"It hath struck me at times," saith _Father_, "that while it may seem strange to the young and eager soul, yet it is better understood as one grows older,--how the account of Heaven given us in Scripture is nearly all in negations. God and ourselves are the two matters positive. The rest are nays: there shall be no pain, no crying, no sorrow, no night, no death, no curse. And though youth would oft have it all yea, yet nay suits age the better. An old man and weary feels the thought of active bliss at times too much for him. It wearies him to think of perpetual singing and constant flying. It is rest he needs--it is peace." "Well, _Father_," saith _Milisent_, looking up, "I hope it is not wicked of me, but I never did enjoy the prospect of sitting of a cloud and singing _Hallelujah_ for ever and ever." "Right what I was wont to think at thy years, _Milly_," saith _Mother_, a-laughing. "Dear hearts," saith _Father_, "there is in God's Word a word for the smallest need of every one of us, if we will only take the pain to search and find it there. `They had no rest day neither night,' [Cranmer's version of Revelations chapter four verse 8]--that is for the eager, active soul that longs to be up and doing. And `they rest from their labours,'--that is for the weary heart that is too tired for rapture." "Yet doth not that latter class of texts, think you," saith Sir _Robert_, "refer mainly to the rest of the body in the grave?" "Well, it may be so," answers _Father_: "yet, look you, the rest of the grave must be something that _will rest us_." "What is thy notion, _Aubrey_," saith Aunt _Joyce_, "of the state of the soul betwixt death and resurrection?" "My notion, _Joyce_," saith _Father_, "is that _Scripture_ giveth us no very plain note thereon. I conclude, therefore, that it shall be time to know when we come to it. This only do I see--that all the passages which speak thereof as `sleep,' `forgetfulness,' and the like, be in the Old Testament: and all those--nay, let me correct myself--most of those which speak thereof as of a condition of conscious bliss, `being with _Christ_,' and so, are in the New. There I find the matter: and there, under your good pleasure, will I leave it." "Well, that should seem," quoth Aunt _Joyce_, "as if the condition of souls had been altered by the coming of our Lord." "By His death, rather, as methinks, if so be. It may be so. I dare not be positive either way." "Has it never seemed strange to you, _Louvaine_," saith Sir _Robert_, "how little we be told in God's Word touching all those mysteries whereon men's minds will ever be busying themselves--to all appearance, so long as the world lasts? This matter of our talk--the origin of evil--free-will and sovereign grace--and the like. Why are we told no more?"