le book called _Hell Open to
Christians_, which is stamped with the authority of the Catholic Church,
and issued for the special edification of children. This book declares
that hell is four thousand miles distant, but it does not indicate
the direction. Anyhow, the distance is so small that the priests might
easily set up communication with the place. But perhaps it only exists
in the geography or astronomy of faith.

Father Pinamonti seems particularly well informed on this subject. He
says the walls of hell are "more than four thousand miles thick." That
is a great thickness. But is it quite as thick as the heads of the fools
who believe it?

Our belief is that hell is far nearer than the clergy teach. Omar
Khayyam, the grand old Persian poet, the "large infidel," as Tennyson
calls him, wrote as follows--in the splendid rendering of Edward
Fitzgerald:--

I sent my soul through the invisible, Some letter of that after-life to
spell, And by and bye my soul returned to me, And answered, I myself am
heaven and hell.

Hell, like heaven, is within us, and about us in the hearts of our
fellow-men. Yes, hell is on earth. Man's ignorance, superstition,
stupidity, and selfishness, make a hell for him in this life. Let us
cease, then, to dread the fabled hell of the priests, and set ourselves
to the task of abolishing the real hell of hunger, vice, and misery.

The very Churches are getting ashamed of their theological hell. They
are becoming more and more secularised. They call on the disciples of
Christ to remedy the evils of this life, and respond to the cry of the
poor for a better share of the happiness of this world. Their methods
are generally childish, for they overlook the causes of social evil, but
it is gratifying to see them drifting from the old moorings, and little
by little abandoning the old dogmas. Some of the clergy, like Archdeacon
Farrar, go to the length of saying that "hell is not a place." Precisely
so, and that is the teaching of Secularism.

SPURGEON AND HELL.

Charles Lamb was one of the best men that ever lived. He had his
failings, but he never harmed anyone but himself. He was capable of
astonishing generosity, and those acquainted with the inner tragedy
of his life know that it was a long act of self-denial. He was also
extremely modest but not utterly devoid of indignation; and if he could
not denounce bitterly, he could speed a shaft of satire into the breast
of wickedness or cruel