“When Father couldn’t have any pain ever any more.”
“Do you mean that you wish to hear your Father is dead, you wicked child?”
Cissy looked up wearily into the nun’s face. “He’s in pain now,” she said; “for he is waiting, and knows he will have more. But when it has come, he will have no more, never, but will live with God and be happy for ever and ever. I want to know that Father’s happy.”
“How can these wicked heretics fall into such delusions?” said Sister Mary, looking across the room at Sister Joan, who shook her head in a way which seemed to say that there was no setting any bounds to the delusions of heretics. “Foolish child, thy father is a bad man, and bad men do not go to Heaven.”
“Father’s not a bad man,” said Cissy, not angrily, but in a tone of calm persuasion that nothing would shake. “I cry you mercy, Sister Mary, but you don’t know him, and somebody has told you wrong. Father’s good, and loves God; and people are not bad when they love God and do what He says to them. You’re mistaken, please, Sister.”
“But thy father does not obey God, child, because he does not obey the Church.”
“Please, I don’t know anything about the Church. Father obeys the Bible, and that is God’s own Word which He spoke Himself. The Church can’t be any better than that.”
“The Church, for thee, is the priest, who will tell thee how to please God and the Holy Mother, if thou wilt hearken.”
“But the priest’s a man, Sister: and God’s Book is a great deal better than that.”
“The priest is in God’s stead, and conveys His commands.”