torture.”[1] Oh, what unspeakable agony! What cries and howlings! What rage and madness! What raving and despair!
All those pains shall be incessant and uninterrupted. And what is most terrible in those hellish agonies: they are not only general, but also incessant, uninterrupted, continual. The pains that one has to endure in this life have two properties that make them tolerable; they are either slight and trivial, and then they are easily borne, or else they are very violent, and their intensity in a short time makes weakened nature insensible to them, as we find to be the case with the sick who when near death feel no more pain. And no matter how long a pain lasts, it is not always equally violent; it is interrupted or lessened occasionally. But in hell it is quite different; “the damned soul,” says Rupert, “will be tortured without hope of rest;”[2] for every moment of eternity it will suffer every imaginable kind of torment, without even a moment’s interruption. Father Abraham, cried out the rich glutton from hell, I have but one favor to ask of you. I am suffering terrible tortures in these flames; give me one drop of water, only as much as you can take up on the tip of your finger! Only one drop, so that at least while it is falling on my tongue I may feel a momentary alleviation! So will the lost soul cry out after a thousand, a thousand million, a thousand times a thousand million of years; but not even that much refreshment will be given to it for all eternity. For all eternity without interruption the eyes shall be tormented by darkness and hideous spectres, the ears by bowlings and curses, the smell by an intolerable stench, the taste by fearful hunger and thirst, the feeling by the fire in which the whole body is immersed; “the damned soul shall be tortured without hope of rest” forever and ever.
Folly of sinners in deliberately choosing hell. Ah, my God, how terrible is Thy just anger! O hell! O treasury of pains and torments, how fearful thou art! O unhappy people who are condemned to hell! O eternal hell! is it possible that thou art the place in which they are buried who die in mortal sin? Yes; that is an article of faith, and sinners are well aware of it, and believe it. And are there still sinners in the world? Alas! yes, and in countless numbers! And do they all wish to go to hell? Yes; for they are certain that the lives they lead will bring them thither. Such is the belief, such are the lives even of those who hate nothing so much as
