My dear child, we cannot know, and need not know. But we know this--that God beholds all the heathen. He fashions the hearts of them, and understandeth all their works. And we know also that He is just and good. These poor folks were, I doubt not, happy enough in their way; and we are bound to believe (for we have no proof against it), that most of them were honest and harmless enough likewise. Of course, ogres and cannibals, and cruel and brutal persons (if there were any among them), deserved punishment--and punishment, I do not doubt, they got. But, of course, again, none of them knew things which you know; but for that very reason they were not bound to do many things which you are bound to do. For those to whom little is given, of them shall little be required. What their religion was like, or whether they had any religion at all, we cannot tell. But this we can tell, that known unto God are all His works from the creation of the world; and that His mercy is over all His works, and He hateth nothing that He has made. These men and women, whatever they were, were God's work; and therefore we may comfort ourselves with the certainty that, whether or not they knew God, God knew them. And so ends my fairy tale. But is it not a wonderful tale? More wonderful, if you will think over it, than any story invented by man. But so it always is. "Truth," wise men tell us, "is stranger than fiction." Even a child like you will see that it must be so, if you will but recollect who makes fiction, and who makes facts. Man makes fiction: he invents stories, pretty enough, fantastical enough. But out of what does he make them up? Out of a few things in this great world which he has seen, and heard, and felt, just as he makes up his dreams. But who makes truth? Who makes facts? Who, but God?