Read Online In the Beauty of the Lilies by John Updike - Free Book Online Page A

created him out of clay and when He gave His only begotten Son to redeem him from Adam’s sin. In the Old Testament, we read how He loved Israel, His chosen people, even when they strayed. Don’t bother yourself about damnation, I beg you, my good friend, but think instead of the glorious Resurrection and life everlasting. Think of the thief on the cross, to whom Jesus said, ‘Today shalt thou be with me in paradise.’ Not that the state of your health is comparable to the thief on the cross. You’ve got a peck of years left in you, I can tell by your argumentative spirit. You’re on the mend. You’ll be back in your pew under the Reformers’ windows before we know it.”
    The dying man turned his ashen, shrivelled face to study his comforter. “Don’t you believe in damnation at all?” he asked.
    “Me myself? Absolutely I do. Without a doubt, absolutely. But not for you, Mr. Orr. Not for as hard a worker and as faithful a churchgoer as you. Certainly as a matter of abstract doctrine there has to be a state of non-election. And—who knows?—there may well be in the world men wicked enough to be eternally damned.”
    “Them Oriental potentates with all the jewels and wives,” Mr. Orr offered.
    “Exactly.”
    “And all the Jews.”
    “I can’t go along with that, I fear. Our Savior was a Jew. One of the most outstanding men in Paterson, Nathan Barnet, is a Jew.”
    Mr. Orr closed his repulsive pained eyes, and sang in a voice surprisingly high and true, “ ‘Shadows of the evening, steal across the sky.’ ” Clarence imagined, with relief, that his presence had been forgotten, but Orr’s eyes opened again and he announced, “I never heard enough damnation from your pulpit. Many mornings I had to strain to take hold of what you
were
saying, Reverend. I couldn’t figure it out, and got dizzy listening, the way you were dodging here and there. A lot of talk about compassion for the less fortunate, I remember that. Never a healthy sign, to my way of thinking, too much fuss and feathers about the poor. They’re with us always, the Lord Himself said. Wait till the next go-around, if the poor feel so sorry for themselves on this. The first shall be last. Take away damnation, in my opinion, a man might as well be an atheist. A God that can’t damn a body to an eternal Hell can’t lift a body up out of the grave either.”
    “Mr. Orr, to relieve your mind—”
    “Young man, don’t worry about relieving
my
mind. I told you, I can face it. I can face the worst, if it was always ordained. God’s as helpless in this as I am.”
    “Well, now, that’s just it, isn’t it? How can a God be considered helpless—”
    “If He’s made His elections at the beginning of time, He is. He can’t keep changing His mind. I guess that’s something He can’t do. Well, in a few days I’m going to know what Hismind was and is. I’d promise to tell you from the other side, but I’m no Spiritualist. There’s this side, and then there’s the other, just like there’s saved and not saved. You take counsel with yourself, Reverend Wilmot, and see if you can’t think a bit more kindly of damnation. To tell a man he can’t be damned has logical consequences you haven’t taken into account. There have to be losers, or there can’t be winners. That’s what the Bible tells us, and Mr. Herbert Spencer too.”
    “That’s an arresting connection,” Clarence said, startled for the moment out of his profound discomfort.
    “I’ve given things some thought,” Mr. Orr said, not without pride. “I’ve had no missus and a lot of lonely nights to do some pondering and a little reading. All the modern thinkers have come around to it—a lot of losers, a few winners. Eternal damnation it has to be, if there’s any sense to any of it at all. Mark my words.”
    “I have and will, Mr. Orr. I wish you well. Forgive me”—he gratefully stood, lifting his thin, tilted, handsome head away from this foul deathbed into a