Her voice was cold and rigid, and a pallor as of death was upon her face as she paused for a reply.
"A good God, madam! and whom he loveth he chasteneth!"
"No, indeed, sir, I don't believe that. He didn't love me, and I didn't love him, and I don't love him now,--hate him, rather. He has tried me too sorely."
"My dear friend, you know not what you say. I beseech you, do not blaspheme your God."
"I have only said, sir, for once, what I have been thinking all these dreadful years. When I buried my child down there, I did not believe in any God for years. I thought some vile and fiendish Fate was pursuing me. Then you ministers were always saying to me, 'Pray;' and I prayed. They said to me 'Study the word of God;' and I studied it. It has been my only study for fifteen years, and it has brought me no consolation yet."
"But you have found God in it,--have you not? You do not deny a God?"
"I have found a God in it certainly, but only a God who has separated me eternally from all I love."
"My dear friend, I assure you, you have not yet found the true God, if you believe this."
"I have found I verily believe the God of the Bible, and he has said the wicked shall go away into everlasting punishment; and I am the most wicked of all God's creatures."