something like a 'dream-story,' there is nothing in the world half
so true and real. Think in that little head of yours, and tell me
what seems to you most like this beautiful garden."

"I cannot think of anything at all like it, except heaven.--Oh,
yes!--that is it! Heaven, is it not?"

"And what is heaven?"

"The place where good people go when they die."

"Think again. What is heaven?"

"I have thought again, and I cannot think of anything but the place
where God and the angels are. I do not know how you want me to
think."

"I want you to think why it is heaven, and why the angels are happy.
Do you understand?"

"Yes. Being beautiful and so pleasant makes it heaven; and the
angels are happy because they are in heaven."

"Then, of course, if you put even such wicked people into a
beautiful and pleasant place they would be angels, and happy?"

"Oh, now I see! You mean the angels are happy because they are
good."

"Why should that make them happy?"

"I don't know why, but I know the Bible says so. I suppose just the
same as when you promise me, in the morning, that if I say my
lessons all nicely you will tell me a beautiful fairy-tale after
tea."

"No, my little Alice, not exactly in that way, though at first
thought it does seem to be so. I want you very much indeed, to
understand the truth about it, but I am afraid you will not find it
easy. You know that God is good, and wise, and happy--ah, dearest!
better, wiser, happier than the purest angels will ever know, though
they go on learning it to eternity. When I say to you God is
infinitely good, and wise, and happy, you cannot understand that,
and neither can I; but one thing about it I can understand, and this
I will tell you. Just as every joyous ray of light and heat comes to
us from the sun, so all wisdom, all goodness, all beauty, all joy,
flow forth from God, and are His, alone. Our very souls would go out
of existence like the flames of a lamp when the oil is spent, if,
for the least fraction of a second, He ceased to give us life. This
truth that I am teaching you now is not mine, nor yours; it is only
a tiny stream flowing from the fountains of His infinite wisdom, and
would be the truth, all the same, if we had never been born, or
never learned to see it. The good and joyous feelings in your heart,
too, are also from God, just as the truth is, though they seem to
you more as if they were your own. You must never think of them as
your own,