Man's Descent To Hell

Today, Holy Saturday, is the day our Lord descended into Hell, a place of death, a place without love, without hope, without God.
A hundred years ago G.K.Chesterton wrote his little book, 'The Evil Of Eugenics'. In many passages he wrote of a situation that we can recognise all too clearly these days. We are not as original nor so modern as we might think.

'He must have a relation to Government like his relation to God. That is, the more he goes into the inner chambers, and the more he closes the doors, the more he is alone with the law. The social machinery which makes such a State uniform and submissive, will be worked outwards from the household as from a handle, or a single mechanical knob or button. In a horrible sense, loaded with fear and shame and every detail of dishonour, it will be true to say that charity begins at home .
Charity will begin at home in the sense that all home children will be like charity children. Philanthropy will begin at home , for all householders will be like paupers. Police administration will begin at home, for all citizens will be like convicts. And when the health and humours of daily life have passed into the domain of this social discipline , when it is admitted that the community must primarily control the primary habits, when all law begins, so to speak, next to the skin or nearest the vitals - then indeed it will appear absurd that marriage and maternity should not be similarly ordered. Then indeed it will seem to be illogical, that love should be free when life has lost its freedom.
So passed, to all appearances, from the minds of men, the strange dream and fantasy called freedom.'