(Mark Twain often allowed his fancy to play with the idea of the
orthodox heaven, its curiosities of architecture and its employments of
continuous prayer, psalm-singing, and harpistry).
“What a childish notion it was,” he said, “and how curious that only a
little while ago human beings were so willing to accept such fragile
evidences about a place of so much importance. If we should find
somewhere to-day an ancient book containing an account of a beautiful
and blooming tropical paradise secreted in the center of eternal
icebergs—an account written by men who did not even claim to have seen
it themselves—no geographical society on earth would take any stock in
that book, yet that account would be quite as authentic as any we have
of heaven. If God has such a place prepared for us, and really wanted us
to know it, He could have found some better way than a book, so liable
to alterations and misinterpretations. God has had no trouble to prove
to man the laws of the constellations and the construction of the world,
and such things as that, none of which agree with His so-called book. As
to a hereafter, we have not the slightest evidence that there is
any—_no_ evidence that appeals to logic and reason. I have never seen
what to me seemed an atom of proof that there is a future life.”
Then, after a long pause, he added:
“And yet—I am strongly inclined to expect one.” (Mark Twain—A
Biography).