never to die in that fire; never to be released from it; never to have any alleviation of one’s torments, to burn forever: that is at the same time terrible and incomprehensible! O truly! let hell be far hotter than the Holy Scriptures describe it; let its pains and torments be increased a thousand-fold; let them last for countless millions of years; all that would be nothing as long as the fearful " forever” is wanting. If the fire of hell would only come to an end some time or other; if I could now go to the lost souls, and say to them with truth: your torments, O unhappy wretches! shall indeed last for a long time, but sooner or later they shall end; I should make a heaven out of a hell, and fill it with songs of gratitude and praise, instead of curses and blasphemies. But, alas! unhappy souls, this hope is not for you; you must burn forever and ever, for all eternity! My dear brethren, I acknowledge that this is a sad, melancholy, and gruesome thought: I feel it so myself. But what of that? We must necessarily give it our serious consideration. What would it help us to refuse to think of it, or to hear of it? Would the fire of hell be thus rendered less painful, or of shorter duration? Should we have less reason for fearing and avoiding it? Oh, you think, such a subject is enough to take all pleasure out of one’s life! Would to God that we had ho pleasure in sin; then might we laugh at the thought of hell; and for that very reason we should often think of the torments of the damned, so that, being filled with the fear of offending God, we should not run the risk of having to burn in that terrible fire of hell. But you fill us with fear! And if I do so, is it not an infallible truth that there is the eternal fire of hell appointed for the impenitent sinner; an article of faith revealed by God? I do not make things worse than they are. If it gives you any pleasure, I can make them far better. Suppose that in hell there is no other punishment than the gridiron of St. Lawrence, nay, nothing worse than the flame of a torch or of a wax candle to torment the reprobate unceasingly on only one part of the body; and alas! that that pain last forever, as we cannot deny, unless we wish to make the Lord God a deceiver, the true Church of God a liar: “The hell of fire: where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not extinguished.”[1] “Depart from Me, you cursed, into everlasting fire!”[2] Let us ponder for a while on these words, and see what eternity means, and then so order our
