Observations placeholder
Charles Dyer
Identifier
002539
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
From Death Bed Visions – Sir William Barrett
From Mrs Shepherd of Orleton in Herefordshire
A young boy, aged fourteen, named Charles Dyer, who lived with his parents at Orleton, was dying of consumption, and had wasted away very rapidly in four or five months. During the whole of that period he was very bright, full of interest in all around, and did not seem to be aware of his rapidly failing strength.
About a week before he died he slept in a room off his mother's, with no door between - he called her and when she went in, he was full of excitement about a door he could see at the corner of his room, which he said was 'opening wider and wider'…………
On the morning of the day he died, his mother having left the room to fetch him something, heard him call and hastening back, found him sitting up in bed, looking towards the corner of the room, and he said to her,
'There is a nice old man come for me; he is holding out his arms for me. I must go. Don't fret, Mother' ; and he fell back gently on his pillow and was gone, without any struggle for breath, and with a smile of joy on his face, which remained.
His mother … came down to the Vicarage that same morning to tell me of it. The impression this experience made upon her has continued to the present day, and has influenced her life for the better