Page:Thefourlastthings.djvu/128

 In times of dearth and famine one is horrified to see what are the effects produced by hunger, and what a terrible visitation the scarcity of food is. For to still the intolerable pangs of hunger people will devour whatever they can lay their hands on; grass, leaves, unclean and disgusting animals, nay, men have even been driven to feed on the flesh of their fellow-men, mothers to sacrificing their children, and some have been known to gnaw their own flesh. And when the poor famished wretches have nothing more, they wander about like shadows of their former selves, pale and emaciated as death itself.

They drag on a lingering existence, until all their strength is consumed; finally, through the torture of starvation, they lose their senses; they rave and cry and howl, and die the most miserable of deaths.

If such are the effects of hunger upon earth, what will the hunger be which shall be experienced in Hell?

If want of food for a few days only causes such torture, what will a continual, never-ending hunger be? Who can think without horror of the hunger suffered in Hell! Woe betide those who have to endure it. The prophet Isaias testifies to the existence of real, actual hunger in Hell, in this passage of Holy Scripture: God thus speaks by the mouth of the prophet: "Because I called and you did not answer, I spoke and you did not hear; behold,