'Where's the use? There's no forgiveness for me. My mother is
going to heaven. I must go to hell. No. It's no good. Better
leave it as it is. I daren't see her. It would kill me to see
her.'
'It will kill her not to see you; and that will be one sin more on
your conscience, father.'
Andrew got up and walked about the room. And Robert only then arose
from his knees.
'And there's my mother,' he said.
Andrew did not reply; but Robert saw when he turned next towards the
light, that the sweat was standing in beads on his forehead.
'Father,' he said, going up to him.
The old man stopped in his walk, turned, and faced his son.
'Father,' repeated Robert, 'you've go to repent; and God won't let
you off; and you needn't think it. You'll have to repent some day.'
'In hell, Robert,' said Andrew, looking him full in the eyes, as he
had never looked at him before. It seemed as if even so much
acknowledgment of the truth had already made him bolder and
honester.
'Yes. Either on earth or in hell. Would it not be better on earth?'
'But it will be no use in hell,' he murmured.
In those few words lay the germ of the preference for hell of poor
souls, enfeebled by wickedness. They will not have to do anything
there--only to moan and cry and suffer for ever, they think. It is
effort, the out-going of the living will that they dread. The
sorrow, the remorse of repentance, they do not so much regard: it is
the action it involves; it is the having to turn, be different, and
do differently, that they shrink from; and they have been taught to
believe that this will not be required of them there--in that awful
refuge of the will-less.
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