Lillian Summer Writes Her Testimony So It May Help Other Women Turn to Things Spiritual

June 6, 1916
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.

I am here, the woman who lost her soul to preserve her standing in society while on earth. I was a woman who never thought of things spiritual or of the future life, but lived only for the pleasures of the present.

I had everything that money could buy and never knew what trouble in the way of desiring and not getting meant. I had an indulgent husband and lovely children, who made my home very happy, and who loved me with all the love of their natures and, of course, I loved them; but I did not feel the necessity of any other love, nor did I really know of any greater or higher love.

Of course, I attended church and listened to the sermons of the preachers and enjoyed them as intellectual treats, but as to appealing to my soul, I never once, as I can remember, experienced any sensation other than what came from the exaltation of my mind. My children were sent to Sunday school and learned what the teachers tried to instruct them in, but at home they had no religious teachings, as I never had any religious experience myself.

My husband was not an attendant at church and knew nothing of the higher things of life and was satisfied to make money so that his family could have all the comforts of home. We had a happy home in our love and associations and never felt that there was any other happiness that might be ours other than that which we had.

Now I realize the want of this spiritual conception of my being and the great joy that I am deprived of because of my want of knowledge of the things of the soul. I had a love nature, and I loved most people with whom I came in contact in a society way, yet this love was more or less unconsciously given, and my great ambition was to become a society leader, and the admiration, and possibly envy, of my friends.

Now, I see the falsity of it all, and how little of the ambitions of life, in the particulars mentioned, weighed in the standing and happiness of the spirits in this world of revelation and nakedness, for I am naked as regards all the thoughts and acts of my life, and very seldom do I see anything that helps my present condition.

I merely write you this that possibly someone who is living the life that I lived may read it, and turn her thoughts to the essentials, and let all these things of the earthly become secondary and of minor importance. My name was Lillian Summer, and I lived in Richmond, Virginia, and died in 1902.

I thank you for permitting me to write, as it has made me feel better and more at home.

I will say good night.

Lillian Summer