The Vision of Dante: A story for little children and a talk to their mothers (Second Edition)

twilight they knew that night was coming on, and in this strange, new country nobody dared travel in the dark. There were too many pitfalls and stumbling blocks to make it safe to travel without the light of the sun. Virgil knew that the wisest and best thing to do in hours of darkness was to keep still and wait for more light. A man whom they had met on the road pointed out a safe little valley where they could stay until the sunlight came once more.

Ah, how I wish you could have seen that valley!

It was called the Valley of the Princes. As they approached it a vision burst upon them of the loveliest spot that could be imagined. If gold and silver and scarlet and green and blue and all the finest colors in the world were put together into a flower garden they would not make anything half so beautiful as was this Valley of the Princes. Not only were the colors so fine, but the perfumes were the sweetest ever breathed. They went quietly and slowly into the valley and sat down. The air about them grew darker and darker as the sun set behind the mountains.

All at once Dante heard some voices singing a gentle hymn. I think it must have been a hymn something like our own little hymn, “Wearily at Daylight’s Close,” for it made Dante think of the Heavenly Father, and look up into the sky, whose only brightness was the stars shining far above his head. As he looked he saw sweep down out of the high heavens two glad angels of God, robed in pale shining green. Each was surrounded with a radiance so bright that it was dazzling; both carried swords of fire. Lightning never came from the sky more swiftly than did these two angels. They separated as they approached the earth; one placed himself upon the mountain on one side of the valley and the other upon the mountain on the other side. Dante wondered what all this meant, but the man who had told them where to find the valley was still with them. He explained that the angels had come to protect all travellers who were staying in the dark valley until light should come again and they could see to go forward.

Just then Dante turned and saw a great ugly snake winding its way silently through the grass. Quick as a flash of lightning one of the angels descended from his high post, and, with a touch of his flaming sword, turned the snake, which fled in dismay. Then Dante knew that the angels had indeed been sent from heaven, and in his heart he felt very glad that all through this dark night he might be sure of their protecting love. He then quietly laid himself down upon the grass and went to sleep. While sleeping he had a strange dream; an eagle of fire seemed to be bearing him up through the air.

He awoke. It was morning; the sun was shining and the birds were singing. Flowers were blooming all around him--and yet it was not the same place in which he had gone to sleep. He saw on looking about him that he was farther up the mountain side. He turned questioningly to Virgil, who soon told him that while he had slept in the Valley of the Princes another angel, named Lucia, had been sent from heaven to bear him in her arms over the rough places where he could not have travelled unaided, and that he now stood at the real entrance of the path up the mountain.

“We must pass through that gate which you see in front of you,” said Virgil, “and before you enter it I must tell you that there will be some very hard climbing for you and sometimes you will grow weary and discouraged, but be assured that it will become less painful as you climb. The hardest part is the first part. It grows easier and easier as you near the top, until, when you reach the Terrestrial Paradise, there will be no longer any climbing at all. There you shall again see your beloved Beatrice and she will reveal to you a VISION of GOD HIMSELF.”

With this they started towards the gate. Now I must tell you about this gate, children, because it was a very peculiar gate, and some of these days you may have to go through it yourselves. As they came near, Dante saw that it had three broad steps leading up to it. The bottom step was like polished marble, and so shining that you could see your face reflected in it. Each traveller who approached it saw just how unclean he was, or how tired, or how cross looking. The next step was a dark purplish black step. It was cracked lengthwise and crosswise, and had a sad look about it as if it were sorry for the reflections which it saw in the bottom step. The third step at the top was red, so red that it reminded Dante of blood. Above this towered the great gateway. Upon the sill of this gate sat another wonderful angel in shining garments which were brighter than the noon. His feet rested upon the top step.

As Dante and Virgil approached, the angel asked them what they wanted. They told him that they wished to go through the gate in order that they might climb the mountain. The angel leaned forward, and with the edge of the sword which he held in his hand he printed on Dante’s forehead seven letters. Dante knew that the seven letters stood for the seven things that were wrong inside of his heart. Then the angel took from his side a silver key and a golden key, and unlocking the gate with each, he let it swing wide open on its hinges, and our two travellers passed through.

They had no sooner entered than they heard a man singing praises to God. As they travelled along the path which wound upward, they saw upon the rocks at their sides wonderfully carved pictures of people who had been good and kind and always thoughtful of others instead of themselves. As Dante looked at them they seemed to him to be the most marvellous pictures he had ever seen. He thought within his heart, “How beautiful!” “How beautiful!” “How I wish I could be like these people!” Then he turned and looked down upon the rocks on which he was treading, he saw there were more carvings upon the stones below; but these were of people who thought of nobody but themselves--haughty people, selfish people, and idle ones.

As Dante gazed upon them, he bowed himself lower and lower, for he thought within himself, “I fear I am more like these people than I am like the others.” He had been a very proud and haughty man in the past, and now he knew how ugly and selfish that haughtiness was. As he ascended the road, he must have prayed to God to make him more like the beautiful and gentle people whose portraits he had seen upon the rocks at his side. He had been walking, bent very low; all at once he straightened himself up; he felt as if some great weight had been lifted off his shoulders. He turned to Virgil, saying, “Master, from what heavy thing have I been lightened?” Virgil glanced up at his forehead. Dante stretched forth the fingers of his hand and slowly felt the letters which the angel had placed upon his forehead. There were but six. There had been seven. Virgil smiled, and the two passed on.

Their ears caught the sounds of voices singing in sweet tones, “Blessed are the poor in spirit!” “Blessed are the poor in spirit!” Then Dante knew that the other souls, too, had prayed to God to take pride and haughtiness and selfishness out of their lives.

They passed along the higher terrace on the mountain side, and here they saw no pictures, but heard strange, sweet voices singing through the air. These voices were singing of the people who had been glad when others were made happy, who had loved and praised the good in those about them, who had rejoiced when some one else besides themselves had been commended. The voices seemed so joyful as they told of these loving hearts, that Dante shut his eyes and listened. Soon he heard other voices tell of the people who had liked to talk of themselves and not of others, who did not care to hear anybody else praised, people whom it made unhappy to know that anybody else was happy. “Ah!” thought he to himself, “I fear, I fear that I have been like these last people of whom the voices tell such sad, unhappy things. How I long with all my heart to be freed from this hateful thing, called Envy!” Then again he prayed to God to help him to rejoice over the happiness of others, to be willing to help others, and to realize that others were helping him; and as he thought these thoughts and prayed this prayer, another burden seemed lifted from off him, and he put his hand to his forehead and found that another of the terrible letters was gone. He had but five remaining on his forehead now, and already the climbing seemed easier.

They came soon to another very difficult passage in the road, and so rough and sharp were the rocks which stood in the pathway that Dante’s heart failed him, and he must have stopped in his onward journey up the mountain had not another loving angel of God come from some unseen point, and, lifting him with strong arms, carried him over the hard place, setting him again upon his feet. I think Dante must have thanked God for thus sending him help in his moment of

discouragement; at any rate, he felt that he had been slothful and not eager enough to reach the top of the mountain.

On and on he travelled, sometimes with voices in the air singing to encourage him, sometimes with warnings coming from unknown quarters. The very trees laden with fruit on the roadside seemed to say, “Take enough of us, but do not eat too much; a glutton cannot see God.”

As they mounted higher and higher the landscape grew broader and broader, and more filled with a strange new sunshine. The huge bowlders and angry-looking rocks below, which had so frightened Dante as he began his journey, seemed now scarcely larger than pebbles and little stones. He smiled to think that he had ever cared for them at all. All weariness was gone, the last of the mysterious letters had vanished from his forehead, and the one longing of Dante’s heart was to meet again his beautiful and beloved Beatrice, and be led by her into the presence of the GREAT GOD OF THE UNIVERSE, who had so wonderfully and so mysteriously sent His angels to help him on the way.

At last they reached the spot called the Terrestrial Paradise, and there, as Virgil had told him, stood his loving Beatrice, who took him by the hand and led him up into Heaven itself, beyond the clouds, beyond the stars, beyond planets and worlds, even to the foot of the THRONE OF GOD!

Of this I cannot tell you. No words of mine could make you see that glorious vision as Dante then beheld it. Your own little hearts must be freed from all wrong thoughts, from all evil motives, from all selfish desires, must be filled with a love of others, and with generous willingness to do for others, and then may come to you, too, some day, this GREAT VISION that came to Dante.

THE VALUE OF THE STUDY OF DANTE TO MOTHERS.

The last two centuries have been largely scientific and analytic. The effort has been to get away from the pictorial and symbolic, to get at the exact facts. Yet, after each new step forward in exact thinking, comes the reaction toward the more poetic forms of thought. The human imagination becomes hungry and demands that it shall have its share of intellectual food as well as the human reason. This is the secret of the power which the world’s great poets have always exercised. They throw essential truth back into its embodied or symbolic form, so that the imagination may see it pictured forth even where the reasoning power is not strong enough to grasp it in its abstract form.