Page:Lazarus, a tale of the world's great miracle.djvu/253

Rh and no longer could direct or bind their thoughts. And their mouths were full of cursing; such words proceeding from their mouths that, though I could not understand them, I felt were cries of hellish hate and foulest loathing, such as were never known on earth. Women and men cursed equally, cursed each other, and God for making them, and Satan for bringing them hither; yet their revilings brought them no relief, their foul words no content, and each tore hither and thither like one possessed.

"Then I said, 'Surely there are none worse than these.'

"But the Spirit took me past this pit of horror where men crept in and out like worms beneath a corpse, and I saw another hell, and at one end of it an iron gate with spikes. And in this hell was a great concourse of men and women. And one having the appearance of an angel, and bearing a lantern in his hand, did run along between the crowds of men and women; and, when he reached the gate, he sprang thereon and cried: 'Behold the gate that leadeth out of hell.' And all followed him, but, when they strove to clamber over it—for none could open it, it being strongly barred—the spikes did enter their flesh and tear them. Then they returned and told their brethren, to entreat their help; but it availed nothing. And every time the angel ran anew, so ran others; yet all failed to pass beyond the gate.

"And the Spirit of Truth said to me: 'These be they who have corrupted youth and childhood, and the pure-minded among men, and have beguiled them, so that they have strayed. Just as in their