Page:The New View of Hell.djvu/108

 and more blind to the odiousness and moral deformity of this vice, and less and less inclined to change his course. Or let him practice for a considerable time, lying, stealing, profane swearing, adultery, or any other vice, and his perception of its sinfulness will gradually grow more and more obscure, and his inclination to turn from it more and more feeble.

So with every sinful habit in which a man indulges. The longer it is pursued the more fully does the evil inclination take possession of him, the more overmastering becomes its sway, the darker his understanding, and the weaker his inclination to return to the path of innocence and rectitude. No fact is better established and no law of the human soul is more certain than this.

Now, under the operation of this law, can we conceive how spirits in the other world, when self-love, which is essential evil, has taken full possession of them, so that they are the very forms of that love;—so that they turn from and loathe the society of the good, and love and seek the companionship of the wicked;—so that they put darkness for light and light for darkness, and say to evil, "Be thou my good";—so that they hate and shun the light of heaven as owls and bats shun the light of day;—so that they find their delight in doing evil, as a wolf finds his in destroying sheep, or a hog his in wallowing in the mire;—so that they go from choice each one to some congenial society in hell, as freely as the tippler, the gambler and the profligate go to their chosen