At times, again, bits of the lake skinned over with a
skin of a wonderful silvery, satiny sheen, to be immediately
devoured; and as the lurid billows broke, they were mingled with
misplaced patches as if of bright moonlight. Always changing,
always suggesting force which nothing could repel, agony
indescribable, mystery inscrutable, terror unutterable, a thing of
eternal dread, revealed only in glimpses!
It is natural to think that St. John the Evangelist, in some Patmos
vision, was transported to the brink of this "bottomless pit," and
found in its blackness and turbulence of agony the fittest emblems
of those tortures of remorse and memory, which we may well believe
are the quenchless flames of the region of self-chosen exile from
goodness and from God. As natural, too, that all Scripture phrases
which typify the place of woe should recur to one with the force of
a new interpretation, "Who can dwell with the everlasting burnings?"
"The smoke of their torment goeth up for ever and ever," "The place
of hell," "The bottomless pit," "The vengeance of eternal fire," "A
lake of fire burning with brimstone." No sight can be so fearful as
this glimpse into the interior of the earth, where fires are for
ever wallowing with purposeless force and aimless agony.
Pages:
436
437
438
439
440
441
442
443
444
445
446
447
448
449
450
451
452
453
454
455
456
457
458
459
460