The King of Terrors
From Volume 1, Number 1, January 1992 issue of The
“Quote ... Unquote” Newsletter
Hardly a day passes without newspaper reports of memorial
services noting that ‘so-and-so read from the works of Canon
Henry Scott Holland.’ The passage in question is the popular one
beginning, ‘Death is nothing at all...I have only slipped away
into the next room,’ and judging by the number of people who have
asked us for copies of it, the words have a message capable of
comforting many who are bereaved.
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
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