinks from is
imaginary and absolutely unreal; it is only human imagination.

The bestowal and grace of God have quickened the realm of existence with
life and being. For existence there is neither change nor transformation;
existence is ever existence; it can never be translated into
non-existence. It is gradation; a degree below a higher degree is
considered as non-existence. This dust beneath our feet, as compared with
our being is non-existent. When the human body crumbles into dust we can
say it has become non-existent; therefore its dust in relation to living
forms of human being is as non-existent but in its own sphere it is
existent, it has its mineral being. Therefore it