Ho!.
wever, he is finally persuaded that Hell is the only merciful solution for the lost souls. Passing by many sad spectacles of people from Hell, Lewis begins to understand, with the help of MacDonald, that these people must throw away everything and commit their lives to Christ. Whether a warning to or a reflection on society, the book stimulates thought and forces the reader to look inward at his or her own weaknesses. Once Christians find out their own weaknesses, we will be able to minister to those who have similar weaknesses. The reader is not merely reading about fictional events occurring with made up characters in some unrealistic world, but he or she is living out a story whose outcome will be determined by the individual. Even now, Lewis has us believing that we are suspended between Heaven and Hell and being pulled in both directions. By the end of the book we cannot help but wonder after an excruciating self-analysis where our bus is headed and where it will eventually end up. Will we ever find out we have employed the assistance of the divine tour guide to determine our fates or that we have insisted on holding the wheel alone only to become lost in a vast forbidding land of eternal twilight? It's interesting that he considers it possible to be saved even after death. My impression was that purgatory was only for those who were already saved. I wasn't convinced that most people are so wedded to their sins that they would cling to them even with heaven in front of them as a real and tangible thing. He didn't make the difficulty of such a choice plausible. Lewis" strengths in this book are his use of illustrative fiction to put his point across. He catches the imagination and addresses many different kinds of people's life styles. We can all think of people we know just like these phantoms. The same opinions in their lives are made a reality. They are self-righteous people who deny the grace of God.
