INVENTION OF HELL. 435 



ardent beings from the main-stream of humanity, 

 entombing them in hermitage or cell, teaching them 

 to despise the gifts of the intellect which nature has 

 bestowed, teaching them to waste the precious years 

 in barren contemplations, and in selfish prayers ; this 

 belief has yet undoubtedly assisted the progress of the 

 human race. In ancient life it exalted the imagina- 

 tion, it purified the heart, it encouraged to virtue, it 

 deterred from crime. At the present day a tender 

 sympathy for the tmfortunate, a jealous care for the 

 principles of freedom, a severe public opinion, and a 

 Law difficult to escape, are the safeguards of 

 society ; but there have been periods in the history 

 of man when the fear of hell was the only restriction 

 on the pleasure of the rulers ; when the hope of 

 heaven was the only consolation in the misery of the 

 ruled. 



The doctrine of rewards and punishments in a future 

 state is comparatively modern ; the authors of the 

 Iliad, the authors of the Pentateuch had no con- 

 ception of a heaven or a hell ; they knew only Hades 

 or Scheol, where men dwelt as shadows, without pain, 

 without joy ; where the wicked ceased from troubling 

 and the weary were at rest. The sublime conception 

 of a single God was slowly and painfully attained by a 

 few civilized people in ancient times. The idea that 

 God is a Being of virtue, and of love has not been 

 attained even in the present day except by a cultivated 

 few. Such is the frailty of the human heart, that 

 men, even when they strive to imagine a perfect 

 Being, stain him with their passions, and raise up an 

 idol which is defective as a moral form. The God of 

 this country is called a God of love ; but it is said that 

 he punishes the crimes and even the errors of a short 



