Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Walter Dudley Cavert

American Pastor of Grace Presbyterian Church in Oswego and Author

"The fact that we cannot see our friends or communicate with them after the transformation, which we call death, is no proof that they cease to exist."

"In the bottom of an old pond lived some grubs who could not understand why none of their groups ever came back after crawling up the stem of the lilies to the top of the water. They promised each other that the next one who was called to make the upward climb would return and tell what happened to him. Soon one of them felt an urgent impulse to seek the surface; he rested himself on top of a lily pad and went through a glorious transformation which made him a dragonfly with beautiful wings. In vain he tried to keep him promise. Flying back and forth over the pond, he peered down at his friends below. Then he realized that if they could ever see him they would not recognize such a radiant creature as one of their number. The fact that we cannot see our friends or communicate with them after the transformation, which we call death, is no proof that they cease to exit."