Readers' Poems

"Father of Mercies, why from silent earth,
Didst Thou awake, and curse me into birth?
Tear me from quiet, ravish me from night,
And make a thankless present of thy light;
Push into being a reverse of Thee,
And animate a clod with misery?"
Just managed to find this on the net.  Old poem by Edward Young in a book I read at school
in 1915.  Think it sums up how most of us feel down here. - Perishing Pete.

"There is a place, as much beneath imagination as heaven is above it; a place of murky
darkness, where only lurid flames make darkness visible; a place where beds of flame are
the fearful couches upon which spirits groan; a place where God Almighty from his mouth
pours a stream of brimstone, kindling that “pile of fire and of much wood,” which God has
prepared of old as a Tophet for the lost and ruined. There is a spot, whose only sights and
scenes are fearful woe; there is a place . . . where the only music is the mournful symphony
of damned spirits; where howling, groaning, moaning, wailing and gnashing of teeth, make up
the horrid concert. There is a place where demons fly, swift as air, with whips of knotted
burning wire, torturing poor souls; where tongues, on fire with agony, burn the roofs of mouths
that shriek for drops of water—that water all denied. There is a place where soul and body
endure as much of infinite wrath as the finite can bear; where the inflictions of justice crush the
soul, where the continual flagellations of vengeance beat the flesh; where the perpetual
pourings out of the vials of eternal wrath scald the spirit, and where the cuttings of the sword
strike deep into the inner man."
Oh well Spurgeon, you were right and I was wrong.  Shouldn't have made fun of you.
I witnessed one of the greatest revivals in history and told you to sod off.
I wish Hell was so easy.  The worst things that could ever happen to me are being scalded,
whipped with a burning wire, cut with a sword and feeling thirsty?  That would be nice.
The only music is the mournful symphony of damned spirits?  You haven't met any of the
rock bands down here. They make ISIS look like Mother Theresa - Melting Methodist.

Apologies to Noel Stanton.  I lived in a little village called Bugbrooke in 1972.  You were
right.  I don't know if I committed the unforgivable sin against the Holy Spirit but I resisted
Him a lot, lost my faith in Jesus, ended up in a mental hospital where I spent a long time.
People in Hell may wish they were dead but being in a mental hospital where most people
were strongly of that persuasion was much kinder.  There are no tranquillisers in Hell.
I used to wear a gas mask when I was watching television and I am wearing one now.
I agree with your Arminian position on theology that a true Christian can lose their salvation.
I have rewritten a song your church used to sing:
"How I wish it was a fire, scream in pain, the flames scorch higher.
There's no words that can quite tell what it's really like in Hell and
This is Hell, this is Hell, your soul has died but it's alive in Hell.
Remember your worst bad dream that made you wake up and scream,
Here that dream would be so kind, it would calm your troubled mind for
This is Hell, this is Hell, your soul has died but you're alive in Hell." - Bishop Burns.

Haven't been dead very long.  Died a few years ago.  I don't know how many.  What's the
time?  At the fourth stroke it will be two minutes after forever.  I have rewritten a hymn
which I heard when standing outside a Christian event my children had gone to because I
was a church minister and didn't need to be born again.
"Into the fire you fall, no one can help you at all,
There's no hope for you, no hope you.
Made for the devil not men, there's nothing pleasant again,
There's no hope for you, no hope for you.
Our death is conscious, our death is longer, our death will hurt for a billion years and
Our death is painful, our death is stronger, Oh Hell, Oh Hell.
And if Hell's fire is for us then who could ever stop it?  
And if Hell's fire is for us then what could stand against?" - Reverend Turner.

I died in 1979.  Whatever time it is now.  The internet's been invented.  At least a few
decades must have gone by.  Cassette recorders are no more.  I bought a cassette by
After The Fire and returned it to the band with a shocked letter saying I didn't realise it was
all about Jesus and what were they doing producing polite songs that can be played on
Radio 1 and all the time disguising the fact they are religious nuts?  I'm a roast nut now.
Here's another song I had on cassette rewritten about Hell.
"I've been in those places in Hell where those faces are bound just to stare at eachother.
Like children we scream and it all becomes like a bad dream but you don't recover.
Run from Hell, run as fast as I can, oh, nowhere man, can't run from Hell.
Run from Hell, run as fast as I can, oh, nowhere man, can't run from Hell." - Bob Blasphemer.

I died in the 1960s.  I had a Dansette record player on the floor and a telephone at the end of
the street that you put an old penny in and said hello to the operator.  Still trying to get used
to this new fangled typewriter with a television on the top.  I rewrote a song I used to play on
my Dansette record player.
"I thought Hell was only true in fairy tales, I thought that when men died they ceased to be,
Returning to the nothing, or that's the way it seemed, no torments to make anybody scream.
Then I saw this place, now I'm a believer, not a trace of doubt in my mind.
I'm in Hell, ooh, I'm a believer, I couldn't leave here if I tried." - Paul Pittman.