be enough to make your heart break asunder with sorrow and sympathy. And in addition to the mental pain and grief, the damned increase vastly one another’s exterior and bodily sufferings. In the first place, because they lie pressed closely one upon another. Secondly, because they all emit so offensive and insupportable a stench. Thirdly, because they howl so piteously, and make Hell re-echo with their woeful lamentations.
Of this Christ speaks when He says: "There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." He repeats these words more than once, to give them greater force, and to impress upon our minds the magnitude of the torture endured by the lost.
The devils, too, will unite their howls to the shrieks of the damned, and raise such a clamour that Hell itself shall tremble.
The torment of the damned will be further aggravated by the frightful appearance of their bodies and the horror wherewith they inspire one another. For St. Anselm says: "Just as no stench can be compared to the stench of the damned, so nothing in this world can give an idea of their hideous appearance."
Thus as often as one lost soul looks at another, so often will he shudder with disgust and loathing and abhorrence. Were there no other torture but this in Hell, it would suffice to render its inmates most miserable.
