Page:Thefourlastthings.djvu/110

 such violence as this shall Babylon, that great city, be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all" (Apoc. xviii. 21).

Do not these words that the Angel uttered signify that all the lost souls will go down into Hell with the impetus of a millstone that sinks to the bottom of the abyss of waters into which it is hurled ?

O, awful fall of the damned! Who can think of it without shuddering! Alas for those for whom it is prepared; better were it for them that they had never been born!

Thus they will descend, and Hell, when they reach it, will, like a fierce dragon, open its jaws to devour them, and they will be engulfed within them, according to the prophecy of Isaias: "Hell hath enlarged her soul, and opened her mouth without any bounds, and then strong ones, and their people, and their high and glorious ones, shall go down into it" (Is. v. 14).

Who can portray the despair of the damned, the rage wherewith in the deep and sombre abyss of Hell they will seek in their fury to tear and lacerate one another. What words can describe the howls and groans that will re-echo through that place of torment ? It is beyond the power of man to conceive. For if Holy Scripture tells us that eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man what God hath prepared for them that love Him, may it not also be said that man