“I’ll set you right on that point very quick. People take the figurative
language of the Bible and the allegories for literal, and the first thing
they ask for when they get here is a halo and a harp, and so on. Nothing
that’s harmless and reasonable is refused a body here, if he asks it in
the right spirit. So they are outfitted with these things without a
word. They go and sing and play just about one day, and that’s the last
you’ll ever see them in the choir. They don’t need anybody to tell them
that that sort of thing wouldn’t make a heaven—at least not a heaven that
a sane man could stand a week and remain sane. That cloud-bank is placed
where the noise can’t disturb the old inhabitants, and so there ain’t any
harm in letting everybody get up there and cure himself as soon as he
comes.
“Now you just remember this—heaven is as blissful and lovely as it can
be; but it’s just the busiest place you ever heard of. There ain’t any
idle people here after the first day. Singing hymns and waving palm
branches through all eternity is pretty when you hear about it in the
pulpit, but it’s as poor a way to put in valuable time as a body could
contrive. It would just make a heaven of warbling ignoramuses, don’t you
see? Eternal Rest sounds comforting in the pulpit, too. Well, you try
it once, and see how heavy time will hang on your hands. Why,
Stormfield, a man like you, that had been active and stirring all his
life, would go mad in six months in a heaven where he hadn’t anything to
do. Heaven is the very last place to come to _rest_ in,—and don’t you be
afraid to bet on that!”