St Augustine himself related the following true story of how a God-fearing doctor was divinely instructed on a very important truth in a most unusual way.

The doctor lived in Carthage, and was called Gennadius. He was a good man, but one who was also troubled by doubts. Being a doctor, he came into contact with death more often than most men do, and he began to wonder and fear that man's existence ended at death.

One night he had a dream. He saw a youth standing before him in shining garments, who looked intently at him, and asked: "Are you asleep or awake?"

Gennadius answered, "I am asleep."

"Can you see me?" his visitor asked him.

"Yes, I see you." The doctor replied.

"How do you see me?" was the next question; "do you see me with your eyes?"

"I do not see you with my eyes." Gennadius answered. "I…I do not know in what way I see you."

"Do you hear me?" The youth asked.

"Yes, I hear you." Came the reply.

"How do you hear me; do you hear me with your ears?" The youth went on.

"I do not hear you with my ears; I do not know how I can hear you." Gennadius said, growing puzzled by the unusual questions this strange youth was asking him.

"Are you speaking now?" the youth again inquired.

"Yes, I am speaking."

"How are you speaking; are you speaking with your mouth?"

"I am not speaking with my lips; I do not know how I am speaking," replied the physician. He was slightly disturbed. The questions were strange, but the answers made them even stranger. He was asleep, his senses were not in use…how was he able to see, hear, and speak? It was obviously not through the means of his body.

Hopelessly confused, Gennadius looked to the youth for an explanation of these mysterious facts. The young man then said to him: "The use of your senses is now suspended - yet you see, hear, and speak."

The doctor then understood. It was not through the senses of his body that he could do those things, but through those of his soul. As this realization dawned in his mind, Gennadius heard the young man continue.

"A time will come when your senses will be rendered totally incapable of action by the hand of death,…" here the youth paused and, looking into Gennadius’ eyes, finished solemnly, "and yet you will be able to see, to hear, to speak, and to feel."

With these words, the shining young man vanished, and the doctor awoke. Pondering his unusual dream, he took its lesson to heart and soon his anxieties were replaced by a deep peace. The same soul that enabled him to experience beings and places that his body could not, would enable him to continue experiencing those things after his body was gone.

From that day forward Gennadius was troubled with no more doubts, but firmly believed in the existence of the soul after the death of the body.