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A PLEA FOR DUMB THINGS

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 2, 1879

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 54, No. 15.

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A PLEA FOR DUMB THINGS.

By Elizabeth Akers Allen

“Mamma,” says the average little girl to her mother, as, suddenly reminded of a great moral question, she pauses in the loving squeeze which she is administering to the feline pet in her arms—“Mamma, do all good people go to Heaven?”
“Certainly, my child,” responds the average mother, with cheerful confidence; although all the time conscious of a little dread as to what question may come next.
“But what if they can’t read, mamma? and can’t study Sunday-school lessons, and read good books? Will they go to Heaven just the same, if they are good?”
“Surely,” replies mamma, a little reassured; “some poor people never have a chance to learn, as you do—they cannot go to school, or learn to read, perhaps; but if they do as well as they know how to do, and are never unkind or wicked, the Lord loves them just the same. He is no respecter of persons; he does not love the wisest man in the world any better than the poor, ignorant little child; so they both alike try to live an innocent life, and are as good as they know how to be.”
The child’s face brightens, and she finishes the interrupted squeeze, with—
“Good! then my white kitty can go to Heaven, can’t she?”
“A kitty go to Heaven! No, indeed! Kitties and puppies and chickens do not go to Heaven.”
“But why?” with sudden disappointment clouding the puzzled face. “I am sure, my kitty does as well as she knows how to do; she never steals nor scratches, and is just as good as she can be. You said it was no matter about reading and being wise; and every other way, my kitty is as good as anybody can be.”
“But kitties have no souls, and it is the soul that goes to Heaven.”
“What is the soul?”
This is deep water. But the mother makes another plunge.
“The soul, dear, is the part of you that loves and knows and remembers,—the part that does not die when the body dies,—the immortal—”
“But, mamma, my kitty has something to love with, too; and she loves me, and knows me from all the other girls, and remembers where her milk-saucer is, and has learned lots of things; and why isn’t that her soul just as it is mine? And why must she all die when her body does, if I don’t?”
Alas, why? and many a little child never gets a satisfactory answer to this question. The mother generally finishes by alluding in a vague way to the Bible; but she cannot, for the life of her, think of a passage therein which would prove her position; and though adroitly changing the subject for the present, she inwardly determines to have a little private consultation with Cruden at her first convenience. She is much disappointed and disquieted, afterward, at the unsatisfactory result of the conference.—
Elizabeth Akers Allen.