if I were thrown bodily into that fire? I could not live long in it, certainly, for in a moment I should be suffocated. But if God were to prolong my life therein by a miracle only for the space of one Ave Maria, how could I endure that pain even for such a short time? And if I had to spend a whole hour in the flames? Or a whole day, or a month, or a year? The bare thought made me shudder with horror! But I could not help thinking at the same time: what is it all compared to the fire of hell? It is only a mere shade, a fire painted on the wall, if the holy doctors of the Church, holy Writ, and reason itself deserve credence.
But the fire of hell is far more painful and terrible. So it is; all the fire we have ever seen or could see on earth, or picture to our imaginations, is only a thin smoke in comparison with the intensity and activity of the fire of hell. Truly, says St. Bernard, those mountains of sulphur that vomit forth flames and destroy whole countries; the fiery rain that an angry God poured down from heaven on the wicked cities of Sodom and Gomorrha, which burnt up at once a whole country; that furnace in Babylon, of which the flames rose to the height of forty-nine cubits; all these things are nothing compared to hell, or else they are mere chimneys or sparks from the infernal fire;[1] such are the words of the Saint. The holy martyr, St. Lawrence, jested with his executioners as he lay on the gridiron for a few hours at the farthest. Other martyrs, acting on the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, did not wait for the executioner, but of their own free will leaped into the burning pile as if it were a bed of down; others took up the glowing coals and heaped them on their bare heads, as if to crown and adorn themselves; others sang joyous melodies in the midst of the flames. So little did they think of earthly fire, if they could only escape the far more terrible fire of hell, in which there is no singing or laughing, but only howling, weeping, and gnashing of teeth.
The reason of this. And the reason of this is evident; for all our tire on earth is only a natural element, which can work and torture only according to its ordinary natural strength, and can burn nothing but material bodies. The fire of hell, on the other hand, is an element raised miraculously above its natural powers, so that it burns and tortures not merely bodies, but also souls and pure spirits. Our earthly fire after a short time deadens sensibility and consumes the body to ashes, but the fire of hell has received from the Creator the peculiar property of devouring and at the
- ↑ Fumariola quædam, et ignis æterni missllia.
