But how did the reading enter into common use, and where does it come? It can be found printed, for example, in a booklet Prayers Before & After Bereavement (Mayhew McCrimmon Ltd, 1985) and in a small illustrated hardback (Souvenir Press, 1987). For the real answer, however, we must go back to the author himself. One suggestion we received was that Scott Holland had put the words in a letter which he directed to be read after his own death and at his own funeral.
Henry Scott Holland (1847-1918) was editor of the magazines Commonwealth and Miracles, he was a Canon of St. Paul's Cathedral noted for his sermons (some of which were published), and he became Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford. He has a memorial tablet in St. Paul's crypt (erected by his sisters) but it makes no reference to `Death is...' understandably, as the popularity of the words is of only recent origin. According to the Dictionary of National Biography, Scott Holland was buried at Cuddesdon church, Oxfordshire, but we have been unable to locate the grave, if it is there.
The popular passage comes from a sermon on death written by Scott Holland and entitled `The King of Terrors.' He delivered it in St. Paul's on 15 May 1910), at which time the body of King Edward VII was lying in state at Westminster. The context is important:
I suppose all of us hover between two ways of regarding death, which appear to be in hopeless contradiction with each other. First there is the familiar and instinctive recoil from it as embodying the supreme and irrevocable disaster...
But, then, there is another aspect altogether which death can wear for us. It is that which first comes to us, perhaps, as we look down upon the quiet face, so cold and white, of one who has been very near and dear to us. There it lies in possession of its own secret. It knows it all. So we seem to feel. And what the face says in its sweet silence to us as a last message from one whom we loved 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. Call me by the old familiar name. Speak of me in the easy way which you always used. Put no difference into your tone. Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word that it always was. Let it be spoken without an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was. There is absolute and unbroken continuity. What is this death but a negligible accident? Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just around the corner. All is well. Nothing is hurt; nothing is lost. One brief moment and all will be as it was before. How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again!'
So the face speaks. Surely while we speak there is a smile flitting over it; a smile as of gentle fun at the trick played us by seeming death...'
The sermon was published posthumously in a collection entitled Facts of the Faith (Longmans, 1919). Our thanks to Frank Atkinson, Librarian, St. Paul's Cathedral and Arthur Illes, Cambridge University Library, for their help in locating this information.
Copyright © 1992 by Nigel Rees