A land of horror and despair,
Justice has built a dismal hell,
And laid her store of vengeance there.”
Into this infernal dungeon, we are told, the Creator will thrust countless millions of mankind, swing the door upon them, and there they must remain the helpless victims of every vile passion, not for a day, but to all eternity; all grace, mercy, love, withdrawn from them; deprived of all opportunity, of all power, all means to reform their lives, and doomed by the holy God to be unholy through the eternal ages. Say not this is the work of holiness; say not the holy God will do what would be so unholy, so diabolical. As long as God is holy he will seek the holiness of his creatures, and as he is infinitely and everlastingly holy, in all places and in all times he will seek man’s holiness and happiness. Universal salvation is the sequence of the proposition—God is holy.
I spoke on Sunday after the discussion closed, in the Hall, and the spacious room was crowded to its full capacity. Mr. Bunn afterwards labored in Springfield, then L. C. Marvin and J. Marvin, his brother; then A. Bosserman, and at the present time, H. R. Nye is the pastor of the society. Our friends have a good meeting-house, and liberal principles have a strong hold in the capital of Illinois.
I journeyed to Alton, passing through Carlinville, Brighton, over the prairie where Girard and Virden now stand. There was nothing there then but wild prairie. From Alton I proceeded to Jerseyville, a small burg then, but now a beautiful town, and delivered my message. Thence to Exeter, Naples, and on to Macomb, through Rushville. In all these places I spoke to the people. In Macomb we now have an excellent society and a fine meeting-house. Have often lectured there since my first visit. Had some talk here with a Presbyterian clergyman by the name of Chase, I think.
“You do not believe in hell; but that is as clearly revealed as heaven.”
“You are mistaken. I do believe in the hell the Bible speaks of, and which wicked men experience. But I have no faith in the hell of human creeds. God never revealed it; it was developed from the darkness of Paganism.”
“You cannot prove that.”
“I think I can. Nearly all learned men of all denominations admit, that the Old Testament does not reveal an endless hell. But from Moses to Christ the Pagans believed in it. As heaven had not revealed such a place, the vain imaginations of men were the father and mother of it. Hesiod, a Greek poet, who lived eight hundred years before Christ tells us, that hell is so far from heaven, that it would take a mass of iron eighteen days to fall from the latter to the former place. The gate of hell was supposed to be guarded by a dog having fifty heads, and to make escape impossible, the horrid place was surrounded by a river of fire, called Phlegethon. Virgil, another Heathen poet says: