SCENES IN HELL. ("Pall Mall Gazette")

Tuapeka Times, Volume V, Issue 230, 27 June 1872, Page 8

SCENES IN HELL. ("Pall Mall Gazette")

The "Manchester Examiner" calls attention to an interesting little book entitled, " The Sight of Hell." It is by the Rev. Father Furnis, C.S.S.R., is printed permissic superiomni, and is recommended to be used along with the catechism in Sunday schools i\s part of a course of religious instruction. It is one of a series of " Books for Children ;ind Young Persons." From the following extract it will be seen that the work is not of an inspiriting character.. The rev. father is supposed to be taking his young charge, on a little tour of inspection, during which he acts as cicerone. Among many things too disagreeable to memion,he pointsout the Striking Devil : — " Little child, if you go to hell there will be a devil at your side to strike you. He will go on striking yon every minute for ever and ever without stopping. The first stroke will make your body as bad as the body of Job, covered from head to foot with sores and ulcers. The second stroke will make your body twice as bad as the body of Job. The third stroke will make your body three times as bad as the body of Job. The fourth stroke will make your body four times as bad as the body of Job. How, then, will your body be after the devil has been striking it every moment for a hundred millions, of years without stopping V

He then shows them " A Dress of Fire " :—": — " Job xxxviii. — Are not thy garments hot? Come into this room. You see it is very small. But see in the midst of it there is a girl, perhaps about eighteen years old. What a terrible dress sheiias on ! her dress is made of fire ! On her head she wears a bonnet of fire. It is pressed down all over her head ; it burns her head ; it burns into the skin ; it scorches the bone of the skull, and makes it smoke. The red-hot fiery heat goes into, the brain and melts it. Ezek. xxii. — ' I will burn you in the fire of my wrath ; you shall be melted in the midst thereof as silver is melted in .the fire.' You do not, perhaps, like a headache. Think what a headache that girl must have. But see more. She is wrapped up in flames, he frock is on fire. If she were . on earth she would be burned to a cinder in a moment. But she is in hell, where fire burns everything, but burns nothing away. \ There she will stand for ever burning and scorched. She counts with her fingers the moments as they pass away slowly, for each moment seems to her like a hundred years. As she counts the moments she remembers that she will have to count theni forever and ever."

The children are favoured with sight of a boiling boy. " But, listen, there is a sound just like that of a kettle boiling. Is it really a kettle that is boiling] Hear what it is. The blood is boiling in the scalded veins of that boy. The brain is boiling and bubbling in his head. The marrow is boiling in his bones." This child is supposed to be boiling in accordance with Amos iv : " The • days shall come when they .shall lift you up on poles, and what remains of you in boiling pots." They also have a peep at a baby in a red-hot oven : " Hear how it screams to come out ! See how it turns and twists itself about in the fire! It beats its head against the roof of the oven. It stamps its little feet on the floor of the oven. You can see on the face of this little child what you see on the faces of all in hell — despair, desperate and horrible." The compassionate face of Father Furniss looking through the bare at what he calls " this pitiful sight " is the only cheerful part of the picture.