“‘But if you sincerely repent—’
“‘I can’t repent; I only fear.’
“‘You only regret the past for its consequences to yourself?’
“‘Just so—except that I’m sorry to have wronged you, Nell, because you’re so good to me.’
“‘Think of the goodness of God, and you cannot but be grieved to have offended Him.’
“‘What is God?—I cannot see Him or hear Him.—God is only an idea.’
“‘God is Infinite Wisdom, and Power, and Goodness—and LOVE; but if this idea is too vast for your human faculties—if your mind loses itself in its overwhelming infinitude, fix it on Him who condescended to take our nature upon Him, who was raised to heaven even in His glorified human body, in whom the fulness of the Godhead shines.’
“But he only shook his head and sighed. Then, in another paroxysm of shuddering horror, he tightened his grasp on my hand and arm, and, groaning and lamenting, still clung to me with that wild, desperate earnestness so harrowing to my soul, because I know I cannot help him. I did my best to soothe and comfort him.
“‘Death is so terrible,’ he cried, ‘I cannot bear it! You don’t know, Helen—you can’t imagine what it is, because you haven’t it before you! and when I’m buried, you’ll return to your old ways and be as happy as ever, and all the world will go on just as busy and merry as if I had never been; while I—’ He burst into tears.
“‘You needn’t let that distress you,’ I said; ‘we shall all follow you soon enough.’