Strife for the Crown

"All Abooaaaaarrrrdd!!" What's your destination young man? God’s love and blissful salvation, or the horrors of eternal damnation?" This entertainingly detailed view that compares the paths to heaven (or hell) to the stops on a railroad captures the ever-inventive approach to popularizing religion that flourished in the nineteenth-century United States. The road to heaven is appropriately straight and narrow, as long as one makes sure to pause at the appropriate stations, including Early Piety, Faith, Hope, Charity, and Godliness. The paths to hell are more varied. You can go straight there, down the Satanic Railroad's fun-house-like Tunnel of Death, but there are also all manner of interesting stops to pause along the more winding routes, including boxing matches, Rum Alley, and Tattle Town.