Still holding her aunt’s hand and still looking up into her face, Eppie answered: “One is despair of life, the other trust in life. One takes all meaning out of life and the other fills it with meaning. The secret of one is to lose life, and the secret of the other to gain it. There is all the difference in the world between them; all the difference between life and death.”
“As interpreted by Western youth and vigor, yes; but what of the mystics? I suppose you would call them Christians?”
“Yes, dear, they are Christians. What of them?” Miss Barbara echoed, though slightly perturbed by this alliance with heathendom.
“Buddhists, not Christians,” Eppie retorted.
“That’s what I mean; in essentials they are the same creed: the differences are only the differences of the races or individuals who hold them.”
At this Miss Barbara’s free hand began to flutter and protest. “Oh, but, Gavan dear, there I’m quite sure that you are wrong. Buddhism is, I don’t doubt, a very noble religion, but it’s not the true one. Indeed they are not the same, Gavan, though Christianity, of course, is founded on the renunciation of self. ‘Lose your life to gain it,’ Eppie dear.”
“Yes, to gain it, that’s just the point. One renounces, and one wins a realer self.”
“What is real? What is life?” Gavan asked, really curious to hear her definition.
She only needed a moment to find it, and, with her answer, gave him her first glance during their battledore colloquy with innocent Aunt Barbara as the shuttlecock. “Selves and love.”
“Well, of course, dear,” Miss Barbara cried. “That’s what heaven will be. All love and peace and rest.”