And close by Lerna’s hissing monster stands
Briareus dreadful with a hundred hands;
There stern Geryon raged; and all around
Fierce Harpies screamed, and direful Gorgons frowned.’
“This, sir, was the Pagan hell—believed by Pagans, preached by Pagan priests, hundreds of years before Jesus Christ brought a future life to light. Did he teach an endless hell? If so, he taught Paganism, not the wisdom of God. Have I not proved that the dogma of endless punishment originated in Heathen darkness? You admit that it is not taught in the Old Testament; that the Jews did not believe in it in the days of Moses or the prophets. But the Pagans did believe in it in those days, therefore it was not revealed from heaven, but was the product of their own deformed minds.”
“Christians do not believe in the Pagan hell, but in the Christian hell; the Pagans corrupted the truth.”
“The hell of modern creeds is as horrible as the hell of Paganism. I will give you some description of hell by Christian authors, and you will admit that I am correct. Rev. Isaac Ambrose, an English divine, and a man of great talent, contends that the Heathen did not represent hell bad enough. Alluding to the Pagan poets just quoted, he says:
“‘Let poets feign of Tantalus’s tortures, Prometheus’s vultures, Ixion’s wheels, and Charon’s rowing; these are far short to express the pains of those that rage in hell. There plagues have no ease, cries have no help, time has no end, place no redemption. It is the dark prison where the Tares [the damned] are chained, and the wicked bound in fetters of fire and darkness. Are there not wonderful engines, sharp and sure instruments of revenge? fiery brimstone, pitchy sulpher, red-hot chains, flaming whips, scorching darkness? Will you any more? The worm is immortal, cold intolerable, stench unendurable, fire unquenchable, darkness palpable.... What music affords the place but roaring and crying and howling? Cursing is their hymns, wailing their tunes, blasphemies their ditties, tears their notes, lamentations their songs, screeching their strains; these are their morning and evening songs. What mean these chains and whips, and links and scourges? iron chains, whips of steel, fiery links, knotty scourges. Furies shake their bolts to frighten souls; the irons strike through their ears, and the hooked engines tear out their bowels, as if the torment of the damned were the delight of devils.’
“‘Oh, what a bed is this for delicate and dainty persons; no feathers, but fire; no friends, but furies; no ease, but fetters; no light, but smoke; no clock nor chimes to pass away the night, but timeless eternity. A fire, intolerable; a fire, burning, never dying! Oh, immortal pains!... What torment, what calamity can be compared to the shadow of this? The wicked shall be crowded together like brick in a fiery furnace. There is no servant to fan cold air on their tormented parts—not so much as the chink where the least puff of wind might enter to cool them.’
“Another Orthodox poet waxes eloquent in describing the infernal regions: