The gates ajar. By Elizabeth Stuart Phelps.

I86 The Gates Ajar.
are awful. Faith may thank you all her life
that she has escaped them."
"I should feel answerable to God for the
child's soul, if I had not prevented that. I
always wanted to know what sort of mother
that poor little thing had, who asked, if she
were very good up in heaven, whether they
would n't let her go down to hell Saturday
afternoons, and play a little while! "
"I know. But think of it, —blocks and
ginger-snaps!"
"I treat Faith just as the Bible treats us, by
dealing in pictures of truth that she can understand. I can make Clo and Abinadab
Quirk comprehend that their pianos and machinery may not be made of literal rosewood
and steel, but will be some synonyme of the
thing, which will answer just such wants of
their changed natures as rosewood and steel
must answer now. There will be machinery
and pianos in the same sense in which there
will be pearl gates and harps. Whatever enjoyment any or all of them represent now,
something will represent then.
"But Faith, if I told her that her heavenly
ginger-snaps would not be made of molasses
and flour, would have a cry, for fear that she