The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-11-16
VARIOUS HILLs. AND TWO HELLs,

soCA, q CoFeIcu, uluueu, al uHkuOWu pIdCo'
The pagan accounts of it vary according to
the peculiar views of each people as to the
what constitutes the physically horrible The
descriptions of it in various theologies have
depended largely on the power and character
of mems imagination, as determined by myth,
tradition, climate, meteorological phenomena,
dangers by cold, by sea, by wind, by fog, rock
or ice, by avalanche, by caverns, by earth
quake and volcanic phenomena. Desert, food,
forest, weird and little known animals, poison
onous plants and reptiles uncomfortable en-
vironments of every kind that harass and
destroy life, have furnished something to the
local ideas of the place Of punishment to
which the race with view to meeting their
views of justice or vengeance have after
death consigned the spirits of their enemies
Our Anglo-Saxon word for the place of pun
ishment signifies the 'invisible world" the
Hebrew sheol, 'to be hollow" is the" under
world" the Greek, hades, is the "unseen
place." and is used in the Testament as the
place of the dead; again, as the grave or as
the place of the spirit after death, regardless
of character. He'll and devil are in all Script
ures indefinite expressions of Dante's "In-
ferno' or Paradise" and Mrs Phelps built
her phantasy of Coates Ajar" mainly on the
primary and saving tenet of the great mystics
belief and teachings: that this world is pre-
paratory and determinative only; that it is a
school, a preparation, an initiation, and that
death is but new birth of the same individ-
uality-character and purpose still having
their weight and value, and even opportunity
not dead
1t cannot at all be said that death and hell,
heaven and devil have not been great ideas
and forces in the world. But they have not
swayed the course of thought. Surely the
devil of the book of Job is not the devil of
the Miltonic system; rather more of the char
acter Of Mephistopheles in Faust, who de-
fines him self as 'part of the power, not I'M
derstood, which, while it deviseth evil doeth
good" OR like the Lucifer in Longfellow's leg
end, who claims that che, too is Gods min
lister, and labors for some good by us not un-
derstood."
Much of the same kind of Indebtedness
attaches to the historical idea of heaven. It
is scarcely known to some of the pagan sys-
TENS; even the Jews made but little of it.
Swedenborg has defined it with all the exact
ness of action as have been the ideas of good
ness, Of immortality, of faith, and hope, and
charity. All systems ofreligion in the past have
failed which were not founded on rational,
effective, humble and helpful action. This,
Of course, implies right thinking as the source
of right living, and brings morality within
the domain of reason. 1t has to do with now
rather than with hereafter and makes earth
and the present state dominant over ideas of
hell, heaven, purgatory, or any future state;
even that of absolute nihilism.
But the concern of this writing is his
torical rather than ethical, and word is to
be said of two bells, which, though subjects
of poetic fancy rather than historic fact, have
had an immense influence on modern litera-
ture, both ethical and religious. These are
the two bells of Milton and of Dante. Two
because they are as separate as the men and
their times, as the systems of cosmogony
upon which they are physically based. Even
the progress in knowledge as to chemistry
and combustion which occurred between the
times of the two poets is utilized by Milton.
Dante speaks as of personal knowledge, and
gives details, as would CULVER or Robinson
Crusoe. His hell is so wide, so deep: his
Satan's body, at the bottom it, with legs in
ice, is as tall as three tall Germans; his head
big, like the ball of st. Peters, and his three
great mouths crunching sinners as a hog
crunches crackers the three traitors, Judas,
Brutus and Cassius, undergoing mastication
at the instant of Dantes visit with Virgil.
But Milton, who did not profess to have been
to either heaven or hell, only intimates and
generalizes. His hell is
An universe of death which God by curse
Created evil. for evil only good;
Where all life dies. death lives and nature breeds
All monstrous, all prodgious things
Worse than fables yet have teigned
Or fear conceived, gorgons and hydras dire
Macaulay quotes the above, and adds that
the vague sublimity of Milton affects him less
than these ch-reviled details of Dante.
This hell of Dante, says Leigh Hunt is,
speaking geologically, most fantastical
formation. 1t was formed by the fall of Satan
from his high estate and, as be struck the
earth beneath Jerusalem, he Glove it to its
center, where he stuck, bulging out by his
fall the purgatory as corresponding mount
ain on the other side. He'll was left behind