hee, Abe. Wheer's thy harp an' crown o' gowd?'

"'Harp an' crown o' gowd,' said Abe, an' he started laughin'. 'Who is
thou takkin' me for? I'm noan King David. I'm a vesselman at t' steel
works,' an' he pointed wi' his hand across t' lake to wheer we could see
t' forge.

"Gow! but I were fair flustrated. There was Abe Verity tellin' me one
minute that I were in heaven, and next minute he were sayin' that he
were workin' at t' steel works. You see I had allus thowt that i' heaven
iverything would be different to what it is on earth. So I said: 'Does
thou mean to tell me, Abe, that lads i' heaven do t' same sort o' wark
that they've bin doin' all their lives on earth?'

"'Nay,' says Abe, 'I'll noan go so far as to say just that. What I say
is that they start i' heaven wheer they've left off on earth; but t'
conditions is different.'

"'How's that?' I axed.

"'Well, for one thing, a lad taks more pride i' his wark; an', what's
more, he's freer to do what he likes. When I were at Leeds Steel Works I
had to do choose-what t' boss telled me. Up here I'm my own boss.'

"When I heerd that, I knew that Abe were weel suited. You see he were a
bit o' a Socialist, were Abe; he used to wear a red tie an' talk
Socialism of a Setterday neet on Hunslet Moor. So I said to him: 'Doesta
mean that heaven stands for Socialism, Abe?'

"But Abe laughed an' shook his heead. 'Nay, lad,' he said, 'we haven't
gotten no 'isms i' heaven. We've gotten shut o' all that sort o' thing.
There's no argifying i' heaven. There's plenty o' discipline, but it's
what we call self-discipline; an' I reckon that's t' only sort o'
discipline that's worth owt.'

"'That'll niver do for me, Abe,' I said. 'If it were a case o'
self-discipline, I reckon I'd niver do a stroke o' wark.'

"'Nay, lad,' he said; 'thou'll think different now thou's coom to
heaven. Thou'll hark to t' inner voice an' do what it tells thee.'

"'Inner voice,' I said; 'what's that?'

"'It's a new sort o' boss,' says Abe; 'an' a gooid 'un an' all. When
thou wants to know what to do or how to do it, thou just sets thisen
down, an' t' inner voice starts talkin' to thee an' keeps on talkin',
while thou gets agate o' doin' what it tells thee.'"

Job's story was gripping my imagination as nothing had done before.
Heaven was a place of activity and not of rest; a place where the
labours of earth were renewed at the point at which they had ceased on
earth, but under ideal conditions; so th