never cease of those whom the devil's
myrmidons drove over the narrow bridge leading to his horrible realm,
goading them with spears and pitchforks, with heavy cudgelling or gnawing
of their flesh. In the anguish of death, and the crush by the way,
mothers trod down their infants and fathers their daughters; and when the
damned reached the spiked threshold of hell itself, a hideous and
poisoned vapor rose up to meet them, choking them, and yet giving them
renewed strength to feel fresh torments with increased keenness of every
sense. Then the devil's shrieks of anguish, which shake the vault of
hell, came thundering on their ears; with hideous yells he snatched at
them from the grate on which he lay, crushed and squeezed them in his
iron jaws like a bunch of grapes, and swallowed them into his fiery maw;
or else they were hung up by their tongues by attendant friends in
Satan's fiery furnace, or dragged alternately through ice and flames, and
finally beaten to pieces on the anvil of hell, or throttled and wrung
with ropes and cloths.--As compared with the torments they would suffer
there, every present anxiety was as the kiss of a lover. Mothers would
hear the brain seething in their infants' skulls. . . .

At this point of the monk's grewsome discourse, Orion turned away with a
shudder. The curse with which the patriarch had threatened him recurred
to his mind; he could have fancied that the hot, stuffy, incense-laden
air of the church was full of flapping daws and hideous bats. Deadly
horror crept over him; but then, suddenly, the rebound came of youthful
vigor, longing for freedom and joy in living; a voice within cried out:
"Away with coercion and chains! Winged spirit, use your pinions! Down
with the god of terrors! He is not that Heavenly Father whose love
embraces mankind. Forward, leap up and be free! Trusting in your own
strength, guided by your own will, go boldly forth into the open sunshine
of life! Be free, be free!--Still, be not like a slave who is no sooner
cut adrift and left to himself than he falls a slave again to his own
senses. No; but striving unceasingly and of your own free will, in the
sweat of your brow, to reach the high goal, to work out to its fulfilment
and fruition everything that is best in your soul and mind. Yes--life is
a ministry. . . . I, like the disciples of the Stoa, will strive after all
that is known as virtue, with no other end in view than to practise it
for its own sake, beca