Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1872-06-07
SUFFER, LITTLB CHILDRB.r.

The newspapers have lately got hold of
a detestable book written several years ago
by Catholic priest appropriately named
Furnace, and recommended by his superb
ors as n Sunday school book. 1t is called
THE Light of He'll, aud represents the tor
ments of boys and girls there. In one
place the author says: Little children, if
you go 10 hell there will be devil at your
side TO strike you. He will go on striking
you every minute for ever and ever with
out stopping. The first stroke will make
your body as bad as the body Of job, COW
cred TO head and foot with sores andulcers.
The second stroke will make your body
twice as bad rs 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 rs bad as
the body ofJub. How then will your body
be after the devil has been striking it every
moment for hundred millions of years
without stopping?' OF course the little
child, if it has had proper mathematical
education, readily sees how disagreeable
IL would be to suffer thus for 50 long u
time, but as the "young erson" addressed
might terribly fear that after a while this
perpetual fiagellation would become mo-
notonous and the sensibiites become
d cadened, the amiable furnace, whose
name is eminently suggestive, shows an
other phase of existence. A girl, perhaps
about Is years DID," wears dress made of
fire and bonnet of the same flashing ma
terial, and serves as the text Of moral
lesson to the already too respondent young
person. "You do not perhaps like head
a che. Think what headache that girl
must have. But see more. She is wrap
ned up in flames for her frock is on fire.
If she were on earth she would be burned
to cinder in moment. But she is in
hell, where fire buns everything, but
burns nothing away. She counts
with her fngers''-twhat presence of mind
under such circumstances !l-"the mo-
ments as they pass slowly away for each
moment seems to her Ikea hundred years.
| As she counts the moments she remembers
that she will have to count them forever
and ever" For children Of tender years
| Mr. Furnace wanders about the internal
| regions till be is able TO find q "bOiling
boy" who bubbles away and sings like a
tea-kettle. But "is il really kettle which
is boiling?' BY no means; for Il boiling
kettle is hardly calculated to strike terror
| TO the infant soul. The bubbling sound is
made by the blood which is in ebullition
within the boys veins and the marrow
cooking in his bones for il is said in Amos
w., "Thcy shall lin you up on pixies aud
what remains of You in boiling pots"
Then there is baby roasting in red-hot
oven, but never done. and the children are
called upon to listen to its screams and to
| see show il twists itself about in the fire,
and beats its head against the roof of the
o ven in despair. We would not believe
| hat such a book could be written and
printed in this age of the world, II we had
not seen it a few years ago. We have no
objection TO this priests pursuing his fer
vid rambles as long as may be thought
| best. but we would not trust child In his
company, even in this world, TO say moth
ing of that.-SprinGtield Republican.