"How do you make out that it is so different? If I am I, and you are you, how can it be very different? The root of things is individuality, unity of idea, and persistence depends on it. God is the one perfect individual; and while this world is his and that world is his, there can be no inconsistency, no violent difference, between there and here."
"Then you must thank God for everything—thank him if you are drowned, or burnt, or anything!"
"Now you understand me! That is precisely what I mean."
"Then I can never be good, for I could never bring myself to that!"
"You cannot bring yourself to it; no one could. But we must come to it. I believe we shall all be brought to it."
"Never me! I should not wish it!"
"You do not wish it; but you may be brought to wish it; and without it the end of your being cannot be reached. No one, of course, could ever give thanks for what he did not know or feel as good. But what IS good must come to be felt good. Can you suppose that Jesus at any time could not thank his Father for sending him into the world?"
"You speak as if we and he were of the same kind!"
"He and we are so entirely of the same kind, that there is no bliss for him or for you or for me but in being the loving obedient child of the one Father."
"You frighten me! If I cannot get to heaven any other way than that,
I shall never get there."