Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1855-04-04

ed to fall-fall-fall-it appeared to himself
with m ever accelerating velocity. At length,
this appalling rapidity Of motion abated and to
his amazement and horror, he perceived that his
mysterious attendant was close by his side.
" Where" he exclaimed, with the frantic energy
of despair, "where are you taking mc-where
am I-where am going?" "To hell" replied
the same iron voice, and from the depths below,
sullen inerminable echoes repeated the sound
so familiar to his lips, so stunning noU to his
scared and conscience-smitten ear.
ITO hell" onward, they hurried in darkness,
rendered more horribly dark by the conscious
presence of his spectral conductor. AT length,
glimmering light appeared in the distance, and
soon increased to blaze; ; but, as they approach
ed, instead of the hideously discordant groans
and yels he expected to heur, his ears were as
sailed with every imaginable sound of music,
mirth, and jollity. They soon reached an arch
ed entrance, of such stupendous magni6cence
and beauty, that all the grandeur of this world
seemed in comparison even as the frai and din.
gy labors of the poor earth-born mole. Within
it, what scene No amusement, no employ
ment or pursuit of man, is there to be found on
earth, which was not going on there with vehe
mence which excited his unutterable wonder.
There the young and lovely still swan in the
giddy mazes of the midnight dance. There the
bounding steed still bore his far more brutal and
senseless rider through the excitcments of the
goaded race. There the inemperate still drawl.
ed, over the midnight bowl, the wanton song or
maudling basphemy. There toiled the slaves
of Mammon, and, grinding their bitter task of
seeking THROUGH ETERNITY for useless gold
confessed that their insatiae thirst of it on earth
had indeed been but the apprenticeship of hell |!
And there the gambler piled his endless game :
WHILE as if in utter mockery Of their unremitting
toll, there sparkled and around such flood Of
genl-like light, and all that we, poor children of
the dust, call magniicence, as for time quite
dazzled and confounded his senses.
He at length perceived that he was surroun.
ded by those whom he had known on earth, and
knew to have been long dead, and each one Of
them he saw pursuing the employment or object
that had engrossed their time here-time lent
them to prepare for far different scene?
Suddenly observing that his unearthly con-
ductor has disappeared, he felt 80 relieved by
his absence, that he ventured to address his for
mer friend, Mrs. D, whom he saw sitting,
as was her wont on earth, absorbed at loo
Ha, Mrs D., am delighted to see you ;
dye know fellow told me tonight he was
bringing me to hell !-ha, ha! lfthis be hell, l
can only say it is the most deviLish pleasant
place ever was in-ha, ha! Come now, my
good Mrs. D., for auld langsyne do just sto?
from your game for q moment, rest and -"
" Chaperon me through the pleasures Of hell"
the scofer would have said; but with shrek
that seemed to clcave through his very soul, she
exclaimed, REST there is NO rest in hell y
and from interminable vaults, voices as of many
thunders prolonged and repeated the awful, the
heart-withering sound, "rHERE IS NO REST IN
HE'LL"
She hastily unclasped the vest of her gorge
GUS robe, and displayed 10 his scared and shud-
dering eye, a coil Of fiery living snakes: the
worm that never dies"-the 'corn, Of enry spite,
and maligntly touards our fellow-men-wreath-
ing, darting, singing, in her bosom; the others
followed her example, and in every bosom there
was hell-devised punishment. In some he saw
bare and throbbing hearts, on which distilled
slow drops, as it were, Of fiery molten meta,
under which, consuming, yet ever unconsumed,
they wrthed, and palpitated in all the impotence
of helpless, hopeless agony. And every scald-
ing drop was a tear of hopeless anguish, wrung
by selfish, heartless viainy, from the eye of
injured innocence on earth.
In every bosom he saw that which we have
no language to describe-no ideas horrid enough
even to conceive; for in all he saw the full
grown fruit of the fiend.strown seed of evil pas
sions, voluntarily nourisled in the human soul,
during its mortal pilgrimage here ; and in all he
saw them lashed and maddencd by the serpent
armed hand