aroundworldortra00peebiala-1

CITY OP PROPHETS AND APOSTLES. 335
IN HELL AS PROPHESIED.
Leaving the close-communion Calvinistic craft while my
cheeks were yet crimson, and hair flaxen, the clergyman, in a
rage over my irrepressible infidelity, told me I would "go to
hell." And it was true, — infinitely truer than Ms Sunday
preaching, for I went, yes^ went to hell ; and that, too,
while seeking Jesus, or, rather, his footpaths round about
Jerusalem. After passing for half an hour under a scorching
sun along the brow of Mount Zion, dotted with here and
there an olive-tree, I suddenly found myself in the Valley
of Hinnom, Gehenna^ Hell ; the place referred to in
Mark ix. 45, 46, —
" And, if thy foot offend thee, cut it off : it is better for thee to enter
halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that
never shall be quenched ; where their worm dieth not, and the fire is
not quenched."
This Valley of Hinnom, on the south-east side of Jerusalem,
is nearly one mile and a half in length ; and in ancient
times there was an image here standing dedicated to Moloch,
to which idolatrous Jews offered human sacrifices, even
their own children. After King Josiah had partially purged
the
land of idolatry, this valley became the common receptacle
of rubbish from the city, and of the dead bodies of
notorious criminals, upon which festering filth worms
reveled. And to stifle the stench, and prevent pestilential
diseases, a fire was there kept continually burning ; hence
this place of fire, or hell-fire. The term Gehenna (Hell),
composed of two Hebrew words, (reg, a valley, and Hinnom^
the name of the man who once owned it, was used by Jesus
figuratively to describe a state of deep, conscious misery. I
do not agree with Theodore Parker that " Jesus taught the
eternity of future punishment." The whole drift of his
moral teachings and parables is against such a conclusion.
True, he employed the phrase, " The fire that shall never he