But there is worse than physical torture in the picture of hell; pain is not its darkest aspect. Of all the thoughts with which the heart of man has outraged the Eternal Righteousness, there is none so appalling, none so blasphemous, as that which declares that even one soul, made by the Supreme Good, shall remain during all eternity, under the power of sin. Divines have wearied themselves in describing the horrors of the Christian hell; but it is _not_ the furnace of flames, _not_ the undying worm, _not_ the fire which never may be quenched, that revolt us most; hideous as are these images, they are not the worst terror of hell. Who does not know how St. Francis, believing himself ordained to be lost everlastingly, fell on his knees and cried, "O my God, if I am indeed doomed to hate thee during eternity, at least suffer me to love thee while I live here." To the righteous heart the agony of hell is a far worse one than physical torture could inflict: it is the existence of men and women who might have been saints, shut out from hope of holiness for evermore; God's children, the work of his hands, gnashing their teeth at a Father who has cast them down for ever from the life he might have given; it is Love everlastingly hated; good everlastingly trampled under foot; God everlastingly baffled and defied; worst of all, it is a room in the Father's house where his children may hunger and thirst after righteousness, but never, never, can be filled.
"Depart, O sinner, to the chain! Enter the eternal cell; To all that's good and true and right, To all that's fair and fond and bright, To all of holiness and right, Bid thou thy last farewell."
Would to God that Christian men and women would ponder it well and think it out for themselves, and when they go into the worst parts of our great cities and their hearts almost break with the misery there, then let them remember how that misery is but a faint picture of the endless, hopeless, misery, to which the vast majority of their fellow-men are doomed.