[CHAPTER VII]
THE HEAVEN HOME
When again the good fortune brought me to Newfoundland and led me out to the fisherman's cottage, I did not forget Jim's promise to tell me of his observations concerning the future life. We had, thru our increasing friendship, come to understand each other. I had learned when to keep silent and I knew Jim's moods and when to intrude would be the height of ingratitude and when to enter would be the act of an accepted friend.
The reading of the Book had been finished for the evening and there was yet a half hour before my friend would count it his time to retire. "How about the Heaven Home, I think that is what you called it," I asked, and Jim, without parleying, was ready to speak freely in answer.
"Yes," he said, "I like the word home, as applied to it. I couldn't think of Peter as wantin' to stay in a mansion. In the Comfort Chapter in John, I've always read the word 'home' in place of 'mansion.' The parsons tell me that there are some mistakes in the translatin' o' the Good Book, and I am sure that it's a mistake here. There ain't enough comfort in the thought of a mansion for most of us common run o' folks, and it was for us that He come and told of this life and the life to come.
"I'm sure it's a home. I think it must have in it things that match up with what we got here. I don't see how we could feel at home without something like tables and chairs. We had a parson one time who knew all about it over there, accordin' to his tell. He told us about the crowns and harps and the golden streets and the singin' that went on all the day long. But I callate no Lander would care for such a life as that, and if that's what it's like there's precious few of us 'uns over there.
"Now if it's a home as I think it must be since the Father has planned it, there must be homelikeness there. There must be somethin' that corresponds to tables and chairs and all the little things that go to makin' up a real home, else how could a man be happy over there, who had just left a happy home here. I'm not sayin' we shall always need them things, but I am a sayin' that in the very next life we must have things we are used to for a spell till we get to the point where we don't need them, but somethin' else. Sounds sensible to me to think that way.
"You remember that after the Lord was dead and Peter was plumb worn out and discouraged; there didn't seem to be no hope nowheres; he decided to go fishin'. I callate there are times when a man would rather go salmon fishing than to do anything else in the world, provided he knows what good salmon fishin' is. Now for these fishermen about the only thing the Lord can do, if He wants to make 'em happy as He promised to do, is to give 'em a chance at fishin'.