There is not a Church, not a monastery that we enter, but that our blood is chilled at its fountain, as we gaze upon the ghastly paintings, representing the horrible tortures of hell, placed conspicuously for the contemplation of the faithful, or for the fear of the wicked, or for the gain of the clergy--for the heavier the purse the church receives, the surer the release. It is impossible to conceive more ghastly conceptions of the future world than these pictures evinced, or more hideous calumnies against that Being, who was supposed to inflict upon His creatures such unspeakable misery. On one picture the devil is represented bound by red-hot chains, on a burning gridiron in the center of hell. His hands are free, and with these he seizes the lost souls, crushes them like grapes against his teeth, and then draws them by his breath down the fiery cavern of his throat. Demons with hooks of red-hot iron, plunge souls alternately into fire and ice. Some of the lost are hung by their tongues, others are sawn asunder, others are gnawed by serpents, others are beaten together on an anvil, and welded into a single mass, others are boiled and strained through a cloth, others are twined in the embraces of demons whose limbs are of flames. But not only the guilty are represented suffering thus, but also the innocent, who expiate amidst heart-rending tortures the guilt of their fathers.[1] A little boy is represented in his suffering. His eyes are burning like two burning coals. Two long flashes come out of his ears. Blazing fire rolls out of his mouth. An infant is represented roasting in a hot oven. It turns and twists, it beats its head against the roof of the oven in agony of its suffering. [1] Consult Wall's History of Infant Baptism. Unable to gaze upon the scene of innocent suffering any longer, we turn from it, trembling with rage. We ask a priest, who chances to be near, what fiend could calumniate thus the good God? And smoothly he replies: "God was very good to this child. Very likely God saw it would get worse and worse and would never repent, and so it would have to be punished much more in hell. So God, in his mercy, called it out of the world in its early childhood."[2] [2] For full account of the teaching of the Church during the Dark Ages concerning the suffering in hell, see Lecky's "History of European Morals," chap iv. We no longer wonder at the stupidity of the people, at the enormous wealth, and still greater power of the clergy, when we remember that the people were inoculated with the belief that the clergy alone could save them from such eternal tortures, and that money was the safest and most potent redeemer, and the never failing mediator for effacing the most monstrous crimes, and for securing ultimate happiness.