The Old Testament conceives the sanctions of the moral law enunciated by God in a thoroughly realistic manner. Fulfil the commandment "that thy days may be long in the land." If you disobey, the curse of the Lord will be on you and you will be pursued by His anger unto the fourth generation. Christianity considered it dubious to make this life the scene of reward and punishment. It is imprudent to let divine justice rule here below, so to say, in public, before an audience and representatives of the Press who attentively follow the proceedings, watch all its details, and can judge whether the verdict is put into execution. Prudence demands that the trial should take place in the next world, where it is protected from annoying curiosity. Mocking onlookers cannot then observe that it is only in the dramas of noble-minded poets that in the last act vice is inevitably punished and virtue rewarded, while in real life only too often merit starves, suffers humiliation and poverty and altogether leads a miserable existence, while sin flourishes in an objectionable manner and to the very end revels in all the good things of this earth. However, the religious moralists painted such a vivid and arresting picture of what awaits the sinners in the next world, that if men had not been obdurate in their disbelief they must have shudderingly realized it, as if it actually happened in this world. Words from the pulpit admonishing men to obey God's law under penalty of most terrible punishment were greatly emphasized by the paintings and sculpture over the altars and the church doors, where all the tortures of hell were depicted by great artists who put all their imagination and all their genius into the work.