The gates ajar. By Elizabeth Stuart Phelps.

142 The Gates Ajar.
all do about other matters. 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 itself the thousand gentle, suggestive tongues
of a nature built on the ruins of this, an unmarred system of beneficence.
"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.'"
"But how far is it safe to trust to this kind
of argument?"
"Bishop Butler will answer you better than
I. Let me see, - Isaac Taylor says something
about that."