" "Made of
the nature of salamanders," they shall be "immortal kept to feel
immortal fire." Well may we take up the words of the Psalmist and
cry out of the bottomless depths of disgust and anguish, "I am
overwhelmed with horror!"

Holding this abhorrent mass of representations, so grossly carnal
and fearful, up in the free light of to day, it cannot stand the
test of honest and resolute inquiry. It exists only by timid,
unthinking sufferance. It is kept alive, among the superstitious
vestiges of the outworn and out grown past, only by the power of
tradition, authority, and custom. In refutation of it we shall not
present here a prolonged detail of learned researches and logical
processes; for that would be useless to those who are enslaved to
the foregone conclusions of a creed and possessed by invulnerable
prejudices, while those who are thoughtful and candid can make

10 Sermon on "Neglect of Divine Calls and warnings."

such investigations themselves. We shall merely state, in a few
clear and brief propositions, the results in which we suppose all
free and enlightened minds who have adequately studied the subject
now agree, leaving the reader to weigh these propositions for
himself, with such further examination as inclination and
opportunity may cause him to bestow upon the matter.

We reject the common belief of Christians in a hell which is a
local prison of fire where the wicked are to be tortured by
material instruments, on the following grounds, appealing to God
for the reverential sincerity of our convictions, and appealing to
reason for their truth. First, the supposition that hell is an
enormous region in the hollow of the earth is a remnant of ancient
ignorance, a fancy of poets who magnified the grave into Hades, a
thought of geographers who supposed the earth to be flat and
surrounded by a brazen expanse bright above and black beneath.
Secondly, the soul, on leaving the body, is a spiritual substance,
if it be any substance at all, eluding our senses and all the
instruments of science. Therefore, in the nature of things, it
cannot be chained in a dungeon, nor be cognizant of suffering from
material fire or other physical infliction, but its woes must be
moral and inward; and the figment that its former fleshly body is
to be restored to it is utterly incredible, being an absurdity in
science, and not affirmed, as we believe, in Scripture. Thirdly,
the imagery of a subterranean hell of fire, brimst