But it
seemed He only loved them when they were good. Joan was under no
delusions about herself. If those were His terms, well, then, so far as
she could see, He wasn't going to be of much use to her. Besides, if He
hated naughty children, why did He make them naughty? At a moderate
estimate quite half Joan's wickedness, so it seemed to Joan, came to her
unbidden. Take for example that self-examination before the cheval
glass. The idea had come into her mind. It had never occurred to her
that it was wicked. If, as Mrs. Munday explained, it was the Devil that
had whispered it to her, then what did God mean by allowing the Devil to
go about persuading little girls to do indecent things? God could do
everything. Why didn't He smash the Devil? It seemed to Joan a mean
trick, look at it how you would. Fancy leaving a little girl to fight
the Devil all by herself. And then get angry because the Devil won! Joan
came to cordially dislike Mrs. Munday's God.
Looking back it was easy enough to smile, but the agony of many nights
when she had lain awake for hours battling with her childish terrors had
left a burning sense of anger in Joan's heart.
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