"I am not getting on very well," he thought. "I have looked for three things, and two I am sure I have not found. I have found nowhere any explanation of the Universe, of the First Cause; I have found nowhere any true rule of life. Yet these are two of the three 'truths' that the faiths offer to me as inducements to believe. 'We will give you,' they say, 'a theory of this world and of its origin which is true, which will help you in this life because it will show you what you are and the world is, and whence you came. We will give you through this troublous life a guide that will never fail you, a staff that will never break. And finally, if you believe, you shall attain after death the happiness that is without end.'"

So they promise, and of their promises I have tried two. Have I found that they give what they declare? Is there anywhere any belief of the First Cause that is true, that is the whole truth? There is none. And is there any guide to life that can be followed in sincerity and truth? There is none. There remains only heaven. There remains only the bribe, the promise of happiness, if we will believe as they declare, if we will do as they say.

It may be that here is the secret, that I shall come now to the answer; it may be that this is the key to all. If there is in the heaven they promise us such a fulfilment of glory, such an appeal to our hearts that they cannot but answer, what matter the rest? Happiness is our end in life. For what do we strive all our days but for happiness, for truth, for joy, for the beauty of life? What matter that in the theory of the First Cause we can see no truth, that in the rule of life I can find only a contradiction of beauty, if in the end in heaven these are attained? The end, if the end be perfect, will reveal the truth and the beauty in the ways that are now hid. What is this heaven?

When we think of heaven, when with our eyes shut we try to recall all they have taught us of the Christian heaven, what are the images that come up? It seems as if we went back all those years to when we were little lads beside our mothers, and as the fire flickered across the unlit room, full of strange shadows, we said our childish prayers and leant our heads heavy with sleep upon her knee. It is our mothers that tell us of the heaven, whither they would that we should go, that urge us with imaginings of beauty to come to be "good." It is a childish heaven of which we learn, a heaven full of girl angels with white wings and floating dresses, of golden harps, of pearly gates, of everlasting song. There are, I think, no men there, only girls; no sheep, but fleecy lambs. It is a heaven that appeals only to them. And is it very different when we grow up? Indeed I think not. It is the same heaven always, the same conception full of childish things. Did you ever hear a sermon on the heaven, did you ever read a book, did you ever listen to a discourse that did not take you back again in memory to that far-off fire-lightened room of childhood? Surely there is nothing in all the world so babyish as the general idea of the Christian heaven. Can you imagine a man there, a man with great deep voice and passion-laden eyes, a man with the storms of life still beating on his soul amid these baby faces and white wings? "Ah," said the man, "they must make us into infants that we may enter their heaven. When I revolted against it as a boy as but a kindergarten, without even the distraction of being put in the corner, was I wrong?"

May be, for there are things beyond this. "In my Father's house are many mansions. I go to prepare a place for you." "Eye hath not seen nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive." "The peace of God which passeth all understanding." "Where God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes." These are not childish things. Happiness that hath no sorrow, light that knows no shadow, glory that never ends.

I read a book long ago; I have forgotten the name of it, I have forgotten who wrote it, and I remember that at the time I did not understand it. The book was on the subject of perfect happiness, on heaven, which is postulated as the ideal peace. And what this book tried to show—what, indeed, it showed, I think—was that happiness if perfect was near akin to annihilation. The argument ran something like this. "You are happy in some particular employment, say in singing a hymn, in some particular attitude, let us say in kneeling. If your happiness in this act and attitude is perfect, they will endure for ever. You will pass eternity kneeling and singing the same hymn. For consider, Why do you ever change your acts, your attitudes? Because a particular act or a certain attitude has become wearisome. But if it be stated that your happiness is perfect you can never feel satiety, never feel any desire for change. The wish for change is born of the feeling of wearisomeness. You have had enough of one thing, you want another. But if you are perfectly happy this cannot be. Life would become a monotony, a satiety near akin to death. And if indeed peace be the highest happiness, then would this perfect peace be so near annihilation that the difference would only lie in that your consciousness of happiness still remained." Thus did this writer show that if the Christian heaven be as declared, perfect happiness, so it must be almost indistinguishable from death.

I do not think this writer had ever read of the Buddhist Nirvana, I do not remember that he ever even alluded to it. He was thinking of the Christian heaven and trying to make out what it was like, and that was what he found. He, taking the Christian ideal and working it to its inevitable conclusion, arrived at the same result as Buddhist teachers starting from such widely different premises have arrived at: the Christian heaven and the Buddhist peace are the same.

Readers of my former work, "The Soul of a People," will remember how the Buddhists arrive at Nirvana. It is the "Great Peace." Life is the enemy. Life is change, and change is misery. The ideal is to have done with life, to be steeped in the Great Peace. Thus do the purer ideas of the Christian heaven and the Buddhist heaven agree. It is the "Peace that passeth all understanding" for each.

And yet perfect happiness, sleep without waking, light without shadow, joy without sorrow, gaiety without eclipse. Can this ever be heaven? Let us look back on our lives, we who have lived, and let us think. Let us close our eyes that the past may come before us and we may remember. What are the most beautiful memories that come before us, that make our hearts beat again with the greatest music they have known, that bring again to our eyes the tears that are the water of the well of God? What have been the greatest emotions of our lives? There has been struggle and effort, unceasing effort, crowned maybe with success, but maybe not, effort that we know has brought out all that is best in us, that we rejoice to remember. There will be no effort in heaven, only rest; there is no defeat, and therefore no victory, only peace. Therefore also, because we can have no enemies there we shall have no friends. Our friends! How we can remember them. We have loved them because we have hated others. But in heaven there is no hate, only an equality of indifference. Heaven is nothing but joy. But consider, has joy been the most beautiful thing in your life, is it joy that sounded the deepest harmonies? Remember how you have stood upon that faraway hillside and laid to rest your comrade beneath the forest shadows? Was it not beautiful what your heart sang to you while you said "Farewell," and tears came to your eyes? There are no farewells in heaven.

There are women you have loved, women whose eyes have grown large and soft as you have spoken to them in the dusk of evenings long ago. You have loved them because they were women. What will they be in heaven?

And the children! Think of that childless heaven. Think of the children who laugh and play, and come to you to laugh with them, who cry and come to you for comfort. They will require no comfort from you in heaven, and how much will you lose? The child angels are never naughty. They can never come to you and hide their heads upon your shoulder and say "I was wrong. I am very sorry. Please forgive me." None of these notes shall ever sound in heaven. There are no tears there. But do you not know that the greater beauties can only be seen through tears, which are their dew?

What is it that sounds the deeper notes of our lives? Is it sunshine, happiness, gaiety? Is it any attribute of the heavens of the religions? Surely it is never so. It is the troubles of life, the mistakes, the sorrows, the sin, the shadow mysteries of the world, that sound in our hearts the greater strings.

And are these to be mute in your heavens? Are we to fall to lesser notes of eternal praise, of eternal thanksgiving? Prophets of the faiths, what are these heavens of yours? Is there in them anything to draw our hearts? Have you pointed to us what we really would have? Your sacred books are full of your descriptions, of your enticements; you have beggared all the languages in words to describe what you would have us long for. And what have you gained? Is there any one man, one woman, one child, not steeped in the uttermost incurable disease, in feeble old age, who would change the chances of his life here for any of your heavens? There is no one. Or if you were to say to a man, "Choose. You shall be young again, and strong, or you shall go to heaven." Which would he choose? Therefore, ye teachers of the faiths, are your promises vain. I do not believe in nor do I fear your hells, those crude places of fire and pitch and little black devils. I care not for your heavens; I would not go there, not to any of them, neither to the happy hunting ground, nor to heaven, nor to the garden of the Houris nor to Nirvana, not if they be as you tell me they are. Nor do I want to merge my identity in the Infinite. This life is good enough for me, while I retain health and strength. I am not tempted. Nor is anyone tempted. Whom have you persuaded? You know that you have enticed no one. No one is deceived. Men will die for many things, they will leap to accept death—but not for your heavens. All men fear death and what is beyond, the righteous who you say have earned heaven no less than the unrighteous. All faiths have had their martyrs, but that is different. They have died to preserve their souls, as soldiers die to preserve their honour, gladly. Even the godly do not believe. They will have nothing of your heavens. I cannot understand how either Christian or Buddhist came to imagine such unattractive, unreasonable heavens.

And so they have all failed. No religion gives us an intelligible First Cause, no religion gives us a code of conduct we can follow, no religion offers us a heaven we would care to attain.

There are many definitions of religion. I have written some on my first page. It will be seen that they all hinge on one of these ideas, either that religion is a theory of causation, or it is a code of conduct, or that it is concerned with future rewards and punishments.

But if indeed religion have any or all of these meanings, then is religion false, then are all religions false. And more, no one who thinks over the subject, no one who takes it seriously would believe any one of them, could take any as a satisfactory explanation. No one accepts any code of religious conduct as absolutely workable, no one is attracted by their heavens. I am sure of these things.

Then shall I sit down with Omar Khayyam and say:—

Shall I say all religion is but windy theory and no one cares for it? Neither do I.

The man put down his books and laughed. No one believes? But every man believes, or would like to believe. Every man is at heart more or less religious. I see that in daily life as I go. Why? Why? What is it he finds? I will not give up. I will not come out at that same door. I will try again in a new line. I must be on the wrong road. Let me try back and consider. What is it in religion that we see and love and feel is true? Who are the people that we would be like? Is it the scientific theologian with his word-confusion about homoiousios? Is it the Hindu sophist making theories of Brahm? Is it the Buddhist word-refiner speculating on Karma? Surely it is not any of these people. It is the street preacher crying to the crowd, "Come and be saved"; it is the peasant with bowed head in the sunset listening to the Angelus; it is the priest in his livelong lonely exile. These are Christians, and their thoughts are the religion worth knowing. It is they who are near God. I care not for the intricate intellectual mazes a Hindu can make with his brain, but I care for the coolie. I can see him now, putting his little ghi before the god, giving out of his poverty to the mendicant. It is he who knows God, even if his God be but the God of the hill above him. And it is the woman crying at the pagoda foot for succour; it is the reverent crowds that look upon the pagoda while their eyes fill with tears; it is the Buddhist monk, far away beneath the hills, living his life of purity and example that I reverence. They have religion. I will go to them and ask them what it is. I am sure it is not what the theologians of all creeds have told me. What do these poor know of thought and speculation? They do not think, they know. What is it that they know? Not certainly what the professional divines tell me.

I do not believe these thinkers or their thoughts. If I believed that what they say is religion—is, in fact, so—I would have done with it. That is where most men end. They ask the divines what religion is. The divines produce their theories and creeds. The enquirer looks and examines and reflects. For he says, "If the professional men don't know what their own faith is, who does?" But I will not end so. I will know wherein the truth of religion lies. I will now go to those who know, because they know, not because they think. My books shall be the hearts of men.