LESSONS OF THE PURGATORIO 141 foot; and, as it has refused to look upward to higher good, so it is now made to grovel on the earth. 'My soul cleaveth unto the dust," is the cry of the penitent; and "Blessed are they that do hunger and thirst after righteousness" is the sign of their victory over this their besetting sin. Then comes the circle of the gluttonous, tormented by the tree of Tantalus, a tree that entices by its wealth of fragrant fruits, but that widens upward instead of downward, and evermore withholds the means of gratification from the famished soul. Haggard and emaciated, the gluttonous crowd about it, casting eager eyes upon its precious burden, but only to elicit from its branches urgent admonitions to temperance. In the seventh and last circle lasciviousness is expiated by long lines of penitents who pass through a fierce flame proceeding from the rocky wall beside them. Dante and Virgil both enter into this flame. Only here, and in the third terrace where anger is punished, does Dante himself suffer with the penitents. Of two sins only he seems to himself to need purging. And the penal fire does its work. His soul is purified from its last remaining sín. He is now master of himself, and as a crowned and mitred sovereign, with the lost image of God restored, he enters the terrestrial paradise, the Eden from which man was expelled for his sin. Virgil now can no longer be his guide, and Beatrice comes to take Virgil's place, after Dante has drunk of the waters of Lethe, which extinguish the memory of the past, and of the waters of Eunoë, which bring back the memory of the good. Amid the living verdure and the fragrant flowers, the pleasant zephyrs and the singing birds, we would gladly linger. There are two remarks, however, which I must make with regard to Dante's purgatory, before I leave it. And the first is that, like the hell, Dante does not regard it as a place, so much as it is a process. Doubtless he believed in the place, and sought to give an imaginative picture of it. But much more he believed in the thing the necessity of purification. Without holiness no man can see the Lord"; "put to death the deeds of the flesh"; "cleanse yourselves therefore from all filthiness of the flesh and of the spirit"; these are the essential truths which were in Dante's mind. The Christian doctrine of sanctification is put into verse in Dante's poem, and so far, both Protestant and Romanist may find in it a source of great religious incitement and profit. Indeed the purgatory comes nearer to our common life than either the hell or the paradise. The former is too far beneath us, and the latter is too far above. But every man can recognize resemblance to himself in the penitents of purgatory; that is, if he has even a spark of the hatred of sin and longing for holiness which God's regenerating Spirit has inspired. The tender and humble confessions of the sufferers, their submission to the divine chastisements, their eager appropriation of all helps to their restoration which are bestowed by the word or the Spirit of God, are full of subduing beauty. Nowhere in literature, outside of the Bible, have we so nobly portrayed "the blessedness of him whose transgression is forgiven and whose sin is covered." This first remark about the purgatory has had to do LESSONS OF THE PURGATORIO 143 with that which Roman Catholicism and Protestantism have in common. My second remark has to do with the differences between them. There are two respects in which Protestants must regard Dante's representations as painfully erroneous. On the one hand he errs, as the Roman Catholic Church has erred, in extending the period of purification beyond the confines of death. The literal interpretation is better-purgatory is only on this earth and in this life. "After death" there is, not purification, but "judgment." For multitudes the Romanist doctrine is a doctrine of second probation. Men are content here with being at peace with the church, while they are not yet at peace with God. The real controversy between themselves and their Judge is adjourned to the future world. Purgatory, with all its sufferings, becomes the basis of false hopes; distant suffering is chosen rather than immediate renunciation of sin; a fatal trust is put in what the sinner can do by way of reparation, rather than in what Christ has done by way of atonement. And this leads me to notice another error intimately connected with that which I have just mentioned, and which Protestants must ever most strenuously oppose. I refer now to Dante's error in making the process of purification a penal one. If there is any truth of Scripture more vital and precious than another, it is that of the completeness of Christ's sacrifice. Our sins, and all of them, were "laid on him"; he "has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us"; "there is therefore now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus." God chastises his children; but it is in love, and it is for their good. There is no anger and there is no penalty, since Nothing, either great or small, Remains for me to do; Yes, all the debt I owe. The notion that the sufferings and calamities of the present life are of the nature of punishment is contrary to the whole doctrine of the New Testament, and constitutes "a bridge to the Roman Catholic doctrine of purgatcrial fires." Neither in this world nor in the world to come can any mortal add by penance of his own to the efficacy of that sacrifice of Christ which was offered once for all. Dante was not in advance of his age, nor was he yet possessed of the spirit of the Lutheran Reformation. Justification by faith alone had not yet dawned upon him as God's only way of salvation. The "mass" to him was still a repetition of Christ's death, and the pains of purgatory voluntarily endured by the penitent were still needed to supplement what Christ had done upon the cross. So at last we came to Dante's Paradise, a creation in some respects loftier and more wonderful than either the Hell or the Purgatory, but, for the reason that it is so lofty and wonderful, less attractive than either of these to the ordinary mind. Yet, as I read the poet's sublime meditations upon the greatest truths of religion and philosophy, I am impressed with the selfsufficiency of his genius. Never, even in its highest soaring, does the wing of his imagination seem to flag. Or, if ever earthly pictures seem to fail and earthly words are incapable of expressing the "exceeding and eternal weight of glory," piety and worship furnish what THE NINE SPHERES OF THE PARADISE 145 art cannot supply, and the glowing heart of the poet shows itself most manifestly lost in adoration and in joy. Heaven, we must remember, is to Dante's mind the state of the perfected will; or rather, the state of the will that has been freed at length from earthly and sensual desires. But while perfection in the sense of sinlessness belongs to all the inhabitants of the blessed realm, perfection in the sense of capacity is ever enlarging. All are as full as they can hold of the love and purity of God, yet one can hold more than another. To use the mediaval illustration, "A king may clothe all his children equally with cloth of gold, yet the amount of the cloth apportioned to each may vary according to their size." In heaven too, as well as in the lower realms, each soul goes to his own place. Outward surroundings are simply the fit accompaniments and evidences of character. As the soul laden with sin experiences a downward, so the soul possessed of purity experiences an upward, gravitation; and each one can say with King Richard, in Shakespeare's play: "Mount, mount, my soul-thy seat is up on high!" As we pass upward then from one heavenly sphere to another, we are to remember that we are not among the race of sinners any longer-we are rather among those whose varying native gifts and whose varying degrees of faithfulness in the exercise of these gifts constitute an evervarying receptivity for the life and love of God. Beatrice, the symbol of heavenly wisdom, is now Dante's guide. As he gazes upon her face, the light of the terrestrial paradise is lost in another light. “Suddenly day seemed added unto day, as if Omnipotence had lit up the sky with another sun." The poet is K |