M. “They get worn out, and so can’t live always, just as the flowers and leaves fade and die.”
C. “Well, but why can’t they come to life again just like the flowers?”
M. “The same flowers don’t come to life again, dear.”
C. “Well, the little seed out of the flower drops into the earth and springs up again into a flower. Why can’t people do like that?”
M. “Most people get very tired and want to sleep for ever.”
C. “Oh! I shan’t want to sleep for ever, and when I am buried I shall try to wake up again; and there won’t be any earth on my eyes, will there, mamma?”
The difficulty of coupling the fact of burial with after-existence in heaven then began to trouble him. One day (middle of eighth month) he and his mother were passing a churchyard. He looked intently at the gravestones and asked: “Mamma, it’s only the naughty people who are buried, isn’t it?” Being asked why he thought so he continued: “Because auntie said all the good people went to heaven”. On his mother telling him that all people are buried he said: “Oh, then heaven must be under the ground, or they couldn’t get there”. Another way by which he tried to surmount the difficulty was by supposing that God would have to come up through the ground to take us to heaven. He clung tenaciously to the idea of heaven as an escape from the horror of death. That the hope of heaven was the core of his religious belief is seen in the following little talk between him and his mother and sister one evening at the end of the first month.
C. “Does God ever die?”
E. (the sister). “No, dear, and when we die God will take us to live with him in heaven.”
C. (to mother). “Will he, mamma?”