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[The following entry from Malcolm Muggeridge’s diary is dated January 4, 1937.]

We talked about the fear of Hell, and Hugh Kingsmill read out a remarkable essay by a Roman Catholic in the late nineteenth century arguing that Hell had been made fearful to differentiate it from Heaven, but that as compared with life on earth it was velvet. The reconciliation of the idea of a loving God with the idea of eternal torment was one of the most remarkable feats the human mind had ever performed. Hell up to Calvin was mitigated by purgatory and indulgences. After Calvin, it really was presented as the only alternative to salvation, and began to haunt human beings, for instance Bunyan, who was almost driven mad by the fear of Hell buzzing in his ears. Becoming unhappy was a symptom of virtue. Since virtue was unhappy there had to be terrific compensation for those who practised it. The unhappily virtuous would only be satisfied by a guarantee that the happily sinful were really [in] for it.

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