ANCIENT AND MODERN IDEAS OF HELL. 499 



intense cold when heat from heaven flows in, and then the infernal 

 inhabitants shiver like those who are seized with a cold fever." 

 The hells are everywhere — under mountains, rocks, plains, and 

 valleys. In the milder hells there appear to be cities of rude 

 huts ; in the huts are infernal spirits, engaged in continual quar- 

 rels, enmities, blows, and fightings ; in the streets and lanes rob- 

 beries and depredations are committed. In other hells there are 

 forests, or deserts, or ragged rocks, or ruins as of burned cities. 



Christian preachers and writers of the present time do not 

 agree as to the nature of heir's torments. Many of them are 

 coming to attach a figurative meaning to the biblical descrip- 

 tions of hell, and seem as loath as their predecessors were eager 

 to dwell upon the subject. In the Fortnightly Review for Janu- 

 ary, 1876, Lionel A. Tollemache says, " The wiser among us are 

 seeking to drop hell out of the Bible as quietly, and about as logi- 

 cally, as we already contrive to disregard the plain texts forbid- 

 ding Christians to go to law, and Christian women to plait their 

 hair." Canon Farrar, in a series of sermons, has emphatically 

 declared his disbelief in a hell of material and everlasting fire. 



That widely known book Letters from Hell describes the 

 place of torment as a country where the wicked are impelled to 

 continually follow the same pursuits as in life ; whatever they 

 wish for is at once provided, amusements of all sorts are indulged 

 in, but everything is empty and unreal, they are possessed by a 

 constant hunger for pleasure which is never satisfied, tormented 

 by memories of their lives on earth, driven from one thing to an- 

 other to escape threatened misery, always on the verge of despair, 

 and never by their feverish activity achieving even f orgetfulness. 



The Roman Catholic Church now, as always, holds that there 

 are material torments in hell. The idea of hell which prevailed 

 in Europe in the middle ages was that taught by the Catholic 

 Church, which was practically the only form of Christianity at 

 that time. An extremely realistic picture of hell is drawn in a 

 Catholic tract, by the Rev. J. Furniss, C. S. S. R., published not 

 long ago, with high ecclesiastical indorsement, " for children and 

 young persons" in England and America. It is entitled The 

 Sight of Hell, and describes little children turning and twisting 

 in red-hot ovens, and screaming to come out. 



The following statement of Catholic doctrine concerning hell 

 is abridged from A Catholic Dictionary, by Addis and Arnold. 

 Hell may be defined as the place and state in which the devils 

 and such human beings as die in enmity with God suffer eternal 

 torments. Theologians divide the punishments of the damned 

 into that of loss and that of sense. The former is the deprivation 

 of the vision of God. The devils and disembodied spirits of the 

 damned suffer from material fire. The lost are afflicted also by 



