The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1926-10-18
IF THEY ABOLISH HE'LL
: Ny y. ID. Cochran

If Archbishop York succeeds his campaign 70
abolish hell there may be complications the reverend
clergyman didn't think Of Anyhow. there are two
sides to the argument
Undoubtedly there would be advantages in getting
rid Of hell but it Is such odestabsned institution
that most of have got used to having it around the
house and many would miss il more than the arch.
bishop might think.
He'll understand it is pice place. None
of to go there, but millions Of people since
the invention of hell have priced it as place to
which they would like send others whom they
don't like. Just what the satisfaction that men
got out of telling people go to hell isn't easily de
Enable, but there satisfaction just the same.
True the mere telling didn't get results. We never
heard of anybody who to hell Just because he
ordered there, but telling him to go answered some
mysterious purpose 1t enabled fellow to get some
thing off his chest; and that always furnished sort
Of relief.
isn't easy to visualize hell unless you have read
Dantes Inferno and have the terrifying illus
tration by Dore but in many minds the idea of hell
brings up pictures of bottomless pits with everlasting
fire. populated by the suffering souls of humans who
had snned terribly during their brief time earth.
Anyhow. what kind of place hell depended
a good deal upon each individual imagination, which
helped not many years by graphic descriptions
hurled at the wicked from many pulpits. The hell
[ heard about when boy a perfectly
horrible Methodist hell and terribly afraid of
1t. In later life, however, found many different
kinds of hell that visible to the naked eye. and
painfully feelble that the hell of my boyhood faded
from the picture, Along with it went the old devil
with horns, hoofs, ptchfork and pointed tail
He'll very useful invention just the same
that is, for some people who knew how to it. 1t
helped some parents to make children mind. And it
easier to frighten them into submission than
waste time appealing to their Many child in
the past centuries has obeyed orders after being told
he would go to hell if he didn't.
And if we abolish hell now, it's going to make
parents find some other way of making children
mind than by soaring them to death. 1t will also make
it difficult for preachers to make people
be good If there is hell, where in the dickens can
fundamentals preachers send the wicked?
Take Bill Sunday for instance How is he going
to reform the world if he can't shake his fist the
devil and send all the people who don't agree with
him to hell?
Somehow or other I'm afraid many Of will miss
hell if it is taken away from 1t had almost be
part of the home Life itself seemed to get its
spice judicious mixture of little bit Of heaven
and little bit of hell There was real comfort in
the thought that we were going to heaven where we
could look down and all enemies everlasting
torment in a brimstony hell And if they take hell
away from isn't there danger that we'll lose
heaven too?
If there is to be hell for sinners, can we feel
certain that they won't take heaven away from us
saints?
OF course, Archbishop York is Englshman but
if he deprives England of her time-honored Episco
palian hell there's telling where the will stop
may lose my Methodist hell. And that would be hell
Next-Judge Gary and Jim Crow Heaven.