“Our young saints, of both sexes, wear wings all the time – blazing
red ones, and blue and green, and gold, and variegated, and
rainbowed, and ring-streaked-and-striped ones – and nobody finds
fault. It is suitable to their time of life. The things are
beautiful, and they set the young people off. They are the most
striking and lovely part of their outfit – a halo don’t BEGIN.”
“Well,” says I, “I’ve tucked mine away in the cupboard, and I allow
to let them lay there till there’s mud.”
“Yes – or a reception.”
“What’s that?”
“Well, you can see one to-night if you want to. There’s a
barkeeper from Jersey City going to be received.”
“Go on – tell me about it.”
“This barkeeper got converted at a Moody and Sankey meeting, in New
York, and started home on the ferry-boat, and there was a collision
and he got drowned. He is of a class that think all heaven goes
wild with joy when a particularly hard lot like him is saved; they
think all heaven turns out hosannahing to welcome them; they think
there isn’t anything talked about in the realms of the blest but
their case, for that day. This barkeeper thinks there hasn’t been
such another stir here in years, as his coming is going to raise. –
And I’ve always noticed this peculiarity about a dead barkeeper –
he not only expects all hands to turn out when he arrives, but he
expects to be received with a torchlight procession.”
“I reckon he is disappointed, then.”
“No, he isn’t. No man is allowed to be disappointed here.
Whatever he wants, when he comes – that is, any reasonable and
unsacrilegious thing – he can have. There’s always a few millions
or billions of young folks around who don’t want any better
entertainment than to fill up their lungs and swarm out with their
torches and have a high time over a barkeeper. It tickles the
barkeeper till he can’t rest, it makes a charming lark for the
young folks, it don’t do anybody any harm, it don’t cost a rap, and
it keeps up the place’s reputation for making all comers happy and
content.”
“Very good. I’ll be on hand and see them land the barkeeper.”
“It is manners to go in full dress. You want to wear your wings,
you know, and your other things.”
“Which ones?”
“Halo, and harp, and palm branch, and all that.”
“Well,” says I, “I reckon I ought to be ashamed of myself, but the
fact is I left them laying around that day I resigned from the
choir. I haven’t got a rag to wear but this robe and the wings.”
“That’s all right. You’ll find they’ve been raked up and saved for
you. Send for them.”
“I’ll do it, Sandy. But what was it you was saying about
unsacrilegious things, which people expect to get, and will be
disappointed about?”
“Oh, there are a lot of such things that people expect and don’t
get. For instance, there’s a Brooklyn preacher by the name of
Talmage, who is laying up a considerable disappointment for
himself. He says, every now and then in his sermons, that the
first thing he does when he gets to heaven, will be to fling his
arms around Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and kiss them and weep on
them. There’s millions of people down there on earth that are
promising themselves the same thing. As many as sixty thousand
people arrive here every single day, that want to run straight to
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and hug them and weep on them. Now mind
you, sixty thousand a day is a pretty heavy contract for those old
people. If they were a mind to allow it, they wouldn’t ever have
anything to do, year in and year out, but stand up and be hugged
and wept on thirty-two hours in the twenty-four. They would be
tired out and as wet as muskrats all the time. What would heaven
be, to THEM? It would be a mighty good place to get out of – you
know that, yourself. Those are kind and gentle old Jews, but they