The gates ajar. By Elizabeth Stuart Phelps.

I60 The Gates Ajar.
cultivators, scattering their golden gifts on
wayside ground."
"Now take Deacon Quirk," I suggested,
when we had ridden along a little way under
the low, green arches of the elms, "and put
him into heaven as you proposed, just as he is,
and what is he going to do with himself? He
can dig potatoes and sell them without cheating, and give generously of their proceeds to
foreign missions; but take away his potatoes,
and what would become of him? I don't
know a human being more incapacitated to
live in such a heaven as he believes in."
"Very true, and a good, common-sense
argument against such a heaven. I don't
profess to surmise what will be found for him
to do, beyond this, - that it will be some very
palpable work that he can understand. How
do we know that he would not be appointed
guardian of his poor son here, to whom I suspect he has not been all that father might be in
this life, and that he would not have his body
as well as his soul to look after, his farm as
well as his prayers? to him might be committed the charge of the dews and the rains and
the hundred unseen influences that are at
work on this very potato-field."