They that love beyond the world cannot be separated by it. Death is but crossing the world, as friends do the seas; they live in one another still.

This passage is attributed to William Penn in the context of Quaker consolatory writing about death and spiritual continuity. Penn, a leading early Friend, frequently framed death not as annihilation but as a transition within God’s order, emphasizing the inward life and the enduring bonds of love among the faithful. The imagery of “crossing the world” and friends separated by “seas” reflects early modern travel experience and the Quaker sense of a community that could remain united despite physical distance, persecution, or mortality. The quotation is commonly circulated in later anthologies and memorial literature as a meditation suitable for bereavement.

Penn contrasts worldly separation with a love grounded in something transcendent. If affection is rooted merely in proximity, death ends it; but if it is “beyond the world,” it belongs to a spiritual order that physical events cannot undo. The metaphor of crossing the world “as friends do the seas” suggests that distance changes the mode of relationship rather than abolishing it: friends remain present through memory, mutual influence, and—within Penn’s religious framework—through the soul’s continued life in God. The final claim, “they live in one another still,” emphasizes interiority: the beloved becomes part of one’s moral and emotional life, surviving as an active presence.