Thomas' ideas moulded my thoughts into lines of truth. He was a good man, a profound scholar and deep thinker, but lived before his time. The following I copy from his thoughts:

THE ORIGIN AND DESTINY OF MAN

BY H. W. THOMAS, D.D.

We say that this is the 12th day of December. We say that this is the year 1870. We say that it is the Sabbath evening, and that we are gathered here in the house of worship. We say that we look into each other's faces, and that you hear my words. But is this a dream, or is it reality? For in the night-time we have often dreamed that we have seen large assemblages; we have heard music and singing; we have listened to sermon or lecture; we have loved, we have hoped, we have wept, we have been glad—and in the morning we have found it was only a dream. There have not been wanting, in our world's history, those who have held that all our day-life is only another kind of a day-dream. And, when we come to think of it, it is not the easiest thing to disprove this. I do not know how to prove that I am here better than just to say so. I do not know how I can be much more certain of the fact than I am of certain facts in my dreams. Yet somehow we feel that there is something more in this life than simply an illusion, and I guess that our senses do not deceive us. The revolving earth is beneath our feet; the heavens are above our heads. But if this be so, how came we here? How and whence did we come? Are we the results of some process of material nature, the fortuitous concurrence of innumerable atoms, or are we the creatures of a living God? Is there an order and a plan about our being? Shall our days end with the autumn and the snow, or will there be a spring time? and shall we wake in the long tomorrow and be forever? Now we may ask, "Is this that we call death the end of our being?" It seems to me, if we get a correct view of death, that it is only another form of birth. Personally, I think that one coming down to a point of dying may find it something like the setting of the sun. Had we never seen the going down of our sun, we would dread the thought of darkness coming on. Men would gather in the deepest alarm as the great orb began to descend in the west. They would gaze anxiously at the last lingering rays on the tree-tops and hilltops. But as the sun gradually disappeared, and darkness began to settle over them, they would see in the distance a twinkling star; and as they looked at this, another would appear, and another, and another, till, as they stood gazing, the whole starry heavens would shine out before them. Instead of the going down of the sun being an eclipse, it only makes visible the splendor of the heavens. So we should go down to dying, thinking of the change as only revealing to us the vaster universe beyond.

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Socrates, before he died, said he expected soon to be with Homer, and Hesiod, and Orpheus, and Musaius. Cicero apostrophized his departed daughter, and said he would meet her in the realms of the blest. Dante thought to find his Beatrice in the spirit-life.

As I stand here, it seems like a dream that I am talking to you in the light of this beautiful room; that the time will soon come when others shall be here and we shall be gone. Yes, my friends, the strange mystery lies before us.