Spirit of Jefferson. [volume] (Charles Town, Va. [W. Va.]) 1844-1948, 1883-06-26

1t may be dark and frightful
sphere, isolated from all worlds,
cursed of God, erratic and lawless.
rolling beyond the confines of crea-
ton, with no sun or stars 10 light up
its darkness and chase away its in
fernal vapors. with rivers and oceans
of liquid fires, continents of inciner-
ated rock and scattered scoria. and
rent with awful chas,ns. Over if the
lost may walk, and run, and gropc,
ard stumble, and fall, and climb for
ever. 1t may have strange power
over the lost, answering as to gravity,
which binds them to its surface, and
compelS them 10 dwell there through
ali eternity. 1t may not be this Ii
may be 4 world. riven and silivered
by volcanic fires and smothered gases,
where lurid darkness and bazy light
minglc il duslsy shades, where smoky
flames ooze from thousand crannies,
and flicker and flash from a thousand
fissurcs, where scrpents hiss in every
gorge, and goblins dance on every
hill, and spectres creep from every
rock, and phantoms ride on every
wind, and demons sit on every noun
t1in-and where redoubtablc horrors.
mounted upon fiery dragons, chase
the ruined soul over smouldering
plains, gloomy hills, mountains dingy,
moTasses foul, and abysscs squalid.
and chase it forever. 1t may not be
this. 1t may be n gloomy, desoiatc
and barren world, whose rocks and
mountains are tulnb!ed into anarchy !;
where there are no blushing flowers,
nodding trees, dewy wales, grassy
slopes, and running streams; and
where there are no homes, no'church-
cs, no preaching, 10 morality, no
religion, 10 friendship, no God.
Religion is order, love and light; and
where tits not, all is disorder, enlrity,
hate and night. The world must be
in harmony with its inhabitants.
Then, the best hell. we can promise
is a world of ugly ruins, shrouded in
Nights blackcst pail, where no one
of the damned has friend, and filled
with cursing ard strife, and where
all ranks and sexes are hcrded in one
promiscuous mob with foulest de-
mons, and where every sinking cave
is inhabited with fiend and gnashing
ghost. and on whose black crags the
ravens of despair sit and croak, and
where Gods eternal justice plies his
burning whip, and remorse lays on
his fiery throngs-the flashes of whip
and thongs their only light-world
without end. Or it may be some
huge cavern followed out the centre
of some blasted, shattered, and God
cursed planet, in which the poison
and stencil OF ages have gathered,
and condensing distill on the walls
dimly lighted by suiphurous torches
held by grinacing and howling fiends,
and whose sickly, Pickering render
the darkness in all the winding pits,
chasms. and corners but blacker ;
and where occasional blue flames,
breaking through the assures over
head, lick along the arches, and bolts
of thunder crash through the grot-
toes and roar along the labarinths,
in which lost men and fallen angels
may be driven from the Judgment
seat, the ponderous gates, closing
and locking behind theEl-the key
fastened to the girdle CT God, and
the Divine 0mnipotence installed as
perpetual sentinel to guard the way.
Or it may be an unquenchabie lake
of fire and birthstone, surrounded
with precipitous shores of black and
beetling crags, over whose surface
beat eternal storms, the fiery waves
lashiag. and dashing, and splashing
and grooming around the shores
bubbles dancing on every wave and
swell, and bursting, emit fumes and
smoke threaded with serpent flames.
in whose ascending volumes ever
lasting iightnings fash and cross
while the unfettered thunders of God
upon heil's internal drums roll the
eternal bass in hell's uproar. and
beat time to the ceaseIess groans of
the lost. The hell OF the Bible is
horrible beyond description, and the
hypothesis of this hour cannot exceed
it. Its miseries are as far beyond
Il