Page:TheYoungMansGuide.djvu/142

 amid the  tumult  of  passion  and  sinful  pleasure utters these  awful  words :  "  You  fool,  you  miserable wretch,  if  the  lessons  you  were  taught  in the  bright  days  of  youth  should  be  true,  if  there were  in  very  deed  a  God,  a  hell,  an  eternity, what  then,  oh,  what  then!"

Voltaire, the  notorious  infidel,  once  received a letter  from  a  friend,  in  which  the  latter  asserted that he  had  succeeded  in  completely  banishing from his  mind  all  thought  of  hell,  and  all  belief in the  existence  of  such  a  place. Voltaire warmly congratulated  him,  but  went  on  to  say that he  himself  had  not  been  equally  fortunate. Nor did  he  ever  succeed  in  banishing  the  fear of hell. When he  lay  upon  his  death-bed  the thought of  hell  seized  upon  him  with  terrible force, and  drove  him  to  wild  despair.

3. Verily  there  is  a  hell;  but  what  is  hell? Our poor  human  understanding  can  never grasp its  full  signification,  much  less  can  words describe it. The words  of  St.  Paul:  "Eye  hath not  seen,"  can  be  applied  to  hell  in  an  inverted sense, and  we  can  say:  "  Eye  hath  not  seen,  nor ear  heard,  neither  hath  it  entered  into  the  heart of  man,  what  things  God  hath  prepared  for those  who  hate  Him,  and  depart  out  of  this  life not  in  His  love  and  grace,  but  in  the  state  of mortal  sin."

This only  can  we  say,  that  hell  is  the  place of the  greatest  and  never-ending  torture,  of  the greatest torture;  all  the  expressions  employed in Holy  Scripture  in  reference  to  hell  bear  out this assertion,  as  for  example:  Hell  is  "a  land of  misery  and  darkness,  where  the  shadow  of death  and  no  order,  but  everlasting  horror dwelleth"  (Job  x.  22);  or  "He  hath  reserved (them)  under  darkness  in  everlasting  chains"