A schoolboy had a blind father; the boy was very keen on games,
and his father was in the habit of being present at all the
school cricket matches, altho he had to look on at the prowess
of his son through other eyes. Then the father died. The day
after the funeral there was an important cricket match on, and,
to the surprize of his fellows, the lad exprest a strong wish
to play. He played, and played well, making a fine score, and
carrying out his bat. His friends gathered round him in the
pavilion, shaking him by the hand and patting him on the back.
“Did I do well?” he asked.
“Well!” was the reply, “you did splendidly; never better.”
“I am so glad,” the boy said; “it is the first time he ever saw
me bat.”
For him, heaven was the place which gave his blind father sight.
(1375)
* * * * *
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps points out the fact that each one’s idea of
heaven is some place or state where our most earnest longings and
desires are met and fulfilled:
“If I could be out of physical pain,” said a lifelong invalid,
“I would ask no other heaven.” “If I could be in a place where I
might know that my husband never could be killed on the train!”
cried one of the gentle worriers, whose capacity for suffering
is neither understood nor respected by the sanguine. “If I could
take my children to a world where every time I hear a croupy
cough my heart did not stand still with terror,” urged another,
“that would be heaven for me.” The mulatto girl who burst
into joyful tears at first sight of a marble bust of herself,
“because it was white,” caught a glimpse of her heaven before
its time.
“Heaven must be like any other form of happiness, only ‘more
so,’” said a thoughtful man. “And the conditions of happiness
are three--a clear conscience, something to do, and some one to
love.”
(1376)
See COUNTRY, A NEW; LIGHT IMMORTAL.