"O that you would teach it to me!" he said, with a deeper meaning than she detected.
"Again," she continued, "our theology does not represent death as making havoc anywhere. It is sin that makes the havoc, and death is only one of its consequences. And even this enemy God compels to work for the good of His friends. Do not think," she continued, coming a step nearer in her earnestness, "that I make such allusions to pain you, but only in my sincere wish to help you, and illustrate my meaning by something you know so well. Did death make havoc in your mother's case? Was it not rather a sombre-liveried janitor that opened for her the gates of heaven?"
He was deeply touched, and turned away his face. After a moment he continued his walk, that they might get further away from the house and the danger of interruption.
He suddenly startled Annie by saying, in a tone of harsh and intense bitterness, "Her death made 'havoc' for me. If she had lived I might have been a good man instead of the wretch I am. If death as janitor opens the gates of heaven, your religion teaches that it also opens the gates of hell. How can I love a God who shuts up the sinful in an inferno—in dungeons of many and varied tortures, and racks them forever? Can I, just to escape all this, pretend that I love Him, when in truth I fear and dread Him unspeakably? No, I'll never be a hypocrite."
Tears glistened in Annie's eyes as he turned to look at her.
"You pity me," he said, more gently. "Your God does not. If He wanted to be loved He should never have revealed a hell."
"Should He not in mercy, if it really existed? And does it not exist? Will merely a beautiful place make heaven for anybody? Mr. Gregory, look around this lovely autumn evening. See the crimson glory of those clouds yonder in the west. See that brightness shading off into paler and more exquisite tints. Look, how those many-hued leaves reflect the glowing sky. The air is as sweet and balmy as that of Eden could have been. The landscape is beautiful in itself, and especially attractive to you. To our human eyes it hardly seems as if heaven could be more perfect than this. And yet, standing in the one spot of all the earth most beautiful to you, Mr. Gregory, pardon me for saying it, your face expresses nothing but pain. There is not a trace of happiness in it. You were not happy when you came here. I saw that the first day. All the pleasant surroundings of your own home have not made you happy. Have they given you even peace and quiet? Place does not make heaven, but something we carry in our own bosoms," she concluded, leaving him to supply the rest of her thought.
His face was white with fear, and there was terror in his tone as he turned and said to her, in a low voice, "Miss Walton, that is what I have been coming to see and dread, of late, and as you put the thoughts into words I see that it is true. I carry perdition in my own heart. When I am alone my imaginings frighten me; and when with others, impulses arise to do the devil's own work."
"But it is the nature of God to save from all this. I am so sorry that you do not understand Him better."
"He saves some," said Gregory, gloomily.