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Chronicles Of Avonlea: 03. Each In His Own Tongue
by
Naomi sat up and dragged at his arm.
“Can you help me? Can you help me?” she gasped imploringly. “Oh, I thought you’d never come! I was skeered I’d die before you got here–die and go to hell. I didn’t know before today that I was dying. None of those cowards would tell me. Can you help me?”
“If I cannot, God can,” said Mr. Leonard gently. He felt himself very helpless and inefficient before this awful terror and frenzy. He had seen sad death-beds–troubled death-beds–ay, and despairing death-beds, but never anything like this. “God!” Naomi’s voice shrilled terribly as she uttered the name. “I can’t go to God for help. Oh, I’m skeered of hell, but I’m skeereder still of God. I’d rather go to hell a thousand times over than face God after the life I’ve lived. I tell you, I’m sorry for living wicked–I was always sorry for it all the time. There ain’t never been a moment I wasn’t sorry, though nobody would believe it. I was driven on by fiends of hell. Oh, you don’t understand–you CAN’T understand–but I was always sorry!”
“If you repent, that is all that is necessary. God will forgive you if you ask Him.”
“No, He can’t! Sins like mine can’t be forgiven. He can’t–and He won’t.”
“He can and He will. He is a God of love, Naomi.”
“No,” said Naomi with stubborn conviction. “He isn’t a God of love at all. That’s why I’m skeered of him. No, no. He’s a God of wrath and justice and punishment. Love! There ain’t no such thing as love! I’ve never found it on earth, and I don’t believe it’s to be found in God.”
“Naomi, God loves us like a father.”
“Like MY father?” Naomi’s shrill laughter, pealing through the still room, was hideous to hear.
The old minister shuddered.
“No–no! As a kind, tender, all-wise father, Naomi–as you would have loved your little child if it had lived.”
Naomi cowered and moaned.
“Oh, I wish I could believe THAT. I wouldn’t be frightened if I could believe that. MAKE me believe it. Surely you can make me believe that there’s love and forgiveness in God if you believe it yourself.”
“Jesus Christ forgave and loved the Magdalen, Naomi.”
“Jesus Christ? Oh, I ain’t afraid of HIM. Yes, HE could understand and forgive. He was half human. I tell you, it’s God I’m skeered of.”
“They are one and the same,” said Mr. Leonard helplessly. He knew he could not make Naomi realize it. This anguished death-bed was no place for a theological exposition on the mysteries of the Trinity.
“Christ died for you, Naomi. He bore your sins in His own body on the cross.”
“We bear our own sins,” said Naomi fiercely. “I’ve borne mine all my life–and I’ll bear them for all eternity. I can’t believe anything else. I CAN’T believe God can forgive me. I’ve ruined people body and soul–I’ve broken hearts and poisoned homes–I’m worse than a murderess. No–no–no, there’s no hope for me.” Her voice rose again into that shrill, intolerable shriek. “I’ve got to go to hell. It ain’t so much the fire I’m skeered of as the outer darkness. I’ve always been so skeered of darkness–it’s so full of awful things and thoughts. Oh, there ain’t nobody to help me! Man ain’t no good and I’m too skeered of God.”
She wrung her hands. Mr. Leonard walked up and down the room in the keenest anguish of spirit he had ever known. What could he do? What could he say? There was healing and peace in his religion for this woman as for all others, but he could express it in no language which this tortured soul could understand. He looked at her writhing face; he looked at the idiot girl chuckling to herself at the foot of the bed; he looked through the open door to the remote, starlit night–and a horrible sense of utter helplessness overcame him. He could do nothing–nothing! In all his life he had never known such bitterness of soul as the realization brought home to him.