Part 9 (2/2)
”Father?”
”Yes----” He looked down at her absently.
”What were you reading?”
”A quotation from the Sacred Anthology.”
”Isn't prayer really necessary?”
Her mother said:
”Yes, dear.”
”Then how did those people who offered no prayers go to Heaven?”
Her father said:
”Eternal life is not attained by praise or prayer alone, Ruhannah.
Those things which alone justify prayer are also necessary.”
”What are they?”
”What we really _think_ and what we _do_--both only in Christ's name.
Without these nothing else counts very much--neither form nor convention nor those individual garments called creed and denomination, which belief usually wears throughout the world.”
Her mother, sewing, glanced gravely down at her daughter:
”Your father is very tolerant of what other people believe--as long as they really do believe. Your father thinks that Christ would have found friends in Buddha and Mahomet.”
”Do such people go to Heaven?” asked Ruhannah, astonished.
”Listen,” said her father, reading again:
”'I came to a place and I saw the souls of the liberal, adorned above all other souls in splendour. And it seemed to me sublime.
”'I saw the souls of the truthful who walked in lofty splendour. And it seemed to me sublime.
”'I saw the souls of teachers and inquirers; I saw the friendly souls of interceders and peacemakers; and these walked brilliantly in the light. And it seemed to me sublime----'”
He turned to his wife:
”To see and know _is_ sublime. We know, Mary; and Ruhannah is intelligent. But in spite of her faith in what she has learned from us, like us she must one day travel the common way, seeking for herself the reasons and the evidences of immortality.”
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