She did, however, believe in Heaven because it was a ladylike place with pink clouds, harp music, and a man to open the door, but most of all she believed in that Chivas Regal of Protestantism, the Episcopal Church.

That they (the powers of heaven) may be conferred upon us, it is true; but when we undertake to cover• our sins, or to gratify our pride, our vain ambition, or to exercise control or dominion• or compulsion upon the souls of the children of men, in any degree of unrighteousness, behold, the heavens withdraw• themselves; the Spirit of the Lord is grieved

That they (the powers of heaven) may be conferred upon us, it is true; but when we undertake to cover• our sins, or to gratify our pride, our vain ambition, or to exercise control or dominion• or compulsion upon the souls of the children of men, in any degree of unrighteousness, behold, the heavens withdraw• themselves; the Spirit of the Lord is grieved

The main object of religion is not to get a man into heaven, but to get heaven into him

When people want to be rid of Heaven it is logical to start by creating an atmosphere in which spiritual things appear out of place; in order to be able to declare successfully that God is unreal they have to construct around man a false reality, a reality that is inevitably inhuman because only the inhuman can exclude God. What is involved is a falsification of the imagination and so its destruction.

Heaven, as conventionally conceived, is a place so inane, so dull, so useless, so miserable, that nobody has ever ventured to describe a whole day in heaven, though plenty of people have described a day at the seaside.