The six "now"s that end the poem are from Charles Spurgeon's sermons given from The New Park Street Chapel (In London) (1855-60). Tophet is a location in Jerusalem in the Valley of Hinnom [Gehenna].
Suicide by pride It’s the intellect that has died When you say “God doesn’t exist” How do you prove a universal negative? What would you have to know To say for sure that God didn’t show No one can prove a universal Positive or negative, it’s rhetorical You would have to know everything But humans have limited reasoning Besides, what needs to be proved is beyond Everyone, and there is no magic wand Many converted atheists have said It’s the height of arrogance to assume God is dead Or that He doesn’t even exist As this conundrum shall persist So says the sapient sentient: Repent Listen to the voice that addresses your conscience “Some of my hearers are now in hell: Now, where no hope can come Now, where no gospel will ever be preached Now, where they bitterly regret their wasted opportunities Now, where memory holds a dreadful reign A constant reminder of their sins refrain Now, where the worm dieth not, or the fire is quenched Where they gnaw their fire tormented tongues in stench Now where God’s fury is manifested in full In Tophet’s hideous fire, below”
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