How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
I will go further and say that all cats are wicked, though often useful. Who has not seen Satan in their sly faces? Some preachers will say, well, that is superstitious "clap trap." My answer is this: Preacher, go to your bible and read Luke 8:26-33. (3.5)
In Luke 8:26-33, Jesus exorcises a man by driving his demons into swine, which then drown themselves. The point? Mattie is suggesting that cats can actually be possessed. (Yeah, we'd buy that.)
Quote #5
You must pay for everything in this world one way or another. There is nothing free except the Grace of God. You cannot earn that or deserve it. (3.86)
Mattie believes in the Calvinist doctrine of election. According to that doctrine, each of us is born already marked for heaven or hell. If you're marked for hell—too bad, so sad, there's not one tootin' thing you can do about it. Since you can never know for sure if you're elect or not, the only thing to do is act as if you are. The point here is that there's no such thing as "justice" or "deserving" in Mattie's ideas about God. There's only election.
Quote #6
On his deathbed [Judge Parker] asked for a priest and became a Catholic. […] If you had sentenced one hundred and sixty men to death and seen around eighty of them swing, then maybe at the last minute you would feel the need of some stronger medicine than the Methodists could make. (3.91)
Catholics believe in deathbed absolution, something not offered to Methodists. Mattie is suggesting that Judge Parker is converting because he's worried that he'll be punished for sentencing men to death. Although Mattie obviously believes in the death penalty, she has some conflicted feelings about it too.