The Washington times., 1918-08-03

Is,
settling an argument
Yours truly,
1928 Nineteenth street northwest
we could we would be very glad to settle this ques
ton for our three disputants
It is problem which has vexed millions Of souls and
win continue to be the subject of debate and theory long
as the mystery of the unknown shall endure.
But should arrive at definite conclusion 1t
viii be interesting to discover and discuss Of the ideas
Of heaven which have resulted from the development Of the
most popular religions Of the world
We shall at least have before Us the beliefs Of
joy Of those who have any theories regarding the where
abouts and character Of paradise.
The three major divisions of the worlds religions are
cianists and Taoists about O0O and the Moham
medans about 22500000 These three constitute about
tWo-thirds Of the worlds religious worshipers
The Christian belief of heaven is Of course based
Biblical teachings and the twenty and twenty
third chapters Of Revelations describe IN detail what st.
John conceived the future dwelling place Of the good to be-
According to his description, heaven is a square city
@AHd he measured the city twelve thousand furLongs
That would be territory fifteen hundred miles each
large as Washington and about onetwenty fifth the area
Of the dry land Of the world
With this heaven closely populated is the Capital
in these war times would hold about nine billion people
The present human inhabitants Of the world number slightly
under two billions.
Thus we see that the heaven of Revelations going to
be considerably crowded only fraction Of the people who
have lived since the world began were good enough to 60
there.
The physical description of the Christian heaven and
the Mohammedan paradise bear striking similarity Mo-
hamed who lived in the seventh century, would to
have copied his ideas of place Of reward from Biblical
sources attempting at all times to make his heaven more
attractive.
According to Revelations the heaven of st. John was
a part of ga great and high mountain
Mohammed put his heaven above the earth and to it
he made famous pilgrimage His celestial journey was
begun when ne mounted Borak animal with the face
of human the body of and the tail and hoofs of
q
On an emerald green saddle with turquoise srups and
bride Of pearls he journeyed to his meeting with the
$4,000 prophets and then proceeded ladder of light
to successive heavens each wonderful than the
other and everywhere he reported he received with
great favor
He saw sexIess angels by the millions, all breathing
perfume Some Of them had seventy heads which would
too many and one had 10000 wings and another had
eyes all over him.
The Mohammedan heaven would seem to be more spa
cious than that Of the Christian religion for in Of the
heavens 100000 tents each as large as the earth
and the distance from tent to another $4,000
years journey.
Mohammed expected a big crowd in his paradise.
The journey of the prophet must have been amazingly
interesting It rected in wonderful detail in various
books of Turkish authorship each seeking to be more glow
ing in description than the others
The third Of the great religions, although second in
size, has no heaven at all
Confucius had no expectation of future life and he
gave no hope Of one to his believers.
One morning, seven days before his death, with his
hands behind his back dragging his staff he found by
Tze-Kng, Of his disciples in his garden and this
was what he was saying to himself:
''The great mountain must crumble
The strong beam must break,
The wise man must wither away like plant
That was the way the great Chinese philosopher sum-
med up his conception of the after life.
he who had said, "The superior may have to en-
due want but he is still the superior man." reduced his
ideal in the end to the level of the leaves.
"While you do not know lfe" he said to one of his
followers, ''What you know about death?"
CONTINUED in Last coumn1