August 13th, 1915
Received by James Padgett
Washington D.C.
I am here, Latimer.
I was the martyr who was burned at the stake because of my belief in God, and in salvation by faith and works as taught in the Scriptures. My name was Latimer - Hugh.
I merely come to tell you that I am now a happy spirit and an inhabitant of the Father's Kingdom. I live in the Celestial Heavens and am a follower of the Master as I was on earth.
No, I do not now worship him as God. That false doctrine I believed when on earth, but now I know that there is only one God to be worshiped, and that Jesus is His most exalted son. I was surprised, I must confess, when I entered the spirit world and did not enter heaven and see God on His throne and Jesus sitting on His right hand. But it was not long before I understood the truth, for Jesus came to me himself and explained that he was not God and that I must not worship him as such. But we who love God as followers of Christ, adore the Master as our great teacher and elder brother.
When I first entered the spirit world I found myself in the second sphere among spirits of brightness and love, and after a little while, I entered the third sphere where love is more abundant, and then as my soul became filled with this love and my errors of belief left me, I progressed from sphere to sphere until I arrived where I am now living, and I thank God for His Love and Mercy.
I do not think the fact that I died a martyr to my beliefs had any effect in enabling me to reach a higher sphere than I would otherwise have entered. Not the manner of my death determined my place in the spirit world, but the development of my soul qualities did. If I had a belief in what I thought were truths, but which were not really truths, and that belief, proclaimed and persisted in, had caused my being put to death, you can readily see that the mere fact that I died for the sake of that belief would not have in any way helped my soul development in the real truth, and so the mere fact that I died a martyr for the real truth did not help me in obtaining a place in the spirit world that I would not have obtained had I died a natural death with the same beliefs. The manner of a man's death does not determine anything, but the manner of his living and the development of his soul qualities are what determines where he shall live in the spirit world.
Of course, the death of the martyr will sometimes awaken soul qualities or conceptions that might not otherwise have been awakened, and thereby increase the martyr's love for the Father; and in this way such a death may help him in his progress to higher things. But as I say, the soul development fixes the first home of the spirit. I mean the development at the time of passing over.
My dear brother I must stop now, but will come again sometime and write you.
Yours in Love,
Hugh Latimer