Among educated men it has always been difficult to imagine a heaven of fulfilled desires. For since no two persons have exactly the same desires, one man’s imagination of heaven may not suit another man’s. In general, the attempts which have been made to picture the Christian heaven reflect the temperaments of highly contemplative spirits, and it is customary nowadays to say that this heaven would be a most uninteresting place. No doubt it would be to those who are not contemplative. But the objectors have missed the main point, which is that no one is supposed to pass through the pearly gates who is not suited to dwell in Paradise. That is what St. Peter is there for, to see that the unfit do not enter; the other places, Purgatory and the Inferno, are available to those spirits who could not be happy in Heaven. There are, by definition, no uncongenial spirits in Heaven. There were once, but Satan and his followers were thrown out headlong, and they now live in places which are suited to their temperaments. A devout man may quite properly, therefore, advise those who do not think they would enjoy Heaven to go to Hell. The attempt to imagine a heaven is an attempt to conceive a world in which the disorders of human desire no longer exist. Now it is in their prayers that men have sought to come to terms with their disorders, and their prayers reveal most concretely how much the hunger for certainty and for help is a hunger for the fulfillment of desire. For prayer, says Father Wynne, is “the expression of our desires to God whether for ourselves or for others.” In the higher reaches of religion “the expression is not intended to instruct or direct God what to do, but to [p147] appeal to His goodness for the things we need; and the appeal is necessary, not because He is ignorant of our needs or sentiments, but to give definite form to our desires, to concentrate our whole attention on what we have to recommend to Him, to help us appreciate our close personal relation with Him.” But in order to know what to pray for, we need grace, that is to say, God Himself must teach us what to ask Him for. We can be sure that we should pray for salvation, but in particular we need guidance from God “to know the special means that will most help us in any particular need.” But besides the spiritual objects of prayer “we are to ask also for temporal things, our daily bread and all that it implies, health, strength, and other worldly or temporal goods ...”; we are to pray also for escape from evils, “the penalty of our sins, the dangers of temptation, and every manner of physical or spiritual affliction.”