Francois Xavier Schouppe, sj: The dogma of hell, illustrated by facts taken from profane andsacred historyChapter I. DOGMA OF HELLThe dogma of hell is the most terrible truth of our faith. There is a hell. We are sure of it as of the existence ofGod, the existence of the sun. Nothing, in fact, is more clearly revealed than the dogma of hell, and Jesus Christproclaims it as many as 15 times in the gospel. Reason comes to the support of revelation; the existence of ahell is in harmony with the immutable notions of justice engraved in the human heart. Revealed to men fromthe beginning, and conformable to natural reason, this dreadful truth has always been, and is still known, by allnations not plunged by barbarism in complete ignorance.Hell never has been denied by heretics, Jews or Mohammedan. The pagans themselves have retained their be-lief in it, although the errors of paganism may have impaired in their minds the sound notion. It has been reser-ved for modern and contemporaneous atheism, carried to the pitch of delirium, to outdo the impiety of all agesby denying the existence of hell. There are, in our day, men who laugh at, question, or openly deny the realityof hell. They laugh at hell; but the universal belief of nations should not be laughed at; a matter affecting theeverlasting destiny of man is not laughable; there is no fun, when the question is of enduring for eternity the pu-nishment of fire. They question, or even deny the dogma of hell; but on a mater of religious dogma, they cannotdecide without being competent; they cannot call in doubt, still less deny, a belief so solidly established, wit-hout bringing forward irrefutable reasons.Now, are they who deny the dogma of hell competent in matters of religion? Are they not strangers to thatbranch of the sciences, which is called theology? Are they not oftenest ignorant of the very elements of religion,taught in the catechism? Whence, then, proceeds the mania, of grappling with a religious question which i...