HEAVEN
A schoolboy had a blind father; the boy was very keen on games, and his father was in the habit of being present at all the school cricket matches, altho he had to look on at the prowess of his son through other eyes. Then the father died. The day after the funeral there was an important cricket match on, and, to the surprize of his fellows, the lad exprest a strong wish to play. He played, and played well, making a fine score, and carrying out his bat. His friends gathered round him in the pavilion, shaking him by the hand and patting him on the back.
“Did I do well?” he asked.
“Well!” was the reply, “you did splendidly; never better.”
“I am so glad,” the boy said; “it is the first time he ever saw me bat.”
For him, heaven was the place which gave his blind father sight.
(1375)
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps points out the fact that each one’s idea of heaven is some place or state where our most earnest longings and desires are met and fulfilled:
“If I could be out of physical pain,” said a lifelong invalid, “I would ask no other heaven.” “If I could be in a place where I might know that my husband never could be killed on the train!” cried one of the gentle worriers, whose capacity for suffering is neither understood nor respected by the sanguine. “If I could take my children to a world where every time I hear a croupy cough my heart did not stand still with terror,” urged another, “that would be heaven for me.” The mulatto girl who burst into joyful tears at first sight of a marble bust of herself, “because it was white,” caught a glimpse of her heaven before its time.