their homes—yet they had no taste for food! The tragedy of it was overwhelming. They had no appetite, because they had reached the last stages of starvation, and were dying. They did not want food, for the very reason that they needed it so badly. Heathendom does not want the gospel, because it needs it. Starving for the bread of life, it yet protests no desire for this supreme boon. Heathendom does not desire Christianity for the very reason that it is heathendom.—William T. Ellis, "Men and Missions."
(1374)
Heathenism Shattered—See Miracles, Evidential Value of.
HEAVEN
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.
HEAVEN, CONCEPTIONS OF
Life changes all our thoughts of heaven;
At first we think of streets of gold,
Of gates of pearl and dazzling light,
Of shining wings and robes of white,
And things all strange to mortal sight.
But in the afterward of years
It is a more familiar place—
A home unhurt by sighs or tears,
Where waiteth many a well-known face.
With passing months it comes more near.
It grows more real day by day;
Not strange or cold, but very dear—
The glad homeland not far away,
Where none are sick, or poor, or lone,
The place where we shall find our own.
And as we think of all we knew,
Who there have met to part no more,
Our longing hearts desire home, too,
With all the strife and trouble o'er.
(1377)
Heaven, Disbelief in—See Answer, A Soft.
HEAVEN, FRIENDS IN
Rev. John White Chadwick, who has now joined "the choir invisible," wrote of the friends who had gone before in this poem:
It singeth low in every heart,
We hear it, each and all—
A song of those who answer not,
However we may call;
They throng the silence of the breast,
We see them as of yore—
The kind, the brave, the true, the sweet,
Who walk with us no more.
'Tis hard to take the burden up
When these have laid it down;
They brightened all the joy of life,
They softened every frown;
But, O, 'tis good to think of them
When we are troubled sore!
Thanks be to God that such have been,
Tho they are here no more.
