“Ay,” quoth Sir Robert: “but you reckon they be pearls, and gold?”
“I will tell you when I have seen them,” saith Father, and smiled. “Either they be gold and pearls, or they be that to which, in our earthly minds, gold and pearls come the nearest. Why, my friend, we be all but lisping children to God. Think you one moment, and tell me if every word we use touching Him hath not in it more or less of parable? We call Him Father, and King, and Master, and Guide, and Lord. Is not every one of these taken from earthly relationships, and doth it not presuppose a something which is to be found on earth? We have no better wits than to do so here. If God would teach us that we know not, it must be by talking to us touching things we do know. Did not you the same with your children when they were babes? How far we may be able to penetrate, when we be truly men, grown up unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ, verily I cannot tell. Only I do see that not only all Scripture, but all analogy, pointeth to a time when we shall emerge from this caterpillar state, and spread our wings as butterflies in the sunshine. Nay, there is yet a better image in nature. The grub of the dragon-fly dwelleth in the waters, and cannot live in the air till it come forth into the final state. Tell me then, I pray you, how shall this water-grub conceive the notion of flying through the air? Supposing you able to talk with him, could you represent the same unto him other than by the conceit of gliding through water with most delightsome swiftness and directness? To talk of an element wherein he had no experience should be simply so much nonsense to him. Now, it may be—take me not, I pray you, as meaning it must be—that all that shall be found in Heaven differs as greatly from what is found on earth as the water differs from the air. Concerning these matters, I take it, God teaches us by likening them to such things as we know that shall give the best conceit of them to our minds. Here on earth, the fairest and most costly matter is gold and gems. Well, He would have us know that the heavenly city is builded of the fairest and most precious matter. But that the matter is real, and that the city is builded of somewhat, that will I yield to none. To do other were to make it a fairy tale, Heaven in cloud-land, and God Himself but the shadow of a dream. The only difference I can see is, that we should never awake from the dream, but should go on dreaming it for ever.”
“O Louvaine!” saith Sir Robert. “I can never allow of matter in Heaven. All there is spiritual.”
“Now, what mean you by matter?” saith Father. “Matter is a term of this world. I argue not for matter in Heaven as opposed to spirit, but for reality as opposed to allegory.”
“You’ll be out of my depth next plunge,” saith Sir Robert, merrily.
“We shall both be out of our depth, Robin, ere long, and under your leave there will we leave it. But I see you are a bit of a Manichee.”
“That is out of my depth, at any rate,” quoth he. “I am but ill read in ancient controversies, though I know you dabble in them.”
“Why, I have dipped my fingers into a good parcel of matters in my time,” saith Father. “But the Manichees, old friend, were men that did maintain the inherent evil of matter. All things, with them, were wicked that had to do therewith. Wherein, though they knew it not, they were much akin to the Indian mystics of Buddha, that do set their whole happiness in the attaining of Nirvana.”
“What is that?” saith Aunt Joyce. “Is it an India goddess, or something good to eat?”
“It is,” quoth Father, “the condition of having no ideas.”