The demons torment the sinners, as well as each other.
There’re some good audio sermons on Hell below, as well as books, they describe it very well. Fr. Furniss’s book describes it best.
St. Teresa writes: "One day when I was praying, it seemed to me that suddenly, in one moment, I found myself in hell. I did not know how I came there. Only I understood that our Lord wanted me to see the place which the devil had prepared for me. I was in hell for a very short time; but if I was to live for many years I could never forget it.
"The entrance into hell seemed to me like a long narrow passage or a low dark oven. The floor was very filthy, and the smell which comes from its was abominable. Great numbers of venomous insects were creeping about it. At the end of this passage there was a wall with a kind of hole or cupboard in it. I found myself all at once squeezed into this place. What I had seen in the narrow passage was most frightful. Yet it might be called even pleasant compared with the torments of the place into which I had been squeezed. These torments were so terrible, that I cannot give any account of the least part of them. I found my soul burning in such a horrible fire, that I could not make anybody understand it. During my illnesses, I have felt the most dreadful pains, which the doctors tell us, can be felt in this world. But all these pains are nothing – nothing like the pains I felt in hell. Then there was the horror I felt when I thought that these pains would never come to an end, but would last for ever. I felt as if I was always at every moment strangled and choked. It seemed as if some one was always tearing my soul in pieces, or rather as if my soul was always tearing itself in pieces. I felt myself always burning, and as if I was being cut, and broken, and crushed in pieces. In this most frightful place there was not the least hope of any relief. It was impossible either to sit or lie down, for there is no room to sit or lie down. The very walls are most frightful, and seem to close on you and strangle you. There was not the least light there, but only the thickest and blackest darkness. Yet somehow or other, I know not how, you see there whatever is dreadful and terrible. God did not allow me to see more of hell at that time. But afterwards he let me see other much more frightful torments for particular sins. I could not understand in what manner these things were seen by me. But I understand that God did me a very great favor in letting me see those terrible torments from which he had saved me. All I have read or heard about hell is as different from the real pains of hell as a picture is different from the thing painted. To be burnt in the fire of this world is a mere nothing, a trifle if compared with being burnt in hell. It is now six years since I saw hell. Yet even now I cannot write about it without feeling my blood frozen with horror. When I think about the pains of hell, all the pains of this world seem to me not worth thinking about. It seems to me that we have no reason to complain about the pains of this life. I look upon its as one of the greatest graces of God to have seen the pains of hell. It takes away all the fears of the pains of this life. It makes us suffer them patiently, and thank God in the hope that he will deliver us from the terrible pains of hell, which will last for ever! Since I had this vision, there are no pains which it does not seem to me easy to bear, remembering what I saw in hell. I often wonder I could before read of the pains of hell, and not be frightened by them, or how I could find pleasure in those things which lead to hell. ’ O my God, be thou for ever blessed.
Prov.xix. Striking hammers are prepared for the bodies of sinners.
If you want to know what sort of stroke the devil can give, hear how he struck Job, chapter ii, "Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord, and struck Job with a grevious ulcer from the sole of his foot to the top of his head. Then Job took a tile and scraped off the corrupt matter, sitting on a dung-hill. Now when Job’s friends heard all the evil that had come upon him, they came to him. For they had made an appointment to come together and visit and comfort him. And when they had lifted up their eyes afar off, they did not know him. And crying, they wept and sprinkled dust on their heads. And they sat down with him on the ground for seven days and seven nights. And no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his grief was very great.
The devil gave Job one stroke, only one stroke. That one stroke was so terrible that it covered all his body with sores and ulcers. That one stroke made Job look so frightful, that his friends did not know him again. That one stroke was so terrible, that for seven days and seven nights his friends did not speak a word, but sat crying, and wondering, and thinking what a terrible stroke the devil can give.
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 ever 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 with 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 million of years without stopping?
- Fr. John Furniss, ‘The Sight of Hell’
