t, and peace, and unspeakable felicity forever."

"How do you expect to get into Heaven? How do you expect to unlock the
golden gates of the New Jerusalem?" pursued the old man.

"By faith," was the prompt reply. "Faith unlocks these gates."

The old man shook his head, and turning to the individual with whom he
had first been conversing, remarked--

"You asked me if I meant to say that there was no Heaven for the good
who bravely battle with evil in this life? If all the reward of the
righteous was to be in this world? God forbid! For then would I be of
all men most miserable. What I said was, that Heaven would be _found_
no where else but in this world, by man. Heaven must be entered into
here, or it never can be entered into when men die."

"You speak in a strange language," said the individual who had joined
them, in a sneering tone. "No one can understand what you mean.
Certainly I do not."

"I should not think you did," quietly replied the old man. "But I
will explain my meaning more fully--perhaps you will be able to
comprehend something of what I say. Men talk a great deal about
Heaven, but few understand what it means. All admit that in this life
they must prepare for Heaven; but nearly all seem to think that this
preparation consists in the _doing_ of something as a means by which
they will be entitled to enter Heaven after death, when there will be
a sudden and wonderful change in all their feelings and perceptions."

"And is not that true?" asked the one who had previously spoken.

"I do not believe that it is, in the commonly understood sense."

"And pray what do you believe?"

"I believe that all in heavenly societies are engaged in doing good,
and that heavenly delight is the delight which springs from a
gratified love of benefiting others. And I also believe, that the
beginning of Heaven with every one is on this earth, and takes place
when he first makes the effort to renounce self and seek from a true
desire to benefit them, the good of others. If this coming into
Heaven, as I call it, does not take place here, it can never take
place, for '_As the tree falls so it lies_.' Whatever is a man's
internal quality when he dies that it must remain forever. If he have
been a lover of self, and sought only his own good, he will remain a
lover of self in the next life. But, if he have put away self-love
from his heart and shunned the evils to which it would prompt him, as
sins, then he comes into Hea