I was surprised recently when two people at a dinner party volunteered the information that they were frightened of dying because they might go to hell. One was Jewish and the other from a Catholic background. They weren’t gangsters or slum landlords, just ordinary literary types with the usual selection of good and bad fortune.
It seems to me that a large proportion of thoughtful people feel confused remorse and anxiety about their actions at some stage of life. It doesn’t need to be provoked by any hellfire sermon. In fact I don’t think I’ve ever heard a hellfire sermon. They can be quite enjoyable in books – Jonathan Edwards the American revivalist (1703-58) paints an unforgettable picture of the sinner poised like a spider on a coal-shovel above the fires of hell. But it seems part of the human condition to carry about a burden of irreconcilable remorse even without the nudges of any preacher.
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