Physical Keepsakes?

You see it could not be otherwise, she went on, speaking low. Where would you be, or I, or they who seem to us so much dearer and better than ourselves, if it were not for Jesus Christ? What can heaven be to us, but a song of the love that is the same to us yesterday, today, and forever—that, in the mystery of an intensity which we shall perhaps never understand, could choose death and be glad in the choosing, and, what is more than that, could live life for us for three-and thirty years? I cannot strain my faith—or rather my common sense to the rhapsodies with which many people fill heaven. But it seems to me like this—A friend goes away from us, and it may be seas or worlds that lie between us, and we love him. He leaves behind him his little keepsakes—a lock of hair to curl about our fingers—a picture that has caught the trick of his eyes or smile—a book, a flower, a letter. What we do with the curling hair, what we say to the picture, what we dream over the flower and the letter, nobody knows but ourselves. People have risked life for such mementos. Yet who loves the senseless gift more than the giver—the curl more than the young forehead on which it fell, the letter more than the hand which traced it? So it seems to me that we shall learn to see in God the centre of all possibilities of joy. The greatest of these lesser delights is but the greater measure of His friendship. They will not mean less of pleasure, but more of Him.  Human dearness will wax, not wane, in heaven—but human friends will be loved for love of Him. I see—that helps me—like a torch in a dark. But there will be shadows in the corners. Do you suppose that we shall ever fully feel it in the body? In the body, probably not. We see through a glass so darkly that the temptation to idolatry is always our greatest. with Paganism. At times I fancy that, somewhere between this world and another, a revelation will come upon us like a flash, of what sin really is, such a revelation, lighting up the lurid background of our past in such colours, that the consciousness of what Christ has done for us will be for a time as much as heart can bear. After that, the mystery will be, not how to love Him most, but that we ever could have loved any creature or thing as much.

A shift from fear to natural love?

You had all your life been directed to an indefinite heaven, where the glory of God was to crowd out all individuality and all human joy from His most individual and human creatures, till the Glory of God had become nothing but a name and a dread to you. So I let those three words slide by, and tried to bring you to them, as Christ brought the Twelve to believe in him, for the works' sake. Yes, my child—clinging human loves, stifled longings, cries for rest, forgotten hopes, shall have their answer. Whatever the bewilderment of beauties folded away for us in heavenly nature and art, they shall strive with each other to make us glad. These things have their pleasant place. But, through eternity, there will be always something beyond and dearer than the dearest of them. God himself will be first—naturally and of necessity, without strain or struggle, first. When I sat here last winter with my dead in my house, those words would have roused in me an agony of wild questionings. I should have beaten about them and beaten against them, and cried in my honest heart that they were false. I knew that I loved Roy more than I loved such a Being as God seemed to me then to be. Now, they strike me as simply and pleasantly true. The more I love Roy, the more I love Him. He loves us both.

Psalm 46:1?

I believe I want—God. You have not said much about Him. The Bible says a great deal about Him. You have given me the filling-up of heaven in all its pleas ant promise, but—I don't know—there seems to be an outline wanting. 

No dead fact stranded on the shore

Of the oblivious years—

But warm, sweet, tender, even yet

A present help. 

He was an inexorable Mystery who took Roy from me to lose him in the glare of a more inexorable heaven. He is a Father who knew better than we that we should be parted for a while—but He only means it to be a little while. He is keeping him for me to find in the flush of some summer morning, on which I shall open my eyes no less naturally than I open them on June sunrises now. I always have that fancy of going in the morning.

Jeremiah 32:40–41?

I believe I want—God. You have not said much about Him. The Bible says a great deal about Him. You have given me the filling-up of heaven in all its pleas ant promise, but—I don't know—there seems to be an outline wanting. 

No dead fact stranded on the shore

Of the oblivious years—

But warm, sweet, tender, even yet

A present help. 

He was an inexorable Mystery who took Roy from me to lose him in the glare of a more inexorable heaven. He is a Father who knew better than we that we should be parted for a while—but He only means it to be a little while. He is keeping him for me to find in the flush of some summer morning, on which I shall open my eyes no less naturally than I open them on June sunrises now. I always have that fancy of going in the morning.

John 14:6?

I believe I want—God. You have not said much about Him. The Bible says a great deal about Him. You have given me the filling-up of heaven in all its pleas ant promise, but—I don't know—there seems to be an outline wanting. 

No dead fact stranded on the shore

Of the oblivious years—

But warm, sweet, tender, even yet

A present help. 

He was an inexorable Mystery who took Roy from me to lose him in the glare of a more inexorable heaven. He is a Father who knew better than we that we should be parted for a while—but He only means it to be a little while. He is keeping him for me to find in the flush of some summer morning, on which I shall open my eyes no less naturally than I open them on June sunrises now. I always have that fancy of going in the morning.

2 Corinthians 1:20?

I believe I want—God. You have not said much about Him. The Bible says a great deal about Him. You have given me the filling-up of heaven in all its pleas ant promise, but—I don't know—there seems to be an outline wanting. 

No dead fact stranded on the shore

Of the oblivious years—

But warm, sweet, tender, even yet

A present help. 

He was an inexorable Mystery who took Roy from me to lose him in the glare of a more inexorable heaven. He is a Father who knew better than we that we should be parted for a while—but He only means it to be a little while. He is keeping him for me to find in the flush of some summer morning, on which I shall open my eyes no less naturally than I open them on June sunrises now. I always have that fancy of going in the morning.

Hebrews 12:13?

I believe I want—God. You have not said much about Him. The Bible says a great deal about Him. You have given me the filling-up of heaven in all its pleas ant promise, but—I don't know—there seems to be an outline wanting. 

No dead fact stranded on the shore

Of the oblivious years—

But warm, sweet, tender, even yet

A present help. 

He was an inexorable Mystery who took Roy from me to lose him in the glare of a more inexorable heaven. He is a Father who knew better than we that we should be parted for a while—but He only means it to be a little while. He is keeping him for me to find in the flush of some summer morning, on which I shall open my eyes no less naturally than I open them on June sunrises now. I always have that fancy of going in the morning.

Matthew 28:20?

I believe I want—God. You have not said much about Him. The Bible says a great deal about Him. You have given me the filling-up of heaven in all its pleas ant promise, but—I don't know—there seems to be an outline wanting. 

No dead fact stranded on the shore

Of the oblivious years—

But warm, sweet, tender, even yet

A present help. 

He was an inexorable Mystery who took Roy from me to lose him in the glare of a more inexorable heaven. He is a Father who knew better than we that we should be parted for a while—but He only means it to be a little while. He is keeping him for me to find in the flush of some summer morning, on which I shall open my eyes no less naturally than I open them on June sunrises now. I always have that fancy of going in the morning.

Numbers 23:19?

I believe I want—God. You have not said much about Him. The Bible says a great deal about Him. You have given me the filling-up of heaven in all its pleas ant promise, but—I don't know—there seems to be an outline wanting. 

No dead fact stranded on the shore

Of the oblivious years—

But warm, sweet, tender, even yet

A present help. 

He was an inexorable Mystery who took Roy from me to lose him in the glare of a more inexorable heaven. He is a Father who knew better than we that we should be parted for a while—but He only means it to be a little while. He is keeping him for me to find in the flush of some summer morning, on which I shall open my eyes no less naturally than I open them on June sunrises now. I always have that fancy of going in the morning.

John 14:9?

I believe I want—God. You have not said much about Him. The Bible says a great deal about Him. You have given me the filling-up of heaven in all its pleas ant promise, but—I don't know—there seems to be an outline wanting. 

No dead fact stranded on the shore

Of the oblivious years—

But warm, sweet, tender, even yet

A present help. 

He was an inexorable Mystery who took Roy from me to lose him in the glare of a more inexorable heaven. He is a Father who knew better than we that we should be parted for a while—but He only means it to be a little while. He is keeping him for me to find in the flush of some summer morning, on which I shall open my eyes no less naturally than I open them on June sunrises now. I always have that fancy of going in the morning.

John 15:15?

I believe I want—God. You have not said much about Him. The Bible says a great deal about Him. You have given me the filling-up of heaven in all its pleas ant promise, but—I don't know—there seems to be an outline wanting. 

No dead fact stranded on the shore

Of the oblivious years—

But warm, sweet, tender, even yet

A present help. 

He was an inexorable Mystery who took Roy from me to lose him in the glare of a more inexorable heaven. He is a Father who knew better than we that we should be parted for a while—but He only means it to be a little while. He is keeping him for me to find in the flush of some summer morning, on which I shall open my eyes no less naturally than I open them on June sunrises now. I always have that fancy of going in the morning.

Exodus 3:13–15?

I believe I want—God. You have not said much about Him. The Bible says a great deal about Him. You have given me the filling-up of heaven in all its pleas ant promise, but—I don't know—there seems to be an outline wanting. 

No dead fact stranded on the shore

Of the oblivious years—

But warm, sweet, tender, even yet

A present help. 

He was an inexorable Mystery who took Roy from me to lose him in the glare of a more inexorable heaven. He is a Father who knew better than we that we should be parted for a while—but He only means it to be a little while. He is keeping him for me to find in the flush of some summer morning, on which I shall open my eyes no less naturally than I open them on June sunrises now. I always have that fancy of going in the morning.

Learn and pray away?

Grace and peace in Christ, my dear little son. I see with pleasure that thou learnest well, and prayed diligently. Do so, my son, and continue. When I come home I will bring thee a pretty fairing. I know a pretty, merry garden wherein are many children. They have little golden coats, and they gather beautiful apples under the trees, and pears, cherries, plums, and wheat-plums—sing, and jump, and are merry. They have beautiful little horses, too, with gold bits and silver saddles. And I asked the man to whom the garden they belongs, whose children they were. And he said—They are the children that love to pray and to learn, and are good. Then said I—Dear man, I have a son, too—his name is Johnny Luther. May he not also come into this garden and eat these beautiful apples and pears, and ride these fine horses? Then the man said—If he loves to pray and to learn, and is good, he shall come into this garden, and Lippus and Jost too—and when they all come together, they shall have fifes and trumpets, lutes and all sorts of music, and they shall dance, and shoot with little crossbows. And he showed me a fine meadow there in the garden, made for dancing. There hung nothing but golden fifes, trumpets, and fine silver crossbows. But it was early, and the children had not yet eaten—therefore I could not wait the dance, and I said to the man—Ah, dear sir! I will immediately go and write all this to my little son Johnny, and tell him to pray diligently, and to learn well, and to be good, so that he also may come to this garden. But he has an Aunt Lehne, he must bring her with him. Then the man said—It shall be so—go, and write him so. Therefore, my dear little son Johnny, learn and pray away! and tell Lippus and Jost, too, that they must learn and pray. And then you shall come to the garden together. Herewith I commend thee to Almighty God. And greet Aunt Lehne, and give her a kiss for my sake. 

Thy dear Father 

MARTINUS LUTHER. ΑΝΝΟ 1530

There was that poor little fellow whose guinea pig died?

There was that poor little fellow whose guinea pig died—do you remember? Only half—what was it? O mamma he sobbed out, behind his handkerchief, don't great big elephants have souls? No, my son. Nor camels, mamma? No. Nor bears, nor alligators, nor chickens? O no, dear. O mamma, mamma! Don't little CLEAN white-guinea-pigs have souls? I never should have had the heart to say no to that—especially as we have no positive proof to the contrary. " Then that scrap of a boy who lost his little red balloon the morning he bought it, and, broken hearted, wanted to know whether it had gone to heaven. Don't I suppose if he had been taken there himself that very minute, that he would have found a little balloon in waiting for him ? How can I help it?

Who gets it all up?

Who gets it all up? asked puzzled Molly. Jesus Christ will give me all these beautiful fings said Faith, evidently repeating her mother's words—the only catechism that she has been taught. And what will He do when He sees you? asked her mother, coming down the stairs and stepping up behind her. Take me up in His arms and kiss me. And what will Faith say? Fank-you! said the child, softly. In another minute she was absorbed, body and soul, in the mysteries of One Old Cat.

I give her unqualified gingersnaps?

But Faith, if I told her that her heavenly gingersnaps would not be made of molasses and flour, would have a cry, for fear that she was not going to have any gingersnaps at all—so, until she is older, I give her unqualified gingersnaps. The principal joy of a child's life consists in eating. Faith begins, as soon as the light wanes, to dream of that gumdrop which she is to have at bedtime.

What do you think heaven will be like?

I found the heat to be more bearable if I kept busy—and could see, unseen, all the little tableaux into which the two children grouped themselves—a new one every instant—in the shadow now—now in a quiver of golden glow—the wind tossing their hair about, and their chatter chiming down the hall like bells. O, what a funny little sunset there's going to be behind the maple-tree said the blond-haired Bland, in a pause. Funny enough, observed Faith, with her superior smile, but it's going to be a great deal funnier up in heaven, I tell you, Molly Bland. Funny in heaven? Why, Faith! Molly drew herself up with a religious air, and looked the image of her father. Yes, to be sure. I'm going to have some little pink blocks made out of it when I go—pink and yellow and green and purple and—O, so many blocks! I'm going to have a little red cloud to sail round in, like that one up over the house, too, I shouldn't wonder. Molly opened her eyes. O, I don't believe it. You don't know much! said Miss Faith, superbly. I shouldn't s'pose you would believe it. P'r'aps I'll have some strawberries too, and some gingersnaps—I'm not going to have any old bread and butter up there—O, and some little gold apples, and a lot of playthings—nicer play things—why, nicer than they have in the shops in Boston, Molly Bland! God's keeping 'em up there a purpose.

Look at me! Do you s'pose I'm fit for it?

Now, I don't want to go to the other place any more than the next man, and I've had my times, too, of thinking I'd keep steady and say my prayers—it makes a chap feel on a sight better terms with himself—but I don't see how I'm going to wear white frocks and stand up in a choir—never could sing no more'n a frog with a cold in his head—it tires me more now, honest, to think of it, than it does to do a week's mowing. Look at me! Do you s'pose I'm fit for it? Father, he's always talking about the thrones, and the wings, and the praises, and the palms, and having new names in your foreheads (shouldn't object to that, though, by any means), till he drives me into the tool-house, or off on a spree. I tell him if God ain't got a place where chaps like me can do something He's fitted 'em to do in this world, there's no use thinking about it anyhow.

With his likeness?

Two things that He has taught us, she said after a silence, give me beautiful assurance that none of these dreams with which I help myself can be beyond His intention to fulfil. One is, that eye hath not seen it, nor ear heard it, nor the heart conceived it, this lavishness of reward which He is keeping for us. Another is, that I shall be satisfied when I awake. With his likeness. With his likeness. And about that I have other things to say.

Revelation 21:4?

In some way the void must be filled, for He shall wipe away tears. But it seems to me that the only thought in which there can be any rest, and in that there can, is this—that Christ, who loves us even as His Father loves Him, can be happy in spite of the existence of a hell. If it is possible to Him, surely He can make it possible to us.

Luke 16:26?

But O, there is a great gulf fixed—and on one side one, and on the other another, and they loved each other.

How do we know what heavenly unions of heart with heart exist among the angels?

And you spoke of your husband. But the Bible— Says there shall be no marrying nor giving in marriage. I know that. Nor will there be such marrying or giving in marriage as there is in a world like this. Christ expressly goes on to state, that we shall be as the angels in heaven. How do we know what heavenly unions of heart with heart exist among the angels?

O think of it?

O think of it? To have books, and music, and pictures? All that Art, the handmaid of the Lord can do for us, I have no doubt will be done. Eternity will never become monotonous. Variety without end, charms unnumbered within charms, will be devised by Infinite ingenuity to minister to our delight. Perhaps—this is just my fancying—perhaps there will be whole planets turned into galleries of art, over which we may wander at will—or into orchestral halls where the highest possibilities of music will be realized to singer and to hearer. Do you know, I have sometimes had a flitting notion that music would be the language of heaven? It certainly differs in some indescribable manner from the other arts. We have most of us felt it in our different ways. It always seems to me like the cry of a great, sad life dragged to use in this world against its will. Pictures and statues and poems fit themselves to their work more contentedly. Symphony and song struggle in fetters. That sense of conflict is not good for me. It is quite as likely to harm as to help. Then perhaps the mysteries of sidereal systems will be spread out like a child's map before us. Perhaps we shall take journeys to Jupiter and to Saturn and to the glittering haze of nebulæ, and to the site of ruined worlds whose extinct light is yet travelling through space. Occupation for explorers there, you see! 

What shall she do?

What shall she do? Whatever she liketh best—something very useful, my dear, don't be afraid, and very pleasant. Something, too, for which this life has fitted you—though you may not understand how that can be, better than did poor Heine on his matrazzen gruft reading all the books that treated of his disease. But what good this reading is to do me I don't know he said, except that it will qualify me to give lectures in heaven on the ignorance of doctors on earth about diseases of the spinal marrow.

Ecclesiastes 11:3?

As the tree falleth, there shall it lie, and with that amount of holiness of which a man leaves this life the possessor, he must start in another.

Equality in Salvation? Level Ground of the Cross?

A great man never goes to heaven because he is great. He must go, as the meanest of his fellow sinners go, with face towards Calvary, and every golden treasure used for love of Him who showed him how.

Then there will be air enough for all?

Then there will be air enough for all? For all—for those who have had a little bloom in this world, as well. I suppose the artist will paint his pictures, the poet sing his happy songs—the orator and author will not find their talents hidden in the eternal darkness of a grave—the sculptor will use his beautiful gift in the moulding of some heavenly Carrara—as well the singer as the player on instruments shall be there. Christ said a thing that has grown on me with new meanings lately—He that loseth his life for my sake shall find it. It, you see, not another man's life, not a strange compound of powers and pleasures, but his own familiar aspirations. So we shall best glorify God not less there than here, by doing it in the peculiar way that He himself marked out for us. But—ah, Mary, you see it is only the life  lost for His sake that shall be so beautifully found.

This life is a great school-house?

This life is a great school-house. The wise Teacher trains in us such gifts as, if we graduate honourably, will be of most service in the perfect manhood and womanhood that come after. He sees, as we do not, that a power is sometimes best trained by repression. We do not always lose an advantage when we dispense with it, Goethe says.

Where are you going to get your little branches without trees?

In fact, where are you going to get your little branches without trees? What could well be more suggestive of material modes of living, and material industry, than a city marked into streets and alleys, paved solidly with gold, walled in and barred with gates whose jewels are named and counted, and whose very length and breadth are measured with a celestial surveyor's chain?

What is the spiritual symbolism of flowers?

Are flowers and skies and trees less spiritual than white dresses and little palm-branches?

Shall we lose our personality in a vague ocean of ether?

Shall we lose our personality in a vague ocean of ether—you one puff of gas, I another? He, with his own wounded body, rose and ate and walked and talked. Is all memory of this life to be swept away? He, arisen, has forgotten nothing. He waits to meet his disciples at the old, familiar places—as naturally as if he had never been parted from them, he falls in with the current of their thoughts. Has anyone troubled us with fears that in the glorified crowds of heaven we may miss a face dearer than all the world to us? He made himself known to his friends—Mary, and the two at Emmaus, and the bewildered group praying and perplexed in their bolted room. Do we weary ourselves with speculations whether human loves can outlive the shock of death? Mary knew how He loved her, when, turning, she heard him call her by her name. They knew, whose hearts burned within them while he talked with them by the way, and when he tarried with them, the day being far spent. And for the rest? For the rest, about which He was silent, we can trust him, and if, trusting, we please ourselves with fancies, he would be the last to think it blame to us. There is one promise which grows upon me the more I study it, He that spared not his own Son, how shall he not also with him freely give us all things? Sometimes I wonder if that does not infold a beautiful double entendre, a hint of much that you and I have conjectured—as one throws down a hint of a surprise to a child. Then there is that pledge to those who seek first His kingdom—All these things shall be added unto you.  These things were food and clothing, were varieties of material delight, and the words were spoken to men who lived hungry, beggared, and died the death of outcasts. If this passage could be taken literally, it would be very significant in its bearing on the future life—for Christ must keep his promise to the letter, in one world or another. It maybe wrenching the verse, not as a verse, but from the grain of the argument, to insist on the literal interpretation, though I am not sure.

1 Corinthians 15:47–48?

Of the earth, earthy. Of the heavens, heavenly.

Something like jujube paste?

I laid down the question-book, and asked what kind of place she supposed that heaven was going to be. O she said, with a dreary sigh, I never think about it when I can help it. I suppose we shall all just stand there! And you? I asked of the next, a bright girl with snapping eyes. Do you want me to talk good, or tell the truth? she answered me. Having been given to understand that she was not expected to talk good in my class, she said, with an approving, decided nod—Well, then! I don't think it's going to be anything nice anyway. No, I don't! I told my last teacher so, and she looked just as shocked, and said I never should go there as long as I felt so. That made me mad, and I told her I didn't see but I should be as well off in one place as another, except for the fire. A silent girl in the corner began at this point to look interested. I always supposed said she, that you just floated round in heaven—you know—all—you know—all together—something like jujube paste!

Why, they won't let anybody have a piano up there! not in heaven?

While we were all talking together, somebody pulled my sleeve, and there was Clo in the corner, with her great brown eyes fixed on me. See here! she said in a whisper, I can't be good! I would be good if I could only just have a piano! Well, Clo I said, if you will be a good girl, and go to heaven, I think you will have a piano there, and play just as much as you care to.

Are they to be like these?

But about those trees and houses, and the rest of your pretty things? Are they to be like these? I don't suppose that the houses will be made of oak and pine and nailed together, for instance. But I hope for heavenly types of nature and of art. Something that will be to us then what these are now. That is the amount of it. They may be as spiritual as you please—they will answer all the purpose to us. As we are not spiritual beings yet, however, I am under the necessity of calling them by their earthly names. You remember Plato's old theory, that the ideal of everything exists eternally in the mind of God. If that is so—and I do not see how it can be otherwise—then whatever of God is expressed to us in this world by flower, or blade of grass, or human face, why should not that be expressed forever in heaven by something corresponding to flower, or grass, or human face? I do not mean that the heavenly creation will be less real than these, but more so. Their spirituality is of such a sort that our gardens and forests and homes are but shadows of them.

Guardrail of Truth?

None need fear the consequences of such endeavours who have well learned the prime principle of sound philosophy, namely, not to allow the most plausible and pleasing conjectures to unsettle our convictions of truth, resting upon positive evidence. If there be any who frown upon all such attempts, they would do well to consider, that although individually, and from the constitution of their minds, they may find it very easy to abstain from every path of excursive meditation, it is not so with others who almost irresistibly are borne forward to the vast field of universal contemplation—a field from which the human mind is not to be barred, and which is better taken possession of by those who reverently bow to the authority of Christianity, than left open to impiety.

Physical Theory of Another Life?

If this often repeated argument from analogy is to be termed, as to the conclusions it involves, a conjecture merely, we ought then to abandon altogether every kind of abstract reasoning—nor will it be easy afterwards to make good any principle of natural theology. In truth, the very basis of reasoning is shaken by a scepticism so sweeping as this.

But how far is it safe to trust to this kind of argument?

There is a pretty argument in the fact that just such sunrises, such opening of buds, such fragrant dropping of fruit, such bells in the brooks, such dreams at twilight, and such hush of stars, were fit for Adam and Eve, made holy man and woman. How do we know that the abstract idea of a heaven needs imply anything very much unlike Eden? There is some reason as well as poetry in the conception of a Paradise Regained. A new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. 

Why should we not have pretty things in heaven?

Why should we not have pretty things in heaven? If this bright and beautiful economy of skies and rivers, of grass and sunshine, of hills and valleys, is not too good for such a place as this world, will there be any less variety of the bright and beautiful in the next? There is no reason for supposing that the voice of God will speak to us in thunder-claps, or that it will not take to it self the thousand gentle, suggestive tongues of a nature built on the ruins of this, an unmarred system of beneficence.

Irony Itself?

Shall I enjoy friendships there, wanting the smiling indications which point me to them here, the sweet assurance of a look? Sun, and sky, and breeze, and solitary walks, and summer holidays, and the greenness of fields, and the delicious juices of meats and fish, and society, and candlelight and fireside conversations, and innocent vanities, and jests, and irony itself—do these things go out with life?

What is the ultimate blueprint of a happy, God-centred home?

What other arrangement could be as pleasant, or could be pleasant at all? of a church exactly fits. Robertson's definition More united in each other, because more united in God.  A happy home is the happiest thing in the world. I do not see why it should not be in any world. I do not believe that all the little tendernesses of family ties are thrown by and lost with this life. In fact, Mary, I cannot think that anything which has in it the elements of permanency is to be lost, but sin. Eternity cannot be—it cannot be the great blank ocean which most of us have somehow or other been brought up to feel that it is, which shall swallow up, in a pitiless, glorified way, all the little brooks of our delight. So I expect to have my beautiful home, and my husband, and Faith, as I had them here—with many differences and great ones, but mine just the same. 

What other arrangement could be as pleasant or could be pleasant at all?

If we have trees and mountains and flowers and books she went on, smiling, I don't see why not have houses as well. Indeed, they seem to me as supposable as anything can be which is guess-work at the best—for what a homeless, desolate sort of sensation it gives one to think of people wandering over the sweet fields beyond the flood without a local habitation and a name. What could be done with the millions who, from the time of Adam, have been gathering there, unless they lived under the conditions of organized society?

A Material Heaven?

If we have trees and mountains and flowers and books she went on, smiling, I don't see why not have houses as well. Indeed, they seem to me as supposable as anything can be which is guess-work at the best—for what a homeless, desolate sort of sensation it gives one to think of people wandering over the sweet fields beyond the flood without a local habitation and a name. What could be done with the millions who, from the time of Adam, have been gathering there, unless they lived under the conditions of organized society? 

Amaranth and Asphodel?

I should like, if I had my choice, to have day-lilies and carnations fresh under my windows all the time. Under your windows? Yes. I hope to have a home of my own, Not a house? Something not unlike it. In the Father's house are many mansions. Sometimes I fancy that those words have a literal meaning which the simple men who heard them may have understood better than we, and that Christ is truly preparing my home for me.

Homelike Heaven?

I should like, if I had my choice, to have day-lilies and carnations fresh under my windows all the time. Under your windows? Yes. I hope to have a home of my own, Not a house? Something not unlike it. In the Father's house are many mansions. Sometimes I fancy that those words have a literal meaning which the simple men who heard them may have understood better than we, and that Christ is truly preparing my home for me. 

Flowers were her poetry?

Flowers too her mother went on, after the interruption. Not all amaranth and asphodel, but of variety and colour and beauty unimagined—glorified lilies of the valley, heavenly tea-rose buds, and spiritual harebells among them. O, how your poor mother used to say—you know flowers were her poetry—coming in weak and worn from her garden in the early part of her sickness, hands and lap and basket full—Winifred, if I only supposed I could have some flowers in heaven I shouldn't be half so afraid to go!

The Idea of You?

The real reason for your dependence on God and your belief in His existence is because you know that you are a part of Him.

You know you are a part of Him.

The knowledge is only just a flicker of light in your mind, and you do not know much about it, and understand less, but it is a dim shadowy remembrance carried down from all the ages of your history, and the fact that you are a little bit of God, split off from Him, so-to-speak, in the beginning of time, and sent to earth to live in a material body and slowly evolve, and finally work back to union with the greatest One Himself, but with mighty individuality, and continuing to work and create and mature through all eternity.

Now and again, there are souls on earth who realise this colossal man―

The ideal man―and spend their earth lives striving to attain the highest. These are great souls and to them will be given the choice at the end of their earth lives to go on to the highest heaven or to return once more to earth to help struggling humanity.

The truth of your dependence on God is applied to all nations, not only to Christians of the western world.

Every nation has its conception of God because no nation can reach up to anything beyond its capability. 

And, of course, with that innate belief in the existence of God is also the knowledge of your own immortality. You cannot be immortal at one end only―it must be at both.

Some people have taught that immortality is a thing to be gained for you by the death of Jesus of Nazareth on the Cross. That is wrong.

You are immortal from the very beginning being part of God Who is the essence of immortality. No one can gain it for you―you cannot gain it for yourself because you are it.