I quailed. At four the fear of that word had fallen on my soul. She knew it: the beady eyes gleamed.
"No hope, no escape. Flames, pains, coals of fire, coals of fire! Ha, ha, ha!" (Here she cackled.) "Not sorry, eh? Very like you'll be sorry then, when you look across the gulf and see all your dear ones in Abraham's bosom. No hope of ever joining them. Torture for all eternity. Have you thought what the word Eternity means, child? You're young in your sins as yet, but you know that well enough, ha, ha, ha!" (She chuckled again, three hard little cackling noises they always were, cruel enough.) "It means that you will suffer the torments of the lake of fire that is burning with brimstone, not for a mere thousand thousand years, but for ever and ever and ever—"
I was less than four years old, and I could bear it no longer. I flew to my Grandmother's arm for safety, sobbing brokenly, half-wild for fear.
Aunt Jael leaned back, content, pleased with the success of her punishment, and sure of heaven. Though if there be the Hell she raved of, it is for such as her.
My Grandmother comforted me. She was torn, I suppose, between two feelings. Her faith told her that what her sister said was true, her heart that it was cruel. I felt somehow even then that this was the nature of my Grandmother's struggle. The good heart turns away from cruelty, even when it speaks with all the authority of true religion, and so my Grandmother always turned away. She compromised: said nothing to Aunt Jael, while she comforted me; while soothing the victim, did not scold the scolder.
"Don't cry my dearie, and don't 'ee be frightened. Nought can harm 'ee. Your good aunt is right. 'Tis true that Hell is terrible, 'tis true that you're a sinful child, and 'tis true that you'll be going to the cruel place, if you have no sorrow and repentance in your heart. You broke your Aunt's fine cup; run to her now, tell her you're sorry. Only then can you be saved from the wrath of Jehovah, freed by repentance, cleansed by love of Christ. And even as Hell is awful, so is Heaven good. Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him. Run to your Aunt. Say: 'I'm sorry, Aunt.'"
I hesitated. Like my Grandmother's, my four-year-old heart found it had to decide between two calls. The call of fear was, "Say you're sorry, and escape surely from Hell." The call of hate was "Why? She is a bad cruel woman; and you're not sorry at all, you're glad you've smashed her evil cup."
"Besides," added the Tempter, "as you're not sorry, it would be lying to say you are."
I hung doubtfully. At length I pouted, "I don't want to."
"But true repentance," said my Grandmother, "means doing things you don't want to."