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“In my best clothes,” shouted the Turk, “the ones I stole.” And he clad himself in a splendid turban and a waistcoat embroidered with silver, and baggy trousers, and a great belt in which were stuck pipes and pistols and knives.

“And in what clothes will you enter?” said the voice to Mr. Andrews.

Mr. Andrews thought of his best clothes, but he had no wish to wear them again. At last he remembered and said, “Robes.”

“Of what colour and fashion?” asked the voice.

Mr. Andrew had never thought about the matter much. He replied, in hesitating tones, “White, I suppose, of some flowing soft material,” and he was immediately given a garment such as he had described.”Do I wear it rightly?” he asked.

“Wear it as it pleases you,” replied the voice.”What else do you desire?”

“A harp,” suggested Mr. Andrews.”A small one.”

A small gold harp was placed in his hand.

“And a palm—no, I cannot have a palm, for it is the reward of martyrdom; my life has been tranquil and happy.”

“You can have a palm if you desire it.”

But Mr. Andrews refused the palm, and hurried in his white robes after the Turk, who had already entered Heaven. As he passed in at the open gate, a man, dressed like himself, passed out with gestures of despair.

“Why is he not happy?” he asked.

The voice did not reply.

“And who are all those figures, seated inside on thrones and mountains? Why are some of them terrible, and sad, and ugly?”

There was no answer. Mr. Andrews entered, and then he saw that those seated figures were all the gods who were then being worshipped on the earth. A group of souls stood round each, singing his praises. But the gods paid no heed, for they were listening to the prayers of living men, which alone brought them nourishment. Sometimes a faith would grow weak, and then the god of that faith also drooped and dwindled and fainted for his daily portion of incense. And sometimes, owing to a revivalist movement, or to a great commemoration, or to some other cause, a faith would grow strong, and the god of that faith grow strong also. And, more frequently still, a faith would alter, so that the features of its god altered and became contradictory, and passed from ecstasy to respectability, or from mildness and universal love to the ferocity of battle. And at times a god would divide into two gods, or three, or more, each with his own ritual and precarious supply of prayer.

Mr. Andrews saw Buddha and Vishnu and Allah and Jehovah and the Elohim. He saw little ugly determined gods who were worshipped by a few savages in the same way. He saw the vast shadowy outlines of the NeoPagan Zeus. There were cruel gods and coarse gods and tortured gods, and, worse still, there were gods who were peevish, or deceitful, or vulgar. No aspiration of humanity was unfulfilled. There was even an intermediate state for those who wished it, and for the Christian Scientists a place where they could demonstrate that they had not died.

He did not play his harp for long, but hunted vainly for one of his dead friends. And though souls were continually entering Heaven, it still seemed curiously empty. Though he had all that he expected, he was conscious of no great happiness, no mystic contemplation of beauty, no mystic union with good. There was nothing to compare with that moment outside the gate, when he prayed that the Turk might enter and heard the Turk uttering the same prayer for him. And when at last he saw his companion he hailed him with a cry of human joy.