Send this article to a friend:

October
09
2021

The Old Devils Letter to the Young, 1942
C.S. Lewis

''One young devil asked the old man: "How did you manage to bring so
many souls to hell?" The old devil answered: "I instilled fear in them!"

Answers the youngster: "Great job! And what were they afraid of? Wars? Hunger?"

Answers the man: "No, they were afraid of the disease!"

For this youngster: "Does this mean they didn't get sick? Are they not dead? There was no rescue for them?"

The old man answered: "but no . . . they got sick, died, and the rescue was there."

The young devil, surprised, answered: "Then I don't understand???"

The old man answered: "You know they believed the only thing they have to keep at any cost is their lives.

They stopped hugging, greeting each other. They've moved away from each other. They gave up all social contacts and everything that was human! Later they ran out of money, lost their jobs, but that was their choice because they were afraid for their lives, that's why they quit their jobs without even having bread. They believed blindly everything they heard and read in the papers.

They gave up their freedoms, they didn't leave their own homes literally anywhere. They stopped visiting family and friends. The world turned into such a concentration camp, without forcing them into captivity.

They accepted everything!!! Just to live at least one more miserable day . . . And so living, they died every day!!! And that's how it was very easy for me to take their miserable souls to hell..... ''

 

Extinction is the rule. Survival is the exception.
- Carl Sagan

 

Clive Staples Lewis (29 November 1898 – 22 November 1963) was born in Belfast, Ireland. When he was 10 years old his mother died, and Lewis began identifying himself as an atheist who was “angry at God for not existing.” He entered Oxford University in 1917, just before the beginning of WWI, and served in the British Army before being wounded with shrapnel in the trenches.      Lewis was invited to teach at Oxford and joined a literary writers group known as The Inklings. Through conversations with group members, he found himself re-embracing the teachings of Scripture. He became a Christian apologist who emphasized reason, logic, and sound philosophy in his numerous writings. When WWII broke out, Lewis delivered a series of radio broadcasts on the foundations of the Christian faith. They were collected into a book, Mere Christianity, which has become a fundamental evangelical text. Lewis was also the author of the renowned children’s Chronicles of Narnia series. 

In 1956 he married Joy Gresham, an American English teacher who was the delight of his life, but who died four years later from cancer. Lewis taught literature at Cambridge University from the mid 1950s until 1963, when he began having heart trouble. He died at home later that year

 

 

alt.survival.narkive.com