The Judges critical response to a passage

"I felt the breath of God go cold on my skin. 'We never should have come here' I said. 'We are just fools that have gotten by so far on dumb luck. That's what you think isn't it?'" (309-10).

This passage is the climax of Leah's realization or conversion away from Christianity, or at least Nathan's kind. I have chosen this passage from one of Leah's narrations, and it is while she is escaping with Anatole down the river on a boat away from the ants and Kilanga. They are having a discussion about race and justice when Leah comes to this saddening conclusion. While the entire process of Leah's conversion has been a steady one through her observations of Kilanga, Leopoldville, and her discussion with Anatole, this is the real turning point of her faith.

For her entire life, except for the past few months in the Congo, Leah believed in a idealistic God who rewarded good deeds, and punished bad ones. When she "felt the breath of God go cold on [her] skin" (309), metaphorically speaking, it could possibly refer to her lapse of faith in general. Originally, Leah had viewed their mission as holy, their family as good people, and even most of the other people in the village as good. But when the ants swarm the village, she can no longer believe in a God who would punish good people. As a person convinced she is doomed to die, she relinquishes her ties to her father's simplistic views of God.