Everlasting Life
by Virginia Cary Hudson
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Most of the things you get somebody dies so you can get it, but you have to die your own self to get Everlasting Life.d
When you are as dead as a doornail, God gives it to you, and you can't get rid of it. You can't buy it, or sell it, or trade it. you have to keep it whether it suits you or not. When you take it to Heaven with you, that's good, but when you have to take it to Hell, that's different. Bishop Jordan told me Everlasting Life was God's precious gift, and I told him if it was just the same with God, I could think of things I like better.
If I ever get to Heaven, I will see my mother and my father and my Grandmother and my grandfather and all my cousins. That is, maybe, all of them. I bet Mrs Harris will be there. I hope God lets us go fishing. When you go to Heaven with your Everlasting Life that make you an angel, and Peter, or Moses, or somebody, lines you all up and passes out the crown and the harps. I sure am glad I take music lessons. Mrs. Harris and myself can play a duet, like we do on her piano. We play jigs. I take the chords and she take the tune. Then she plays the whole thing, and I take up old Nellie and dance.
Nellie was Mrs Harris' beautiful cow, and when she took the colic and died, Mrs. Harris had her skinned, and put her on the floor. That skinning turned old Nellie from a cow into a rug. Two little colored boys taught me to do that kind of dancing down on the station platform, waiting for my father's train to come in. They taught me the Buck and Wing and Spreading the Eagle. i hope my little brothers have grown since they have been in Heaven. If they can't walk yet, I bet carrying them around Heaven will sure make my back tired.
Everyone grows wings in Heaven, and then I can fly, and that will be wonderful. I haven't decided yet just where I will go. Miss Ruby Porter says "Paris is beautiful in the Spring." Maybe I will go there. I sure hope I don't get alrady for the trip, and then start molting like my canary bird. I sure will need all my feathers to get across the ocean and back again to Heaven.
I sure am glad that Jesus is going to be in Heaven because if I get into trouble he will be there to help me out. When my mother sess on her new Wilcox and Gibbs, she sings "What a friend we have in Jesus." I sure hope she knows what she is singing about. Heaven sure is far away, and hard to get to. You don't hear much talking about Heaven. You just hope to get there. I sure am doing my very best. I sure hope to make it.
But you sure hear plenty about Hell at the Baptist Church. When I go with Darthea, that preacher hollers himself red in the face about Hell. When you get to Hell with your Everlasting Life, the devil waves his pitchfork and turns it into Everlasting Damnation, and he builds a fire under you, and you wail and gnash your teeth. If poor Mrs Columbia Stonington ever goes to Hell, the devil sure will be suprised when it comes her time to stand up and gnash her teeth, because her dentist pulled her teeth out. He just kept on pulling until they were all gone. There sure is going to be a lot going on in Hell. Nero, and Herod, and Judas, and Jezabel will all be there. You sure will meet a lot of interesting people. I sure hope I don't get a horn suck in me in the mix up.
I have one horn hole in my leg already. But I didn't get it in Hell. I got it in Arkansas. i was wearing my red sweater, and I didn't get both of my legs over the fence in time. Just one of them. That's why I have a horn hole in the other one. When I got back I made the kids pay me 5 cents to see my Arkansas horn hole, and I got my misson box full. But I let the Bishop see it free. He was sitting in our parlor waiting for my mother to come downstairs when I told him about my mission box, and I rattled it for him, and he said he never had seen a , I mean an, Arkansas horn hole in all his days, and he thought it was well worth 25 cents. So I pulled down my stocking, he looked good and gave me a quarter.
There is not a thing you can do about your Everlasting Life. Your are going to get it, and you have to keep it. God sure was good to make Heaven for us, as long as we can't stay dead, but have to go somewhere, but why he doesn't do something about the devil, and close up Hell, I don't know. If I have to go to Hell, i sure hope I go to the one for Episckpalians, and don't by mistake, get pushed into that horn punching, and tail wagging, red hot blazing one the Baptists are going to have.
The Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy. God bless the Bishop. God Bless my mission box, and Jesus be my friend and help me if you can, please Amen, and Be It So.
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