... Now, does not your hair stand on end? does not your heart
tremble, when you hear that the poor souls in Purgatory are tormented
with the same, or the like flames to those of the damned? Can you
refrain from crying out, with the Prophet Isaias: "Who can dwell with
such devouring fire, and unquenchable burnings?" Heavens! what a
lamentable case is this! Those miserable souls, who of late, when they
were wedded to their bodies, were so nice and dainty, forsooth, that
they durst scarce venture to enjoy the comfortable heat of a fire, but
under the protection of their screens and their fans, for fear of
spoiling their complexions, and if, by chance, a spark had been so rude
as to light upon them, or a little smoke, it was not to be endured:...
--Alas! how will it fare with them, when they shall see themselves tied
to unmerciful firebrands, or imbodied, as it were, with flames of fire,
surrounded with frightful darkness, broiled and consumed without
intermission, and perhaps condemned to the same fire with which the
devils are unspeakably tormented? (Pages 4-7.)
* * * * *
Good God! how the great Saints and Doctors astonish me when they treat
of this fire, and of the pain of sense, as they call it! For they
peremptorily pronounce that the fire that purges those souls, those
both happy and unhappy souls, surpasses all the torments that are to be
found in this miserable life of man, or are possible to be invented,
for so far they go.
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