scarcely one sermon of all those Our Lord preached during His ministry in which He does not warn sinners of the hell that awaits them. For example,, speaking of scandal, He says: " If thy hand or thine eye scandalize thee, cut it off or pluck it out, for it is better to enter life blind and maimed than having two hands and two eyes to go down to hell." And this hell, He tells us, is eternal. He compares the world of souls to a great field of cockle and good wheat, to be separated in the great harvest time — the end of the world, but then separated forever — the wheat to be gathered into His barn and the cockle bound into bundles to be burned. His Church, He tells us, is a net cast in the night of time into the sea of this world, to be drawn forth by the angels in the morning of eternity, when they will separate, and separate forever, the good fishes from the bad — the virtuous souls from the wicked. The story of Dives and Lazarus which we have often read — could words assert more plainly a heaven for the blessed and a hell for the damned? So plain, indeed, is this truth, that all men admit it either explicitly or implicitly, for, if they deny a punishment after death, why do they not enjoy this life to the full? Why do they obey human laws or abide by a code of human morality? Why do they not plunder and outrage and murder? Why fear man? Why fear God? Ah, I deny hell with my lips to soothe my guilty conscience, but my life and heart and soul cry out there is a hell — an eternal hell. For I know that my God is a God of infinite
