"THE LEGEND OF HELL" [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
SIR,—In the very interesting review of Dr. Percy Dearmer's book, The Legend of Hell, the remark is made that " few, if any, men and women under forty in England can haveheard Hell-fire preached." Is not this a too optimistic statement ?
There are great numbers of people of 'fundamentalist views who entertain no doubt whatever about the reality of "Hell- fire."
Moreover, the Roman Catholic Churches teach it all over the world as a binding article of faith. The English Roman Catholic.Catechism says (question 125) : " Where will they go who die in mortal sin?-They who die in mortal sin will go to hell for all eternity." The Catholic Encyclopmdia (vi., 211) says of the punishments of hell : " The poena sensus, or pain of sense, Consists in the torment of fire so frequently men- tioned in Holy Writ. According to the greater number of theologians the term fire denotes a material fire; and so a real fire. We hold to this teaching as absolute4i true and correct."
The discipline of the Confessional depends entirely on belief in hell, for there is no Obligation to confess any but "mortal " sins, and that obligation is because, according to RoMan teaching, they deprive the soul of all grace and, therefore, involve the punishment of hell. Anyone who has attended a Lenten Mission in a Roman Catholic Church will know boiv really and emphatically the doctrine of hell is preached.—
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