(Jon 19:20.)
I AWOKE in hell. Of course I knew millions had done so before. It was no new thing, but it was new to me―that was the point, and I felt miserable, wretched. “Is this hell?” I said, so unlike what I had expected, the one place I had all my life vowed I would never come to; I am sure I intended hard enough not to come. “And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments.” I had heard the words scores of times, now they were quite changed and altered, for then they referred to another, now to myself. “Fool that I had been,” that, I think, was the keenest point of the situation.
“What was it like?”
Utterly different to what I had expected―I soon saw that. Before, it had sounded most unreal, now it was the very opposite. I had always been fond of exploring strange places―I had no wish to explore this. I dreaded even to move, for I felt certain the more I saw, the worse it would prove to be. And the company, that was the worst of all, if hell has a worst.
Suddenly I heard my name mentioned, though I could not recognize the voice. It appeared a list was published in hell, daily, of the people arriving in a day or so, and my name was down, and they were soon expecting me. I had come a day too soon.
Next moment I awoke on earth. Was it earth? I trembled with an eagerness of excitement I had never felt before. I was covered with a clammy sweat. Where was I? On earth or in hell? What tremendous issues depended on the answer! The agony of that moment was more, I believe, than ever man suffered before.
It was quite dark, and I dared not move. Hell seemed the more real, but I was on earth. I lay fearing to close my eyes. I dressed as one dazed. My servants were afraid of me, but were too well-behaved to ask what had happened. What had happened? I looked ten years older at least, and was quite white.
I had ordered my trap to drive to Ascot. It was the Cup day— there it was at the door. I felt somehow unable to think. I got in as a machine more than a man. How we got there, and why I went, I could not say, my whole time was spent on thinking where I had been. I got cold and hot in turn, sometimes I shuddered so that I shook the trap. I was awakened in a kind of a way (I never seemed really to awake) by running into a drag. I don’t quite know what happened, it occurred so quickly; it was my fault, I suppose; some wrangling took place.
I heard as a man in a dream, till I was suddenly brought up by a shout from the drag― “Go to hell!” I had heard the phrase thousands of times at Eton, at mess, at the club—ay, used it too; but now it was like a new language that I had got the key to.
I shuddered. My knees would have knocked together had I been standing. My groom asked me if I was ill, and took the reins. He proposed to return; I said “No.” The fact was I dare not be alone.
We arrived soon afterward. I tried to walk to the stand, but I could barely do so: hardly anyone had yet come. The first man I knew, who saw me, was a brother officer. He had not seen me for years―not since I left the regiment. After shaking me by the hand heartily enough, he said, “Where the hell have you been all these years?”
I heard no more; I knew I had fallen and was being taken home. I heard, as I was carried along, oaths and curses on all sides. I had heard them at race-meetings all my life; now I started each time I heard the name―that name―mentioned. It was jest to them; it was grim earnest to me.
I arrived home. The doctor said I must have had a shock―he never said a truer word in his life―and that I must be kept perfectly quiet; but he did not say how. I would have paid him the biggest fee he had ever had in his life if he could have answered that. Keep me quiet! You might as well have talked of keeping the sea quiet.
How did I know I might not fall asleep and wake up where I had been the night before; I was not expected then; I was expected now―yes, and forever.
The paper on the wall was a kind of diagonal pattern with spots on it. I began counting them—I could not help it. Suppose I allowed one hundred years in torment to each spot, how many years would it make? I got confused and began over and over again. Would life there never end? I think I fainted. When I came to, Jack, my brother, was there, sitting by my bedside; they had sent for him.
I asked him to read to me about Lazarus and the man. I meant the dead man, but I could not bear to name the word, and half closed my eyes. Jack went out and did not come back for some time. It appeared in my house, which I had bought two years back for £60,000, “furnished with every modern requisite,” as the advertisements say, there was no Bible. Strange, for every soldier carries one in his kit. So they sent for one. Then Jack had to go out a second time―he could not find the place. Nearly an hour had passed since I first asked him to read. At last he was beginning, “Now a certain man was sick, named Lazarus.” That was wrong; I meant the beggar Lazarus. However, Jack read on slowly, though I did not listen. This story had no concern for me; but I knew Jack could not find the other one.
Lazarus was sick, was he? So was I. “Lazarus is dead.” Should I be in another hour or so?
Then I heard no more till the words, “Lazarus, come forth, and Lazarus came forth.” Had I really been in hell? ―where had this man been? Strange, too, Jack should read about him. Jack stopped: I said, “Go on.” I heard little till he read, “Many people were there to see Lazarus also, whom he had raised from the dead.” Would people come to see me? Hark! “They consulted that they might put Lazarus also to death.” How I pitied him, Would Jack like to see me die to step into my shoes?
“Jack! I have had a shock.”
“Yes, old man, what was it?”
“I was in hell last night.” He started.
“I was, but only for an hour; now, you see, Jack, I may be there forever this night.” I saw a tear in Jack’s eye, dear old Jack; he tried to speak but couldn’t, and so we remained silent. Then I asked him to read it all again. Jack read it more slowly even than before. This time I drank in every word.
“Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise again.” Jack’s voice trembled. “Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection and the life; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.” “Stop!” I shouted; “say it again.” Jack went over it three or four times. “Jack, do you believe that? Go on.” Jack went on.
“And whosoever liveth, and believeth in me, shall never die; believest thou this?” Now I always had a good voice. For the life of me I couldn’t help it; I gave such a shout as woke the whole house.
“Jack, believest thou this?” Never patient had such a recovery. I was out of bed at once.
Before they were afraid my mind was affected, now they seemed certain of it, all but Jack, I think, he half saw it; but then, you see, he hadn’t been where I had been the night before.
I read that chapter over at least fifty times, it got clearer and clearer. How I praised God for it. “Should never die,” I cried over the words for joy. No more hell for me, for though “worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.”
My chief concern was Jack, but he saw it too, only he was quieter. “To think, Jack, that I am forty-five and you forty, and we never saw before that Christ died for our sins to save us from hell.”
I was never so happy in my life. I had been going to Norway to fish for salmon. I would fish for men now. God had saved my soul through a chapter of the Bible being read. I would pass my life in future in reading it to others.
ANON.