Falls of eternal Despair(Harmon 44) is a late 19th Century Lithograph depicting the Land of Sin and the river of Death and its tributaries modeled after the Ten Commandments. After the Land is the plains of regeneration. Now separating these two areas is the impenetrable hedge of sin. The only way through this hedge is the gate of repentance and faith. This is theologically relevant as in most traditional Christian teaching is that the only way to overcome sin is through repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. However there is another element I want to take a closer look at. That would be the physical placement of Heaven and Hell in the map. Hell on the bottom and Heaven on top; the parts I want to talk about are everything in between.
I would like to start with a detailed description of the picture of the map. This of course is divided into three main sections or at least I’m dividing them into three sections. The first section is the one where the map focuses on the section where you are living separated from God living in sin. The second section would be the Regeneration planes where you’re not quite in either. while the third section aptly named the Holiness Heights and Heaven once you perish would be living with God according to God. Something to keep in mind is that in Christian tradition in heaven you have eternal life while when you go to Hell that does not happen death is more permanent; which is why in the map death is only going down to Hell. Now looking at the map geographically hell is at the bottom and Heaven is at the top. Now this is quite clear and apparent when you consider how most people think about it: heaven is above the Earth. We call the skies the heavens for a reason. and we often think of hell below us on the Earth so it is at the bottom and in the Holiness Heights there is a mountain. and in that mountain and on the plateau next to it is the Holiness Heights The Heights is you are closer to God in heaven The Plains of regeneration are flat. and then you have the land of sin. Now in the land of sin you have the river of death which is leading towards flowing towards the Falls of Eternal despair title of the map and over the falls is hell, death. an important thing to realize is that in the land of sin there are many tributaries all flowing into the river flowing down showing the more sin we engage in the farther and farther we flow down we are caught in the river Speeding faster and faster towards the falls and something we notice is that there are lighthouses in the land of sin lighthouses named on the map salvation lighthouses. These are points to help you realize the shore and to get out of the river of death.
The tributaries are divided into nine different rivers each with their own pitfalls. We will work down the Ten Commandments starting with “I AM THE LORD THY GOD: THOU SHALT NOT HAVE STRANGE GODS BEFORE ME” which is which only worshiping God; the swamps in the Land have labels such as love of self and love of things which is a spiral to not having God as the front most object of your love. The next commandment is ‘THOU SHALL NOT TAKE THE NAME OF THE LORD THY GOD IN VAIN.” Which is the river of profanity It has such things as irreverence for the Lord as one of the most common things for this would be improper use of the lord’s name something which we find a lot more heavily in Jewish culture actually then we find in Christianity. The third commandment is “KEEP THE SABBATH HOLY.” The following River is quite easy to find the similarity as the river is the river of Sabbath breaking. this river is characterized by love of pleasure and Indulgence included in this River would be unnecessary servile work on the Sabbath. The fourth Commandment is “HONOUR THY FATHER AND THY MOTHER” Which correlates to the river of Disobedience to parents In which we find Wicked thoughts and bad early training which will contribute to you not being respectful towards your parents. The fifth commandment is a simple one THOU SHALT NOT KILL. Now this is a pretty easy correlation as there’s just a river of murder but the river oh so includes such swamps as neglect showing that even in Direct murder is still counted. The sixth commandment is another pretty self-explanatory one “THOU SHALT NOT COMMIT ADULTERY.” Now with the river of the same name this one is quite interesting as it has a lot of swamps in it things like divorce and brothels are quite self-explanatory along with private dancing In The End what these swamps are doing is there trying to lead you down impure actions away from your wife. The 7th commandment “THOU SHALT NOT STEAL” Once again has a river of the same principle Act and some of the swamps within that River are cards and gambling as you can easily set it up so you’re stealing from people another one there is tobacco as that habit can get expensive and it can drive you into stealing and then of course just stealing things would be there. The eighth commandment is “ THOU SHALT NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS AGAINST THY NEIGHBOR” The language in this might be a bit confusing but false witness is basically just lying to people In the swamps in the river of lying are such items as greed cheating and debt lying to get out to get into those things. Now the 9th and 10 commandments are a special case as the revolve around one concept and that is the wanting or coveting of either people’s Goods or other people’s wives so here are the two Commandments THOU SHALT NOT COVET THY NEIGHBOR’S WIFE. & THOU SHALT NOT COVET THY NEIGHBOR’S GOODS. Coveting your neighbor’s wife kind of goes along with adultery as those two go hand in hand but Goods is a separate River, the river of covetousness which details greed and pride and Love of Money.
Moreover in conclusion we find that this is highly telling of a deeply religious map maker who would have valued the map to Salvation above most other things and that’s what we see here In this map. moreover we see the symbolism throughout this map etched into it with my principal thing that the directions Heaven at the top and Hell on the bottom as you’re climbing a mountain to heaven. Even more so, we find that this is a map , not in the sense that it is a map of countries or of a place ,but it is a map to get somewhere. we find that this is a map to heaven. This is a map of what Satan tries to draw Us in with and tries to sway and pull us away. As the saying goes misery loves company and he tries to get as much of us with him.
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