Mark Twain says in “The Mysterious Stranger”: “A God who mouths justice and mercy and invented Hell, mouths golden rules and forgiveness and invented Hell, who mouths morals to other people and has none himself, who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all, who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man’s acts upon man, instead of placing it where it belongs upon himself.” The trouble with Mark was that he accepted as true all that silly superstition, all those puerile fairy tales, all those black lies from the Pit of Hell written and taught by the old priests and prophets. God never created the human race, he never made Hell. This cruel remark of Mark is libelous, almost bordering on blasphemy. Read what the insane Church Fathers said: “There in Hell the intelligent fire burns the limbs and restores them, feeds on them and nourishes them.”—Felix. The proud monarchs and magistrates (and everybody but the Christians) shall liquefy in the fierce flames of Hell.—Tertullian. We shall be compensated by a perpetual spectacle of our persecutors in an ever-burning Gehenna being devoured by living flames.—Cyprian. Ling or the Word is the Commander-in-chief of the universe.—Clement. Every sinner kindles for himself the flame of his own fire, and is not plunged into some fire kindled by another.—Origen. The wicked will be provided not with the old earthly body, but with an indestructible body capable of holding out forever against everlasting fire.—Lactantius. The whole mass of the human race is condemned. If we can pray the wicked out of Hell, we can pray the devils out.—Augustine. Everybody, infants included, go to Hell, unless they are baptized.—Ambrose. There shall be eternal torments for all devils and skeptics.—Jerome. Votive offerings by the living will reduce the torments of the dead. The blessed shall rejoice over the punishment of the damned.—Aquinas. CHAPTER X. The Devil. Christ overcame the Great Serpent, the Devil, and the Irish Bacchus, St. Patrick, drove all the snakes out of Ireland. The drunken Bacchus, whose Saturnalia was held on the 17th of March, when they poured out libations to him, was canonized and is now St. Bacchus, and his coffin and relics, endowed with magical and miraculous powers, were exhibited at Rome according to Isis Unveiled, 1:160.