How to Survive in the Roanoke Colony-Chapter 205 - His Messenger (2)
205: His Messenger (2)
205: His Messenger (2)
She is not a ‘false’ saint.
“…”
“…”
“…Excuse me.”
“Um, Your Majesty, that is…”
“An old man just died.
One I gave knighthood to.”
“…What?”
“How old was he?”
“…”
Margaret staggers slightly at the sudden question, as if drained of strength.
That’s understandable given the tension until just now.
She closes the door and fully enters the room, thinking about what question she was asked.
“…Sir John White was 66 years old.”
66 years old.
And she is now…
72.
It was such a long life.
During the early part of that life, she had dipped her feet in numerous conspiracies and reached her hands into countless massacres to survive.
Looking back, her feet were covered in filth, and her hands were stained with blood, but she walked on without caring.
She was defiled in body and soul anyway.
No, perhaps she was conceived from the beginning in a mire full of filth.
It was just predetermined for her to live like this.
To live like this, and to die like this.
To go to hell.
As that great religious reformer John Calvin said, some are destined to be cursed eternally.
That is frightening.
It is out of fear of that fate that she lives so tenaciously.
She would rather have wished for the absence of both heaven’s glory and hell’s punishment.
She wished that the sky was empty and the earth full of minerals, as the audacious atheists that Raleigh brought around would say.
But…
“Do not fear hell.”
Someone said.
“Also, do not hope for heaven.”
Words difficult to imagine coming from a Christian.
“Death cannot but be feared.”
Elizabeth had been taught all her life that the death of the flesh was a trivial thing not to be feared.
She had been taught that what one should truly fear is when one’s body and soul depart from the Lord’s light and suffer eternal torment.
He denied that teaching.
And then what else did he say?
“You have lived an excellent life, so you just need to remember that.”
“…Nonsense, and it doesn’t even apply to me.”
“Your…
Majesty?
What did you just say…?”
“Ha…”
After a string of nonsensical statements, all she can do is laugh hollowly.
Ha, not even funny.
His messenger?
A saint?
It’s okay to fear death?
Don’t fear hell?
“Because it is momentary, it is more valuable than eternity.”
To say a momentary life is more valuable than eternal life.
“…Ha!”
Truly absurd.
The Queen takes a deep breath and rises.
Margaret, who had been frozen, painfully approaches the Queen and bows with tears in her eyes.
She is trembling with tension and fear.
Elizabeth strokes her trembling shoulders with her wrinkled hands and says:
“Oh, Margaret.”
She lifts her chin to make eye contact with herself.
And the Queen speaks:
“…May I attend the funeral?”
==
Builder of the first English colony in Virginia.
A member of the six-person council governing the Virginia community.
And.
An apostle.
Naturally, when news of such a person’s death spread, many people gathered.
Many gathered in front of his villa in Chesapeake, and the flower shops in the newly established shopping district closed because they ran out of flowers.
All those flowers were placed in front of one man’s coffin.
Those close to him threw flowers around the still-open coffin, whispering final words to the deceased.
And.
“…Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life.
(Romans 5:18)”
My sermon begins.
“We must remember these words from Romans chapter 5.
Just as by one man’s sin, Adam, all humanity was condemned, so by the righteousness of one man, Jesus Christ…”
I quietly recite what I had hurriedly written down and memorized last night.
“To become a Christian is like asking to live a life like Christ.
Even though the path to heaven is narrow and difficult, even though all kinds of sins and hardships await you, do not forget the righteousness in your heart.
Fill this life, as short as a moment, with righteousness and beauty.
Follow the path that God in your heart, whom the Lord left for humanity, tells you to follow.”
I paused briefly and looked back.
There was John White, sleeping a sleep from which he would not wake until the end of times.
“May he who volunteered to be an extension of the Lord with me enter into rest…”
Perhaps everyone here will eventually be like that.
Everyone will leave, leaving me behind.
“May the Lord see…
that John White of England was sufficiently righteous and faithful…”
Will he really be able to go to heaven?
Will the people gathered here really be able to go to heaven?
Does the God they believe in exist?
I…
I couldn’t know anything.
“Amen.”
“Amen.”
“Amen.”
I bow my head.
Suppressing something hot that rose to my throat, I looked at the ground.
Then everyone follows me, bowing their heads and quietly reciting prayers for the deceased.
Eleanor looked at me and wept.
As I looked into the distance…
“…”
“…”
“…”
I saw someone who shouldn’t be here.
“…So.
You’re not mute after all.”
At those words, I felt as if my breath had stopped.
Regardless, she approaches closer.
With a dignified bitter smile on her face, just like last time.
Still, with an elegant gait.
A regal gait.
Finally, the Queen of England stands before me.
“Can you speak?”
I…
froze for a moment.
While I was racking my brain to find what to say, she raises one finger to me with a grin.
“I have many questions for you.”
“…”
Questions.
I’m struggling to utter even a single word right now, and yet more questions…
“Let’s leave this place.”
The Queen spoke quietly, pretending to be at ease while looking around.
“There are too many people here, aren’t there?”
“Then, let’s move to the cathedral.
I’ll prepare the apostles and the onlookers…”
“Oh, my Walter.”
Elizabeth strokes Raleigh’s beard as he approaches and says:
“I only need two people.
Me and the Emperor.
Just the two of us.”
So we moved locations.
==
The Queen looked around.
After observing the furs and firearms hanging on the walls, and the strange instruments scattered around, she speaks:
“This is your government’s meeting place, they say.
Where parliament is held, and where government leaders communicate with you.”
‘That’s correct.’
“…Didn’t I already say I know?
Why use written communication?”
“…”
