'Smiles' by Eliot H. Robinson (ebook reader for laptop .TXT) 📕

"'God is a spirit,'" whispered Smiles, reverently.

"Exactly. And Dr. MacDonald will tell you that 'spirit' comes from a Latin word which means 'breath.' When God perceived that some of the earth creatures had, according to His plan, developed sufficiently in mind so that they could rule the world, He breathed into them some of His own spirit, and thus created them in His own image—for of course a spirit hasn't form and shape like beings of flesh and blood."

"Hasn't He?" gasped the girl. "Why, there is a picture of Him, like a great big man with long beard, in my Bible."

"Merely symbolic, dear child, and I have always felt that it was a vain symbolism, in both senses of that word. You look them up in your new dictionary to-morrow. In trying hard to picture God, men have made Him in the likeness of the most wonderful things their eyes had ever seen—themselves—and just increased His size. As for the beard, that is supposed to be a sign of power and strength.

"Of course, in fact, God isn't a man or even a super-man, but a spirit, combining the spiritual elements of both male and female."

"I reckon I jest hev ter think of er somebody fer ter worship," broke in the hitherto silent Jerry. "Jest something like ther wind air er bit too onsartain fer me."

"And for millions of others," answered the minister quickly. "Of course there isn't the slightest bit of harm in people thinking of Our Heavenly Father as a Being with a form which our eyes might see if they were only given the power to behold heavenly, as well as earthly, things. The conception of the Omnipotent as a physical embodiment has in the past been of incalculable advantage in making an appeal to an aboriginal type of mind, since it really requires some sort of material personification, which it can at least visualize, the conception of which serves as an incentive for well-doing, and a deterrent from evil doing. It is therefore infinitely preferable as a working basis to an unembodied force."

Big Jerry brought a smile to the lips of the other two men by bursting out, "Durned ef I understand. Them words air too powerful ederkated fer me."

"But," said Rose, "what you say kind of frightens me, Mr. Talmadge. If we can't ever see God, even in Heaven, how can we be sure that He is?"

"Have you ever seen ... love?" queried the minister softly.

"No, sir."

"Yet you know that it is. You've never seen, tasted, touched or smelled thought, but you know that it exists. In the same mysterious way we know, and we shall know more perfectly hereafter, that the Great Spirit—I've always loved that beautiful Indian expression—is."

"Yes," she said, somewhat uncertainly. "I think that I understand. But it's powerful hard to understand how I can be His little child if He isn't a person."

"I don't wonder that it puzzles you, dear. It is hard for even the oldest of us to try to imagine something entirely different from what we have actually seen with our mortal eyes, and we can hardly conceive of a spirit, or even a ghost, as something without some sort of a form, even though it be a very misty one. But the real you isn't the flesh that we can see and touch, but the spirit that dwells inside, and, just as some of your earthly father and mother is in your body, so you have something of God within you, which was given you at birth. We call it ..."

"My soul."

"Yes. And as that was part of Him you are His child ... so are we all—spiritual children."

"And Jesus? Was He His son in the same way?" whispered the girl.

"Exactly, only to a far greater degree than we can hope to be, for to Him the Heavenly Father gave His spirit in fuller measure than He ever had before to mankind, so that He might set an example to the world and teach us the way we should try to live."

There was silence for a moment, and then Smiles spoke the thought that had been troubling her. "But, Mr. Talmadge, if God hasn't any body and our spirits are like him, why heaven ..."

Mr. Talmadge sent a glance of smiling appeal at the doctor as though to say, "Now I'm in for it. How can I explain heaven as a spiritual condition?" Aloud he said, "I won't pretend to know just what heaven is like, but, of course, our spirits won't need an earth like this to walk on."

"But," persisted the child, "the Good Book says that there are many mansions there, and golden streets, and also that it is a land flowing with milk and honey."

"So it does, and very likely there are, in the realms of the spirit, things which correspond to those that we have known on earth, but I am quite sure that they are not material things."

"Ef thar haint no real heaven, thar haint no real hell," broke in Big Jerry, whose mind had been slowly grasping the meaning of the minister's words. "I reckon thar must be a place uv punishment fer sinners."

Painstakingly, as though explaining to a child, Mr. Talmadge answered, "Mr. Webb, did you ever do something wrong, because of which your conscience troubled you later?"

"Reckon I hev. Reckon I suffered the torments uv the damned fer hit."

"Did you ever burn your hand?"

"Yes, I done thet, too; powerful bad."

"Which caused you the most suffering, your conscience or your hand?"

"I erlows thet my conscience done hit."

"That is the answer to your implied question. God doesn't need to give us new bodies, and send them into a place of fire and brimstone to punish us for our sins. If the soul suffers, it is in hell, even though it may still be in our mortal bodies. That it must suffer, when we do wrong, we know. But, Mr. Webb, I do not think that it is meant to be punishment in the sense of retribution—getting even—so much as it is for correction. You know that men put gold through the fire to purge it of the dross that makes it dim and lustreless. That is what the fires of the spirit are for; that is why the Bible speaks of Hell as a place of fire. It is another parable."

"Yes, I see," said Rose, but the old man shook his head, unconvinced. Then the girl asked suddenly, "But why was God so good as to give us part of Himself and let us make it impure and suffer, Mr. Talmadge?"

"Ah, now you are getting into the depths of religion and I'd rather not discuss that until you have had a chance to think over what we have talked about already. All that I wanted to do to-night was to get both you, and the doctor, to thinking for yourselves. Come and see me, doctor, if you want to continue this discussion. I've got theories on any subject that you may mention, I guess," he laughed. "But I won't count the evening wasted—even leaving out the pleasure I have had—if I have helped to open your eyes, ever so little, to the light."

"Oh, you have ... and mine, too," answered Rose. "I mean to think hard, but if I get very puzzled, I'll come to see you about it. But, anyway, I mean to be God's little child all my life—as well as a trained nurse. And I mean to help Dr. Mac, always, to be a child of our heavenly Father, too," she added, simply. As Donald arose to bid the minister good-night, his eyes were a little misty, for the girl's unaffected declaration had moved him more deeply than he had ever been moved in his life.