Death is Nothing At All

On May 15, 1910 Henry Scott Holland (1847-1918) delivered a sermon in Westminster Hall at the funeral of King Edward VII. The actual title of the sermon was "The King of Terrors", in reference to death. But the sermon is best remembered for the line "death is nothing at all".

The sermon attests to the preacher's belief that death is meaningless if we are confident in the life after death. My favourite part of the sermon is:

Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away into the next room. Nothing has happened. Everything remains exactly as it was. I am I, and you are you, and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged. Whatever we were to each other, that we are still.

A Eulogy for the Death of a Friend.