STEPPING-STONES OVER BIG DIFFICULTIES. ROUND ABOUT HELL.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XV, Issue 28, 4 November 1887, Page 29

STEPPING-STONES OVER BIG DIFFICULTIES. ROUND ABOUT HELL.

(By Rev. Father Oassidy, Xew

Plymouth.) (Continued.)

We know that the moral emotions exert a wonderful influence on the body, we know th.it violent p .tsion exhibits all the marks of tire, a-id ttiat despair, above all the other*, shows every symptom of it. We know that the fires of despair will burn for ever in the souls of the lost, and it is gui c natuial to expect, that as the body during life is fired by the souls of emotions, so tbe resuscitated bodies of the damned should also be inflamed by them. But we need not questnn here what may be this fire, nor endeavour to discover whence it may arise, since the nature uf the fire of hell, is stilt a dispute I and unsettled question, even among the m;st dogmatic. Though there are many conjectures on the nature of the punishment of the damned, and many bj potheses aie made to support one. theory or the other, still there is one fixed, certain, and central point of chastisemeut-that the lost must suffer. All sensible persons, all logical men, all Christian mirjds agree in believing that those wno die unlike God, that those who dit. unworthy of Him, that those who die deprived or. His friendship and of His love, ihai iho>.e who wilfully, knowingly, and deliberately refused to obey, to woiship, to love aud rem un with Him duriog life, shall be eternally bepar.itid from Kirn when life is over. '..eep thinking mind of the presjut, the scholars of past centuries, Be priucipal Christian tbeo.ogians, and the eloqu-jut Faihers cf the Hchurch ot God agree m asseinu^ that this eternal separation from *Goi cous'.ituUs the cief punishrn Tit of tbe damned. The conscious loss of Gud is a punishmrnt so teirible we need no other, and if we uy to feebly reihse what that punishment must be, if we only take a passing trlimp^e ot the world around us, or try by imagination to penetrate the rim of the visible creation we will find thit all other punishments compared with the conscious loss of God, will sink into insignificance. Brimstone and scorpions, chains and stiaight jackets, gridiions and fire shovele, sulphur aud sledge-hammers, with all the barbaiic paraphernalia of thi pagan hell, and all the horrid imaginings of tbe iron ages of e,irly (Jhiistiauity, all look childish to the mind that can admire beauty and appreciate love, or can teebly picture the sublime splendour ot G. d, und then fancy eternal separation from Him. It is universally aumuted thut the soul on its separation from the body somehow sees Go rs . and all agree, thit when licne will come to an end, when the Cr< ator wiL change tbe existing order of things aud put an end to «U unman lite, th- n at Lrist; we will S'je God as He is in all the splendour of Heaven. But v\ hat that splendour may br>, what that Heaven may be, we cannot tell. It is there, we know." We tee it wnh the eye ol faith as we --cc tte biightest planet ih ,t g.-ms the heavers. It is e.H there, a star of beau'y on tne ui^ut of my-iery in which we move, aud thougii it i-i now separated fro.ii us by au liumdasuiable distance, though it ia so lai ab jvc the biorins and clouds of earth, that we can never understand it till we have tom ourselves from the palace of clay that moi rs us to thia world, ami with our souls unchained ai d free as thougli ,«c r <am pc v i h t u.nvei-je trom cud to end, and bvvirt as lightning and ?ottly as the falling dew pas-> on from world to wond of our Father's kij^iiouj. lim ihou^n that heaveu is s> little known to us now, thougn it in t-o l»r away, art; we not moving along its thiehhoM, an iby o;ie t-u pwe ar.j k. B t amidht i.s splendour and i.s immortal light ? Eru the cold uc^ . t dean, come-, upon Ma, and t. o sobs of sorrowing friends are hushed into silent sorrow, the song of heaven baa beguu, if we are worthy of our Father's home there is no

delay, n > waiting for an exort to travel that brilliant path. Angels unseen are moving in the chamber of diath, looking ou with tearless eyes, where all else arp we p ping, and with the last quiver, and the laac breath, they are away with their new comrade to the throne of the great King. The shout of Jubilee that once greeted the conqueror from his cross, is still ringing along the dazzling arches, and the poor weary traveller of life on angels' wings is borne to his eternal crown and his everlasting resting place. He is at home. To be at home is the wish of the seaman, on his lonely watch on the dark stormy ocean. His heart is fixei on some cottage where his wife and little ones pray and long for his return. The soldier sighs for home, and what tender visions of it mingle with the troubled dreams of trench and t ;nted field. Where the palm tree waves its graceful form in the brightness of the morning, and birds of brilliant plamea glitter in the cloudless sunshine ; where wealth and plenty flow around, the exile sits staring on vacancy : a far-off country liesoi nis heirt, borne away on the wings of fancy over intervening seas and continents he reaches home, hears again the songs of the birds in his father's fields, sees again the young friends of his childhood, and dreams and longs again for that old home where his eyes first saw the light. Home, the emblem of rest and happiness. How we all long for the home where rest and happiness are eternal, where the innocence of childhood dwells for ever, where the song of joy rolls on in celestial harmony, where the father is crowned King, and the children sport amid the endless sunshine of heavenly pleasure an I immortal love, where no tears of sorrow are seen, no heart sighs heard, or no sid farewells. The saint and the sinner, the pagan and the believer, the poet and the philosopher, the dreamer and the toiler, the infidel and the Christian some way or other lou? for that home. They look around them and see no real home in life, no fixed resting place, and in their thinking moments, in their best hours, they sigh for heaven. They see the world full of suffering, they are distressed with its sorrows, or suffer from its sin^, and they turn their restless eyes heavenwards, and sorrowing ask if thoy will b^ happy there some day. The saint is always dreaming, thinking, and working for that home ; his heart yearns for it truer and stronger than the soldier, the sailor, or the exile for the paternal roof. Toe saint is always preparing for it, like the bird getting ready to cmi *rate to sunny lands, where no bleak winter sheds its enow or strips the grove.or chains the dancing stream ; every sight in life reminds him of it, and every voice in creation, tells him of that destiny aud assures him that God will some day bring him home at last. Tne Father has promised a happier home for his children, than any they can form in life or even imagine and to that promise the children always cling. God will keep fclis promise. Everything to the mind of the saint reminds him of the divine fidelity. He hears the voice of God assuring him of heaven in the voice of every 8;orm that, like an angry child, weeps and wails itself to sleep. He hears it in the voice of every shower that eh m^es into sunshine, or ia the ocean's wail as it breaks in sighs along the lonely shore. He hears it in the voice of tbe seasons as they march in unbroken succession to the music uf the spheres. He hears it in the cry of sorrow, from the death- beds of the rich or poor from the deserted graves and from all the groans of nuff^iug huuiitnty. That voice is the source of all his jay and that promise the source of all his confidence. Whea tbe good ship reels to aid fro on a stormy sea, and struggling as for life in the arms of death, she plunged and groans through the waves, while the furious wind screams through the rigging, and the boom and splash of billows break fiercely over the bows, while the blocks rattl j , and the stays and planking creak, and the cries of children, and the shiieks of frightened women, bursting from th'j necks, mirgle with tha roar of the tempest; yet amid this fierce commotion, whi'e the good ship strains to her work, and struggle} to shake off the storm, brave men grow timid when timid ones grow pale, you will sse calm confidence sitting on the brow of the weather-beaten man who leans upon the wheel and steers her through the tempest, and when his ear catches the " All's well " from the lookout, that voice of cocfi i«nce mingling with the roar of the elements and piercing through tne darkness ot the night makes him smile at dauber, and laugh at the fury of the storm. 6o in the storm of life, i a the commotion of passion, in the struggles of the soul, in the tempest of care, trouble and, temptation, when wind and wave rise high to --ink into mlidc-lity or indifference, or to throw down for ever immorial hope in heaven, on tuo calm brows of the saints unswerving confidence sits, and in their ears fire ever ringing •' All's well." we are going home. Heaven is the home ot ibe blesi, and to know the pain it ia 1o be lost for ever to it, we must first hare tasted its pleasures and enjoyed its repose. There is there, says St. Gregory, '• liirhl without darkness, joy without grief, desire without punishment, love without sadness, satiety without loathmy, safety without fear, health without disease and life without death." It is easy to conceive the frightful despair which the sight of what he has lost in losing God and in. beiu^ driven from heaven, must awaken in tbe soul of thd damned. We see every day the terrible anguish that the los, of even trifling tlr.ngs occasions. If a mau is threaiened with the loss ot sight, what wnguish does he not feel ; the very thought of b irq unnbk: to see any more the mountains and the valleys, the giee.ii fields or the merry birds, or the dazzling sunshine, or the frfce of those ho loves breaks his heart, and forces him to look on his future life u^ 1 Lie exterior d .rkne-s wheie there is nothing: but weeping and gnashing of teeth. But if the lo3s of being deptived of the p Aver ot sc'ting what une has alien. iy seen and of what one baa already kn r >wn of this pojr world is s-o tcrv-at, wba f an;, .lsli must be the thought of b 'inj eternally separa't d tiuiu the heuVis i of infiuile glory, where infinite beauty dnells, wheie ever> thing sh nes in hmitle&s hplendotr, where all is Jair and crjod occasion, l'o -cc uo mure all thit is fair and beautiluland orient, to see God in all His glory, to see all the wonders ot His majestic creation, and tin. a to lose, sight ol that vision of loveliness for uvrr. We ein never imagine the teirible lo'igi>ig that must arne in thu soul, t<j look on that ocean of beauty once in >re, and the lo id ot tiulnet>s that must overwhelm it when it recall", teat glory is lost to it for eteriuty, tUdi sight it will uever see agnn. If we nun our thoughts to the norlus thai move aronnd us what a glorious sight it would be even to see them feebly as they shadow the great loveliness of God, The beauty, the

immensity of these simple works of the Creator fill us with astonishment. Poets bave tried to sppak of them in verse, but one feels at once the insufficiency of speech to note the majestic thoughts and deep longings thejr contemplation awakens in us. If we take the earth for a starting point, and steer straight to any fixed point in the heavens, goiDg at the rapidity of light, or 186,000 miles a second. At the end of one second we are 186,000 miles awayfroJi the cradle of our race, away from our world, from our country, our home, and not one trace of it can be seen ; it is lost in the long distance we have travelled over. 4t the end of the second spcond we are 372,000 miles distant, and continuing this Bwift passage through the starry firmanent for ten minutes, we have (hen passed over 111,600,000 miles. Let us speed on for a day, a week, a month, a year at this lightening rapidity, and we will find that the space we have travelled over, when expressed in miles, exceeds our faculty of comprehension, and indicates nothing to our mind. But if we do not interrupt our flight, but continue at the same speed through the vast expanse for fifty years or fifty thousand centuries, where will we find ourselves? A long, long way beyond the starry region seen from our mother earth. We are in other regions, unknown and unexplored. No human or finite mind is capable of following in imagination the road passed over, thousands of millions joined to thousands of millions express nothing at the end of this vast distance ; we find that we have not advanced a step nearer to the end of our journey. We are no nearer to the limit than if we remained stationary, and were we join century to century in the same itinerary with the same velocity, to continue the voyage without end and without rest, at the end of an immeasurable period we would still only find ourselves at the starting point. Rising on every side heavens, going beyond the distant shores of this ocean without limits, will reveal thembelves to our eagerness ; heavens will succeed heavens, spheres to spheres after deserts of expanse will open up other deserts, after ' immensities other immensities, and always the infinite of an unexplored expanse will remain open before us. Nojwonder the imagination in this stupendous flight grows stupid, and Oroly wrote 41 Ye stars bright legions that before all time, Camped on yon plain of sapphira what shall tell, Your burning myriads but the eye of Him, Who bade through heaven your golden chariots wheel, Yet who earth- boru, can see ymr hosts nor feel, Immortal pulses — Eternity 1 What wonder of the overwrought soul should reel, With its own we-gbtof thought, and the wild eye, See fate within your tracks." But without taking a stupendous flight on the wings of thought or imagination through those vast realms of space, and withont pausing for a moment to grasp the feelings of dead grandeur and inconceivable immensity that journey brings before us, if we only peep through tLe telescope, what a. strange sensation comes over us," what thoughts and f^ehn^s does not that glimpse awaken. One feels that notwithstanding ihe unfathomable distance that separates our abode from these far off dwellings there is something of our nature hidden there, that there is something to long for and love resting behind this curtain of the stars. Toe impression this feeling makes upon us, is indefinable and ineffaceable, but by it whatever sentiment that would attach us to terrestrial lire is shaken and hushed into silence, and the soul is forced to say with Tom Moore, " And false the light on glory 's plume As fading hues of even, And Love, and Hope, and Beauty's bloom, Are blossoms gathered for the tomb, There's nothing bright but Heaven." But we need not take our flight to heaven to picture the magnificenc 0 of its beauty, the vastness of its expanse, the solemn grandeur of it ß oceans, or its plains, or the infinite richness it opens up before us to realise the anguish and heartfelt longings that must ever burn in the soul that has once gazed on that wonderland of splendour, and knows it will never see that sight again. If we look no farther than this mife, if we take our stand on this mud ball over which we crawl for a " very brief period, if we glance at the angnish that the loss cf some sights upon it, or of some thing upon it occasion, wecan better understand the terrible misfortune of being lost for ever to the sight that heaven coniains. The loss of anything that one wants, wishes, or loves is always a source of pain. The more one wants, wishes, or loves a thing, the more suffering does the loss of that thing occasion, and as long as the want of that thing is pressing, as long as the wish for it is strong, as long as the love for it is intense, so long will the loss of it be a source ot suffering and sorrow. In the daily battle of life, we recognise that all our sorrows spring from the loss ot something we value or love. {To be continued.}