Differences in childish feeling, as well as in intelligence, reflect themselves in the first ideas about the divine dwelling-place. It seems commonly to be conceived of as a grand house or mansion. While, however, some children deck it out with all manner of lovely things, including a park, flowers, and birds, others give it a homelier character, thinking, for example, of doors and possible draughts, like a little girl who asked God "to mind and shut the door, because he (_i.e._, grandpapa who had just died) can't stand the draughts". Some children, too, of a less exuberant fancy are disposed to think of heaven as by no means so satisfyingly lovely, and rather to shrink from a long wearisome stay in it. While thus relegated to the sublime regions of the sky God is supposed to be doing things, and of course doing them for us, sending down rain and so forth. What seems to impress children most, especially boys, in the traditional account of God is his power of making things. He is emphatically the artificer, the "demiurgos," who not only has made the world, the stars, etc., but is still kept actively employed by human needs. According to some of the American school-children he fabricates all sorts of things from babies to money, and the angels work for him. The boy has a great admiration for the maker, and one small English boy once expressed this oddly by asking his mother whether a group of working men returning from their work were "gods". This admiration for superior power and skill favours the idea of God's omnipotence. This is amply illustrated in children's spontaneous prayers, which ask for things, from fine weather on a coming holiday to a baby with curly hair and other lovely attributes, with all a child's naïve faith. Yet a critical attitude will sometimes be taken up towards this mystery of unlimited power. The more logical and speculative sort of child will now and then put a sceptical question to his elders on this subject. A boy of eight turned over the problem whether God could beat him in a foot-race if he were starter and judge and refused to let God start till he had reached the goal; and he actually measured out the racecourse on a garden path and went through the part of running, afterwards sitting down and giving God time to run, and then pondering the possibility of his beating him. The idea of God's omniscience, too, may come readily enough to a child accustomed to look up admiringly to the boundless knowledge of some human authority, say a clergyman. Yet I know of cases where the dogma of God's infinite knowledge provoked in the child's mind a sceptical attitude. One little fellow remarked on this subject rather profanely: "I know a 'ickle more than Kitty, and you know a 'ickle more than me; and God knows a 'ickle more than you, I s'pose; then he can't know so very much after all".