Harbor Jim of Newfoundland

by Alden Eugene Bartlett

"I wouldn't be at all surprised some morning in Heaven to be trailin' along the bank o' some good stream fishin' and lookin' up sudden to see the Lord there a fishin' too.

"You smile, but why not? Do you think the Father is so foolish as to drop us down in a strange place where we don't understand and we don't know what to do. Does it appear to you that the Lord would take a little fellow like Peter and send him around with a harp. I'll tell you what Peter would want to do, he would want to jump rain barrels so as he would know how to jump ice pans when he got older.

"What good would it do to take any little fellow outen the primary school and put him right into college. It wouldn't do him or the college one particle of good. It would be a sheer waste for everybody concerned. I think the Father is wiser than that, and it's always kinder amused me and somewhat disgusted me that the parsons have imagined heaven to be so teetotally different from this life.

"I've seen so much of His wisdom here, I can't come to think that He's working blind and foolish over there. Will I know little Peter, sure I will, or it wouldn't be heaven. Then his new little body must look like the present one, only stronger and it won't hurt it so much when he pinches it.

"He'll get into the place that fits for him, not because he's sent, but because he just naturally goes where he belongs. And as it is with little Peter so it will be with every one. Perhaps by this time he has seen the Christ, for the kingdom is always found quicker by a child than by a grown man. Children see things that we older folks find it hard to see."

"How about Rascal Moore?" I asked.

"Just now he's taken his cat and dog and he's gone to the woods.[2] Mebbe there a stick will hit him and knock a little sense into him. He's by no means hopeless. I've seen worse ones than he is get sense afore they died. But you mean what would become of him if he went just as he is. Well, there must be sufferin' for the likes o' him. You can't, and I find the Lord Himself don't, seem to make a sinner into a saint all of a sudden. He may wake him up sudden and start him, but it takes time to get him rounded off. He'll go where he belongs just as the others; and if for a while he belongs in an uncomfortable, painful place why there's where he'll go. I never could see the sense in trying to think that everybody would go right off to one same place and be in heaven. There's too much difference in folks; there's the converted and the unconverted; there's the sinners and the saints; and though you put 'em in the same place, it wouldn't be the same place for them. It don't seem probable to me either that they can't never change their places when they get over there. There's a good deal o' changin' here, so there's likely to be over there.

"There are changes in the earth homes, there'll be changes in the heaven homes. And it will be well so long as the changes are for the better. I can't think that will always be the case, howsomever, for it ain't the case here. But gradual I'm expectin' conditions will improve and the handicaps are less over there. With the help o' Moses, Isaiah and the prophets and saints we ought to get on at a fair pace. A tremendous lot o' mothers is over there; they've been a goin' out one by one for a terrible long spell, makes me dizzy when I get to thinkin' o' some o' these subjects. Mothers don't loaf so long as there's chance to help kids, an' I'm callating that they'll do some pretty good work along lines o' convertin' over there.

"I expect to hear the baccaloo[3] over there and I'd rather hear a baccaloo than a nightingale or a lark for it would seem more like home. That's the big thing and the Lord ain't likely to disappoint me or any one who is lookin' for a home over there.

"The heaven home is a good sight nearer than most folks think. The journey is short and it's only our poor sight and our hearin' that has made it so far away. I know Peter's often near me while I'm at work and it's a comfortable feeling, not a scarey one to think he's liable to be around most any time and I must be on my guard not to let slip any string o' words that would be bad for him to hear. It chucks a fellow up to feel that he must be on his best for the little fellow sees and knows. I want to be such a father as he'll respect. It must be mighty oncomfortable for some folks when they get over there, for some folks don't do no growing after they lose their loved ones and how in sank they expect to be fit company for their folks when they themselves get over there is more'n I can tell.