Probably enough, the light which I expect to throw upon this important
subject will, upon a cursory criticism, be judged fanciful, erroneous,
and absurd; in parts, quite open to ridicule, and in all liable to the
objection of being wise, or foolish, beyond what is written.
Nevertheless, and as it seems to me of no small consequence to reach
something more definite on the subject than the Anywhere or Nowhere of
common apprehensions, I judge it not amiss to put out a few thoughts,
fancies, if you will, but not unreasonable fancies, on the localities
and other characteristics of what we call heaven and hell: in fact, I
wish to show their probable realities with somewhat approaching to
distinctness. It is manifest that these places must be somewhere; for,
more especially of the blest estate, whither did Enoch, and Elijah, and
our risen Lord ascend to? what became of these glorified humanities when
"the chariot of fire carried up Elijah by a whirlwind into heaven;" and
when "HE was taken up, and a cloud received him?" Those happy mortals
did not waste away to intangible spiritualities, as they rose above the
world; their bodies were not melted as they broke the bonds of
gravitation, and pierced earth's swathing atmosphere: they went up
somewhither; the question is where they went to. It is a question of
great interest to us; however, among those matters which are rather
curious than consequential; for in our own case, as we know, we that are
redeemed are to be caught up, together with other blessed creatures, "in
the clouds, to meet our coming Saviour in the air, and thereafter to be
ever with the Lord." I wish to show this to be expected as in our case,
and expectable previously to it.
We have, in the book of Job, a peep at some place of congregation: some
one, as it is likely, of the mighty globes in space, set apart as God's
especial temple. Why not? they all are worlds; and the likelihood being
in favour of overbalancing good, rather than of preponderating evil from
considerations that affect God's attributes and the happiness of his
creatures, it is probable that the great majority of these worlds are
unfallen mansions of the blessed. Perhaps each will be a kingdom for one
of earth's redeemed, and if so, there will at last be found fulfilled
that prevailing superstition of our race, that each man has his star:
without insisting upon this, we may reflect that there is no one
universal opinion which has not its foundation in truth. Tradition may
well have dropped the thought from Adam downwards, that the stars may
some day be our thrones. We know their several vastness, and can guess
their glory: verily a mighty meed for miserable services on earth, to
find a just ambition gladdened with the rule of spheres, to which Terra
is a point; while that same ambition is sanctified and legalized by
ruling as vicegerent of Jehovah.
Is this unlikely, or unworthy of our high vocation, our immortality, and
nearness unto, nay communion with God? The idea is only suggested: let a
man muse at midnight, and look up at the heavens hanging over all; let
him see, with Rosse and Herschell, that, multiply power as you will,
unexhausted still and inexhaustible appear the myriads of worlds
unknown. Yea, there is space enow for infinite reward; yea, let every
grain of sand on every shore be gathered, and more innumerable yet
appear that galaxy of spheres. Let us think that night looks down upon
us here, with the million eyes of heaven. And for some focus of them
all, some spot where God himself enthroned receives the homage of all
crowns, and the worship of all creature service, what is there
unreasonable in suggesting for a place some such an one as is instanced
below?
I have just cut the following paragraph out of a newspaper: Is this the
ridiculous tripping up the sublime? I think otherwise: it is honest to
use plain terms. I speak as unto wise men--judge ye what I say. With
respect to the fact of information, it may or it may not be true; but
even if untrue, the idea is substantially the same, and I cannot help
supposing that with angels and archangels and the whole company of
heaven, such bodily saints as Enoch is, (and similar to him all risen,
holy men will be,) meet for happy sabbaths in some glorious orb akin or
superior to the following:
"A CENTRAL SUN.--Dr. Madier, the Professor of Astronomy at Dorpat, has
published the results of the researches pursued by him uninterruptedly
during the last sixty years, upon the movements of the so-called fixed
stars. These more particularly relate to the star Alcyone, (discovered
by him,) the brightest of the seven bright stars of the group of the
Pleiades. This star he states to be the central sun of all the systems
of stars known to us. He gives its distance from the boundaries of our
system at thirty-four million times the distance of the sun from our
earth, a distance which it takes five hundred and thirty-seven years for
light to traverse. Our sun takes one hundred and eighty-two million
years to accomplish its course round this central body, whose mass is
one hundred and seventeen million times larger than the sun."
One hundred and seventeen million times larger than the Sun! itself, for
all its vastness, not more than half one million times bigger than this
earth. To some such globe we may let our fancies float, and anchor there
our yearnings after heaven. It is a glorious thought, such as
imagination loves; and a probable thought, that commends itself to
reason. Behold the great eye of all our guessed creation, the focus of
its brightness, and the fountain of its peace.
A topic far less pleasant, but alike of interest to us poor men, is the
probable home of evil; and here I may be laughed at--laugh, but listen,
and if, listening, some reason meets thine ear, laugh at least no
longer.
We know that, for spirit's misery as for spirit's happiness, there is no
need of place: "no matter where, for I am still the same," said one most
miserable being. More--in the case of mere spirits, there is no need for
any apparatus of torments, or fires, or other fearful things. But, when
spirit is married to matter, the case is altered; needs must a place to
prison the matter, and a corporal punishment to vex it.
Nothing is unlikely here; excepting--will a man urge?--the dread
duration of such hell. This is a parenthesis; but it shall not be
avoided, for the import of that question is deep, and should be answered
clearly. A man, a body and soul inmixt, body risen incorruptible, and
soul rested from its deeds, must exist for ever. I touch not here the
proofs--assume it. Now, if he lives for ever, and deliberately chooses
evil, his will consenting as well as his infirmity, and conscience
seared by persisted disobedience, what course can such a wilful,
rational, responsible being pursue than one perpetually erratic? How
should it not be that he gets worse and worse in morals, and more and
more miserable in fact? and when to this we add, that such wretched
creatures are to herd together, continually flying further away from the
only source of Happiness and Good; and to this, that they have earned by
sin, remorses and regrets, and positive inflictions; how probable seems
a hell, the sinner's doom eternal. The apt mathematical analogy of lines
thrown out of parallel, helps this for illustration: for ever and for
ever they are stretching more remote, and infinity itself cannot rëunite
their travel.
This, then, as a passing word; a sad one. Honest thinker, do not scorn
it, for thine own soul's sake. "Now is the time of grace, now is the day
of salvation." To return. A place of punishment exists; to what quarter
shall we look for its anterior probability? I think there is a
likelihood very near us. There may be one, possibly, beneath us, in the
bowels of this fiery-bursting earth; whither went Korah and his company?
This idea is not without its arguments, just analogies, and scriptural
hints. But my judgment inclines towards another. This trial-world, we
know, is to be purified and restored, and made a new earth: it was even
to be expected that Redemption should do this, and I like not to imagine
it the crust and case of hell, but rather, as thus: At the birth of this
same world, there was struck off from its burning mass at a tangent, a
mournful satellite, to be the home of its immortal evil; the convict
shore for exiled sin and misery; a satellite of strange differences, as
guessed by Virgil in his musings upon Tartarus, where half the orb is,
from natural necessities, blistered up by constant heats, the other half
frozen by perennial cold. A land of caverns, and volcanoes, miles deep,
miles high; with no water, no perceptible air: imagine such a dreadful
world, with neither air nor water! incapable of feeding life like ours,
but competent to be a place where undying wretchedness may struggle for
ever. A melancholy orb, the queen of night, chief nucleus of all the
dark idolatries of earth; the Moon, Isis, Hecate, Ashtaroth, Diana of
the Ephesians!
This expression of a thought by no means improbable, gives an easy
chance to shallow punsters; but ridicule is no weapon against reason.
Why should not the case be so? Why should not Earth's own satellite,
void, as yet, be on the resurrection of all flesh, the raft whereon to
float away Earth's evil? Read of it astronomically; think of it as
connected with idols; regard it as the ruler of earth's night; consider
that the place of a Gehenna must be somewhere; and what is there in my
fancy quite improbable? I do not dogmatize as that the fact is so, but
only suggest a definite place at least as likely as any other hitherto
suggested. Think how that awful, melancholy eye looks down on deeds of
darkness how many midnight crimes, murders, thefts, adulteries, and
witchcrafts, that would have shrunk into nonentity from open, honest
day, have paled the conscious Moon! Add to all this, it is the only
world, besides our own, whereof astronomers can tell us, It is fallen.