"The drollest thing, Aunt Bell! This morning instead of hearing Allan, I went up to that trunk-room and rummaged through the chest that has all those old papers and things of Grandfather Delcher's. And would you believe it? For an hour or more there, I was reading bits of his old sermons."
"But he was a Presbyterian!" In her tone and inflection Aunt Bell ably conveyed an exposition of the old gentleman's impossibility—lucidly allotting him to spiritual fellowship with the head-hunters of Borneo.
"I know it, but, Aunt Bell, those old sermons really did me good; all full of fire they were, too, but you felt a man back of them—a good man, a real man. You liked him, and it didn't matter that his terminology was at times a little eccentric. Grandfather's theology fitted the last days of his life about as crinoline and hoop-skirts would fit over there on the avenue to-day— but he always made me feel religious. It seemed sweet and good to be a Christian when he talked. With all his antiquated beliefs he never made me doubt as—as I doubt to-day. But it was another thing I wanted to show you—something I found—some old compositions of Bernal's that his grandfather must have kept. Here's one about birds—'jingle-birds, squeak-birds and clatter-birds.' No?—you wouldn't care for that?— well—listen to this."
She read the youthful Bernal's effort to rehabilitate the much-blemished reputation of Judas—a paper that had been curiously preserved by the old man.
"Poor Judas, indeed!" The novelty was not lost upon Aunt Bell, expert that she was in all obliquities from accepted tradition.
"The funny boy! Very ingenious, I'm sure. I dare say no one ever before said a good word for Judas since the day of his death, and this lad would canonise him out of hand. Think of it—St. Judas!"
Nancy lay back among the cushions, talking idly, inconsequently.
"You see, there was at least one man created, Aunt Bell, who could by no chance be saved—one man who had to betray the Son of Man—one man to be forever left out of the Christian scheme of salvation, even if every other in the world were saved. There had to be one man to disbelieve, to betray and to lie in hell for it, or the whole plan would have been frustrated. There was a theme for Dante, Aunt Bell—not the one soul in hell, but the other souls in heaven slowly awakening to the suffering of that one soul—to the knowledge that he was suffering in order that they might be saved. Do you think they would find heaven to be real heaven if they knew he was burning? And don't you think a poet could make some interesting talk between this solitary soul predestined to hell, and the God who planned the scheme?"
Aunt Bell looked bored and uttered a swift, low phrase that might have been "Fiddlesticks!"
"My dear, no one believes in hell nowadays."