The mouth of Hell is no place to be.
Children’s books are meant to entertain and educate, usually through positive characters and situations. The Wizard of Oz, Winnie the Pooh, Goodnight Moon, The Cat in the Hat, and so on. And then there’s The Sight of Hell, by Rev. John Furniss.
The 1872 book is part of a series called “Books for Children, and Young Persons.” And like other books for children, this one indeed entertains and educates. Young readers learned all about the horrors of Hell with rather vivid descriptions. Chapter by chapter, Furniss leads kids on a tour of the middle of the Earth, where Hell resides. Rivers flow with the tears of millions of sufferers. It stinks from the scent of millions of dead bodies. Fire is everywhere, but it offers no light, because fire in Hell is black.
Furniss wants to make sure young folks realize just how hellish Hell is so he can scare them straight. Maybe it worked for kids who read it in Sunday School or had parents share it as a macabre bedtime story. After all, who would want to live within “scorching, broiling fire for a hundred millions of years!”
Below are just a few examples from this guidebook to the Underworld:
“Little child, if you go to hell there will be a devil at your side to strike you. He will go on striking you every minute for ever and ever without stopping. The first stroke will make your body as bad as the body of Job, covered from head to foot with sores and ulcers. The second stroke will make your body twice as bad as the body of Job. The third stroke will make your body three times as bad as the body of Job. The fourth stroke will make your body four times as bad as the body of Job. How, then, will your body be after the devil has been striking it every moment for a hundred millions of years without stopping?”
“The Sight of Hell” was not your typical children’s book.
“Now look at that body, lying on the bed of fire. All the body is salted with fire. The fire burns through every bone and every muscle. Every nerve is trembling and quivering with the sharp fire. The fire rages inside the skull, it shoots out through the eyes, it drops out through the ears, it roars in the throat as it roars up a chimney.”
“The bite or the pricking of one insect on the earth sometimes keeps you awake, and torments you for hours. How will you feel in Hell, when millions of them make their dwelling-place in your mouth and ears and eyes, and creep all over you, and sting you with their deadly stings through all eternity?”
After these general features of Hell, Furniss leads the children to several individual dungeons, including one with a wicked 18-year-old girl who dared to skip church and enjoyed showing off her dress, and another of a boy who liked dancing:
“What a terrible dress she has on—her dress is made of fire. On her head, she wears a bonnet of fire. It is pressed down close all over her head; it burns her head; it burns into the skin; it scorches the bone of the skull and makes it smoke. … You do not, perhaps, like a headache. Think what a headache that girl must have. … She disobeyed her father and mother by going to dancing houses and all kinds of bad places, to show off her dress. And now her dress is her punishment.”
“But, listen; there is a sound just like that of a kettle boiling? Is it really a kettle which is boiling? No; then what is it? Hear what it is. The blood is boiling in the scalded veins of that boy. The brain is boiling and bubbling in his head. The marrow is boiling in his bones! … When he was alive, his blood boiled to do very wicked things, and he did them, and it was for that he went to dancing houses, public houses, and theaters. … There is a just and a terrible God. He is terrible to sinners in Hell—but He is just!”
Upon publication, the reviews were mixed. Some were sarcastic, noting that the author of the “charming little book” must be a “dear, nice, excellent, tender teacher of little children.”
Others steered clear of sarcasm, like the reporter who took a more blunt approach and wrote what most were hopefully thinking: “If the Rev. Mr. Furniss believes such stuff as this, he ought to be sent to the lunatic asylum.”
Weird Historian worked with Curious Publications to reprint this fine book. Order your copy today!
