“Well, that’s the beautiful garden I’ve been telling you about, and God is your good father.  You can begin your journey there this very day if you like.”

“Is it a very long journey?—­and will you go with me?  Is there really, really such a garden?  Oh, tell me where it is!”

“I desire nothing in the world so much as to lead you there, but the path is rough and steep; I cannot carry you in my arms along that road; you must walk on your own little feet, and I am afraid they will sometimes get—­very tired.”

“You know, mother, I never do get tired when I am going to a pleasant place; but, oh, dear!  I do believe now it is all a dream-story; you smiled and kissed me just as if it were.”

“No, you need not look so disappointed, little one, for though it is something like a ‘dream-story,’ there is nothing in the world half so true and real.  Think in that little head of yours, and tell me what seems to you most like this beautiful garden.”

“I cannot think of anything at all like it, except heaven.—­Oh, yes!—­that is it!  Heaven, is it not?”

“And what is heaven?”

“The place where good people go when they die.”

“Think again.  What is heaven?”

“I have thought again, and I cannot think of anything but the place where God and the angels are.  I do not know how you want me to think.”

“I want you to think why it is heaven, and why the angels are happy.  Do you understand?”

“Yes.  Being beautiful and so pleasant makes it heaven; and the angels are happy because they are in heaven.”

“Then, of course, if you put even such wicked people into a beautiful and pleasant place they would be angels, and happy?”

“Oh, now I see!  You mean the angels are happy because they are good.”

“Why should that make them happy?”

“I don’t know why, but I know the Bible says so.  I suppose just the same as when you promise me, in the morning, that if I say my lessons all nicely you will tell me a beautiful fairy-tale after tea.”

“No, my little Alice, not exactly in that way, though at first thought it does seem to be so.  I want you very much indeed, to understand the truth about it, but I am afraid you will not find it easy.  You know that God is good, and wise, and happy—­ah, dearest! better, wiser, happier than the purest angels will ever know, though they go on learning it to eternity.  When I say to you God is infinitely good, and wise, and happy, you cannot understand that, and neither can I; but one thing about it I can understand, and this I will tell you.  Just as every joyous ray of light and heat comes to us from the sun, so all wisdom, all goodness, all beauty, all joy, flow forth from God, and are His, alone.  Our very souls would go out of existence like the flames of a lamp when the oil is spent, if, for the least fraction of a second, He ceased to give us life.  This truth