And yet perfect happiness, sleep without waking, light without shadow, joy without sorrow, gaiety without eclipse. Can this ever be heaven? Let us look back on our lives, we who have lived, and let us think. Let us close our eyes that the past may come before us and we may remember. What are the most beautiful memories that come before us, that make our hearts beat again with the greatest music they have known, that bring again to our eyes the tears that are the water of the well of God? What have been the greatest emotions of our lives? There has been struggle and effort, unceasing effort, crowned maybe with success, but maybe not, effort that we know has brought out all that is best in us, that we rejoice to remember. There will be no effort in heaven, only rest; there is no defeat, and therefore no victory, only peace. Therefore also, because we can have no enemies there we shall have no friends. Our friends! How we can remember them. We have loved them because we have hated others. But in heaven there is no hate, only an equality of indifference. Heaven is nothing but joy. But consider, has joy been the most beautiful thing in your life, is it joy that sounded the deepest harmonies? Remember how you have stood upon that faraway hillside and laid to rest your comrade beneath the forest shadows? Was it not beautiful what your heart sang to you while you said "Farewell," and tears came to your eyes? There are no farewells in heaven.
There are women you have loved, women whose eyes have grown large and soft as you have spoken to them in the dusk of evenings long ago. You have loved them because they were women. What will they be in heaven?
And the children! Think of that childless heaven. Think of the children who laugh and play, and come to you to laugh with them, who cry and come to you for comfort. They will require no comfort from you in heaven, and how much will you lose? The child angels are never naughty. They can never come to you and hide their heads upon your shoulder and say "I was wrong. I am very sorry. Please forgive me." None of these notes shall ever sound in heaven. There are no tears there. But do you not know that the greater beauties can only be seen through tears, which are their dew?
What is it that sounds the deeper notes of our lives? Is it sunshine, happiness, gaiety? Is it any attribute of the heavens of the religions? Surely it is never so. It is the troubles of life, the mistakes, the sorrows, the sin, the shadow mysteries of the world, that sound in our hearts the greater strings.
And are these to be mute in your heavens? Are we to fall to lesser notes of eternal praise, of eternal thanksgiving? Prophets of the faiths, what are these heavens of yours? Is there in them anything to draw our hearts? Have you pointed to us what we really would have? Your sacred books are full of your descriptions, of your enticements; you have beggared all the languages in words to describe what you would have us long for. And what have you gained? Is there any one man, one woman, one child, not steeped in the uttermost incurable disease, in feeble old age, who would change the chances of his life here for any of your heavens? There is no one. Or if you were to say to a man, "Choose. You shall be young again, and strong, or you shall go to heaven." Which would he choose? Therefore, ye teachers of the faiths, are your promises vain. I do not believe in nor do I fear your hells, those crude places of fire and pitch and little black devils. I care not for your heavens; I would not go there, not to any of them, neither to the happy hunting ground, nor to heaven, nor to the garden of the Houris nor to Nirvana, not if they be as you tell me they are. Nor do I want to merge my identity in the Infinite. This life is good enough for me, while I retain health and strength. I am not tempted. Nor is anyone tempted. Whom have you persuaded? You know that you have enticed no one. No one is deceived. Men will die for many things, they will leap to accept death—but not for your heavens. All men fear death and what is beyond, the righteous who you say have earned heaven no less than the unrighteous. All faiths have had their martyrs, but that is different. They have died to preserve their souls, as soldiers die to preserve their honour, gladly. Even the godly do not believe. They will have nothing of your heavens. I cannot understand how either Christian or Buddhist came to imagine such unattractive, unreasonable heavens.
And so they have all failed. No religion gives us an intelligible First Cause, no religion gives us a code of conduct we can follow, no religion offers us a heaven we would care to attain.
There are many definitions of religion. I have written some on my first page. It will be seen that they all hinge on one of these ideas, either that religion is a theory of causation, or it is a code of conduct, or that it is concerned with future rewards and punishments.
But if indeed religion have any or all of these meanings, then is religion false, then are all religions false. And more, no one who thinks over the subject, no one who takes it seriously would believe any one of them, could take any as a satisfactory explanation. No one accepts any code of religious conduct as absolutely workable, no one is attracted by their heavens. I am sure of these things.
Then shall I sit down with Omar Khayyam and say:—
"Myself when young did eagerly frequent
Doctor and Saint, and heard great argument
About it and about; but evermore
Came out by the same door where in I went."