Who is the ruler of hell?

You have long ceased to doubt I hope that hell offers anything but horror.

But there are moments at rare intervals only when all the thousand horrors within us seem congealed into one frightful sensation of stupor. 

Do not imagine it is a painless moment—feeling is swallowed up in indescribable anguish, a peculiar horror, not known at other times. 

And then—it is always sudden—hell stands aghast, trembling with dread.

All pursuit ceases—every soul is left to itself, shuddering.

Something is upon us—a spirit-deadening influence.

It is not seen, but we are—each and all aware of it with indescribable terror.

We know what it is—we stand tongue-tied and trembling. 

Satan has come to survey the souls in hell. 

Final power is not yet given him—for they are not yet judged.

But he has learned to wait—satisfied meanwhile that they are added to daily.

They are his, he knows, though the time of carrying them off is delayed.

He knows the doom is coming when the wicked, forever separated from the good, are assigned their place on the left of the Son of man, and that they will be his then forever and forever.

Letters from Hell