The evening light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1881-1883, 1882-07-11
MIR. MURRY'S LECTURE
{ CONTINUED FROM YESTERDAY.


not the hell of modern superstition, l might
add, of the m ,dern churches superstition.
The church uses hell as place Of torture; the
old Greek and the old Hebrew meant it as
place ofresidence. The one means by it the
spot where spirits are punished, the other
meant by it spot where spirits lived. The
one describes the state and condition Of the
beings there, the others simply say: 'ltis
the land where the departed dwelp' ......
The modern theological hell is the hell Of
Dante and the hell of Milton The vain pic
lures of two uninspired poets have not been
Disseminated against by the church in their
instructions to the people, but fostered rather
until they actually overlap and cover up the
biblical teaching.
But there are reasons for what may be
called the popularity of this sort Of a hell
among clericals. Considering that ignorance
is always cowardly-and that the largest
part of the men have always been ig-
norant-it supplied to their hand an
engine Of tremendous force. Set over against
the fears of the cowardly. it was irresistible.
Edwards, Whitfield, Massilon, Bossuet and
twenty other great preachers, whether Pro-
testant or Catholic could take this great
flaming fiction of Dante and Milton, and
lifting it up in the hands of their oratory
above the heads of their mighty congrega-
tons, so appal them with the blaze and roar
of its fiery terrors, that they became frantic
with fear and grovelled on the floor or the
above them hell Kissed and famed until they
felt the heat, and the faces of some pinched
and snrvelled with pain as actual as if ver-
table fire touched them. Of course, if these
great preachers used it used it as orators use
certain tones and gestures to produce certain
effects-lesser men would follow the fashion,
| and especially they who, in the vanity of their
eloquence, delighted in producing great mo-
| mentary effects, as we'll as those who, too
| ignorant to frame a convincing argument,
must needs have resort to what would appeal
to the peoples fear. Then, too, its handy
conception to have round to use in certain
emergencies. l don't know what the ortho-
dox people would have done without it. When
| Theodore Parker preached in the Music Hall
| it seemed exactly to fit the case and meet the
aspirations Of Calvinistc piety. And certain
| it is that our friends of the Catholic heirachy
could scarcely run thef institutions without
the fabrication of few anathemasi and what
force is there to an enathema unless there is a
good old fashioned hell somewhere to fuse it
as loaded shell is fused for explosion when
It strikes? ..
Then, again, some are mentally incapable
of making PROCESS. They are n06 imb-ciles..
l do not mean that. They AZ Every able,
perhaps-able as a big buzz ~ eel isl to
simply 60 round. Their prog ,.es 'foah3e
stationary axis. Their activity howeyetearn-
est, has no progression IN it. There are
thinkers in the church who have thus been
buzzing swsy for forty years. and for forty
years they have been saving away at the air
God does not bring scented woods 10 SUCH
buzz as they are.
Then, too, it pays some to cling to old
things For generation at least they are
sure to be in the majority. For death is the
best refofmer, and it is only after the largest
half of generation dies that any new truth is
accepted by it. 1t is hsrd tor minister to
has a family dependent on him; nor need he
| DO it. All he has to do is to mentally stand
| still, say nothing new: shock no old crustacean
saint with new conception, and his position
| is safe.
| Still. in spite Of all these ,laueaees that
have operated to keep the old childish cor
ceplion of hell as place of physical torture
alive, it is really morbicund. The church does
! its best to keep it alive. But education is no
! longer in the control Of the church, and it is
hard for teacher to keep his gravity when
the children are all laughing at him, and he
don't half believe what he is teaching hiI.Sef
| 1t is hard work to make folk believe that the
Devil has hoofs and horns and scorpion 'ail.
Such Devil frightened our ancestors, but
your boy, friend, will draw this picture of
Satan on his slate and laugh at it-perhaps he
will write the batne OF the >choOl-master under
it, and show it to his rieht-hana hsishto..
| That is all the terror there is in it TO him !
| That is all the terror there is in the Mitonian
| hell to you and me, friends, who are but
grown up boys, who draw our pictures in the
| air instead Of on the slate. Yes, the old ina
| ginations are 100 erude for the world to hold
longer. When it was q child. the wofld
thought as a child but being no longer a child,
it is putting away childish things.
We know that the possibility of suffering is
in us, our capacity assures us Of it, and we
know that the suffering is beyond the suffer-
| ing of the physique, and hence suffering that
| fire, which can touch only the physique. can
not symbolic. We know that Hellz-gsinG it
as symbolic Of the agony-is within and not
outside of us, and that it is the terrible result
of transgressing the laws of our own being we
have to dread, and no lake of surging fires
| into Which we are to be bodily plunged.
When a man threa tens me with the Hell Of
Milton or Dante, l laugh al him. When he
| warns me of the suffering | can bring upon
myself, ! get alarmed and look to see if am
&C cumulatinx the materials of self-torture.
The Devil is hisdreeted mental force !;
the principle of malice impefsonated, the ssr
sence of all evil condensed into a word. He'll
is remorse, is regret, is disappointment, and is
therefore as a possibility universalized in
every breast
Milton and Dante made He'll spot into which