THE PURGATORIO.

What a change from the region of eternal darkness to the sight of the sun and starry firmament, and from the despair of the lost to the hope of the saved! Purgatory is the temporary abode of the penitent who died in the grace of God, and look for that perfect peace which awaits them after completing the process of sanctification. Still it is a place of suffering, and so far of dread. All pious Catholics expect to go there, with mingled fears and hopes, and none considers himself fit for the company of saints in light. Even popes are not exempt; their title "Holiness" applies only to their official character; personally they may be very unholy. Pope Pius IX., by an inscription on his coffin, requested the faithful to pray for his soul (Orate pro me). The suffering church in Purgatory is in constant contact with the militant church on earth by prayers and masses for the dead.

In Purgatory all is human, and appeals to our sympathy: a mingling of weakness and sorrow with virtue and hope, of the tears of repentance with the joys of forgiveness, of prayers and supplications with hymns of praise, of constant effort with the brightening prospect of ultimate purity and deliverance.

Dante's Purgatory is a steep, spherical mountain in the Western Hemisphere, which, according to the original plan of Providence was to have been the abode of the human race. It is the highest mountain in the world. Its summit is crowned with the terrestrial Paradise, out of which Adam was thrust on account of his transgression. It is the direct antipode of Sion, the mountain of salvation, on the inhabited hemisphere, and at the same time the threshold of Heaven. Both mountains rise, in a direct line, above the middle point of Hell. Christ, the second Adam, has again recovered, by his death upon Golgotha, the Paradise which was lost by the sin of the first Adam. But the way now leads through Purgatory, i. e., through the deep knowledge of sin, and the purifying pains of penitence.

At the foot of the mountain of purification Dante meets Cato of Utica, the Stoic friend of liberty, who committed

suicide that he might not survive the Roman Republic. He is described as a solitary old man with a venerable aspect, long gray beard and double lock. He is the guardian of Purgatory, and the only heathen who escaped the eternal prison, except the Emperor Trajan.1 He wonders at the appearance of Virgil, who assures him that he came not of his own accord, but at the behest of Beatrice. By his direction, Virgil must first wash from Dante's face the filth of Hell, and gird him with a smooth rush (the symbol of humility). Then an angel, the direct reverse of the dreadful Charon, who conducted the dead across Acheron, brings them in a light bark to the opposite shore.

Purgatory has, like Hell, a vestibule where all those are required to tarry, who have postponed repentance while upon earth to the last moment. An angel escorts the wanderers over three stairs, which represent the three stages of penitence (contritio, confessio, and satisfactio), through the gate of absolution, and, in order that he may think upon the seven mortal sins, cuts the letter P (peccata) seven times upon his forehead with his sword.2

The mountain itself has seven broad terraces cut into its sides, and on these dwell the penitent. The different penances correspond with the punishments of Hell, in inverted order. In Hell Dante descended from the lesser to the greater transgressions; in Purgatory he leads us from the greater sins and penances upward to those of less enormity. The sins for which penance is done here, are the same which are punished there; but with this difference, that there we have to do with obdurate and impenitent sinners, here with contrite souls. As in Hell, sin and punishment, so in Purgatory, sin and penance, stand in a causal relation toward one another; but the relation here is one of opposition, sin being destroyed, since the will is brought to break and yield, in direct contrariety to what it was before.

The proud, who fill the first and lowest terrace, are compelled to totter under huge weights, in order that they may learn humility. The indolent in the fourth terrace are constantly and rapidly walking. In the fifth, the avaricious and prodigal, their hands and feet tied together, lie with their faces in the dust, weeping and wailing. In the sixth, the gluttons must, like Tantalus, 1 See above, p. 349. 2 Purg., IX., 93 sqq.; 102 sqq.

suffer hunger and thirst, in sight of a tree richly laden with fruits, and of a fresh flowing fountain, until they have learned moderation. In the seventh, the licentious wander about in flames, that their sensual passions may be purged from them by fire.

At the entrance into every circle the angel who conducts them obliterates one of the P's upon the forehead of the poet. In the same measure also his ascent becomes easier at every terrace. In place of the fearful darkness of the Inferno he is here lighted on his way by the three stars of the theological virtues, Faith, Hope, and Love. In place of the heart-rending lamentations of the damned, he hears the Lord's Prayer, the prayers to the saints and the ever sweeter sounding hymns of Salvation, as sung by the souls which are longingly gazing toward Paradise, and step by step approach nearer to its confines. At the beginning of the eleventh Canto we hear a most beautiful paraphrase of the Pater Noster from the mouth of the proud who have to become as little children of the Father in heaven before they can enter the kingdom of heaven (Matt. xviii., 3).1 Whenever a soul has completed its purification a trembling of the whole mountain announces its entrance into heaven.2

Having reached the Terrestrial Paradise on the summit of the mountain, Dante sees in a great vision the Church triumphant, under the image of a triumphal car drawn by a griffin, a fabulous animal, half eagle, half lion, which symbolizes the double nature of Christ, the Head of the Church. The mystery of the incarnation and the cross had been explained to him previously by Beatrice (in Canto VII., 19 sqq.).

Beatrice now descends from Heaven and appears to Dante in the triumphal car. She takes the place of Virgil, who is not permitted to tread the Courts of Heaven. She rebukes Dante in strong language for his sins, and exhorts him to bathe in the 1 "O Padre nostro, che ne'cieli stai,

Non circonscritto, ma per più amore,

Che ai primi effetti di lassù tu hai," etc.

2 Purg., XXI., 58 sqq.

"It trembles here, whenever any soul

Feels itself pure, so that it soars, or moves

To mount aloft, and such a cry attends it." (Luke xv., 10.)