Please let Christian principles permeate my writing 

    and please let there be enough of my writing (published)

    for Christian principles to permeate.

I dread, Oh Lord, losing my faith. 

My mind is not strong.

It is prey to all sorts of intellectual quackery.

I do not want it to be fear which keeps me in the church.

I don’t want to be a coward, staying with You because I fear hell.

I should reason that if I fear hell, I can be assured of the author of it

But learned people can analyze for me why I fear hell 

    and their implication is that there is no hell.

But I believe in hell.

Hell seems a great deal more feasible to my weak mind than heaven.

No doubt because hell is a more earthly seeming thing.

I can fancy the tortures of the damned

    but I cannot imagine the disembodied souls 

    hanging in a crystal for all eternity praising God.

It is natural that I should not imagine this.

If we could accurately map heaven some of our up & coming scientists

    would begin to draw blueprints for its improvement,

    and the bourgeois would sell guides 10 cents the copy to all over 65.

But I do not mean to be clever although I do mean to be clever on 2nd thought

    and like to be clever and want to be considered so.

But the point more specifically here is,

    I don’t want to fear to be out, I want to love to be in;

    I don’t want to believe in hell but in heaven.

Stating this does me no good.

It is a matter of the gift of grace.

Help me to feel that I will give up every earthly thing for this.

 

 

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The Lord is good to all;
    he has compassion on all he has made.
All your works praise you, Lord;
    your faithful people extol you.
They tell of the glory of your kingdom
    and speak of your might,
 so that all people may know of your mighty acts
    and the glorious splendor of your kingdom.
Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom,
    and your dominion endures through all generations.