listen! That
Hell lies underneath Heaven you have doubtless heard from some one or
other. Naturally the holy dead see and hear nothing of the pains of the
lost, for that would entirely spoil the joys of Paradise for them; but
now and then--I believe once a year--it is given to the blessed to look
down into Hell. There is, however, one condition in particular attached
to this privilege. When the dome which conceals Hell from the sight of
the angels is opened, it is for the relief of the condemned. God in
his mercy has decreed that the saints shall look down into the abyss in
order to tell St. Peter if they see among the damned any one from whom
they have received any benefit, or of whom they have even heard any
good. If the keeper of Heaven's gate is pleased with the generous
action which the lost soul performed while on earth, he has the power of
shortening the time of punishment, or can even pardon it altogether, and
bid it enter into Paradise.

"As for me, I arrived in Paradise on a day when Hell was open to view,
and came to know, thereby, many strange things. Ah! That was the hardest
part of my story; I trust that you have understood it?"

The narrator's glance sought the children's eyes once more; but this
time questioningly rather than peremptorily. When the young lips
all cried "yes," and "of course," he smiled, nodded his massive head
amiably, and continued:

"That the angels are full of pity, and glad to relieve the misery of the
unfortunate, whoever they are, and wherever they may be, goes without
saying, and it will not be necessary to tell you how diligently they
sought to remember some one good deed that might redound to the credit
of one of the lost. But St. Peter is a mild and just judge, and the
gleaning yielded but a small return, for only a few of the angels could
recall any act that was worth mentioning. It was also granted to me
to look into the place of torment, and the things I saw there were too
awful. Picture it to yourself as you will! When I recovered from the
horror that fell upon me, I recognized many men and women whom I had
known on earth. Among them were many whom I had been accustomed to
consider pious and virtuous, and whom I had expected to find in a high
place in Heaven, rather than there below, and yet of those very persons
the Elect could recall the fewest deeds that had been done from purely
generous motives. An act was mentioned of this one or that, which on
the surface seemed g