Page:The Other Life.djvu/224

 this the diabolical crew perceive so much pleasure, that were it possible for them infinitely to increase and augment these pangs and torments, they would still be dissatisfied and burn with a desire to extend them; the Lord, however, frustrates their efforts and mitigates the anguish they inflict."

Few or none upon earth are capable of such extreme cruelty. Some touch of nature, some voice of a better angel, some buried instinct of tenderness will make the most degraded beings pause before reaching such depths of diabolism. The heavens are never utterly closed to men. In hell, however, such things are not only possible but inevitable, because no one goes to hell until he has been divested of all the truth and goodness he had known or felt on earth, and until he is utterly separated from angels and their holy spheres. This process is effected by the exploration and judgment of the soul in the world of spirits. The nature of that judgment and the reason of it are so important in a system of theological truth that its consideration is reserved for a separate chapter.

The hells of different kinds of criminals differ as widely from each other as the societies of heaven differ. Each infernal society is placed opposite to some heavenly society, of which its life is the spe-