The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-11-16

to the universe. In this problem as fac tors are the questions of free will and responsibility and the nature of sin and it's punishment. The problem is old It was the problem of the Greek tragedies of Aesehylus, Sophocles and Euripides. ! Freedom and necessity are the two ele- | ments of life. In Greek tragedy man was a mere plaything of fate. Man was led to destruction in spite of his will by the blind forces that warred against him from without. The tragedies of modern i literature are based upon this supposed { antagonism of freedom and necessity. The Oedipus Tyrannus of Sophocles is an ex- ample of the classic conception In Shakespeare, man but half controls his life Hamlet. Macbeth and Othello enter their own hell through no will of their own. Today we have the antagonsm of ! heredity and environment. Had Dante taken these clements as his theme he would have written, not a comedy, but the worlds darkest tragedy. There is no | fatalism in Dante, but the highest op- timism prevails. He reverses the order of literature; he begins in tragedy and de- scribes the souls progress to supreme happiness. He emphasizes man. he is no worm of the dust, but endowed with regal will; climbing and battling with princi- palities and powers he may through this ! sovereign will become a complete victor in the battle of life. Man is master of his | fate.
 1 His doctrine of sin is that of the schol- astic philosophy The inferno, purga- torio and paradise present a threefold view of human deeds. In the first we have the evil deed taken with it's whole com 1 pass of effects and consequences. Sin cannot be separated from the results which flow from it. In the second the ! evil deed is seen in it's secondary effects reacting on the doer, who seeing the nature and consequences of his deed re- nonnces it ana practices the opposite vir- tue. Tn the third the purified will com nlits only those deeds that harmonize with ,ne divine purpose, hence their return to bless him continually.
 Human deeds affect society and society 1 reacts upon the individual. Human so- 1 ciety and institutions are part of the universe, hence a revelation and repre- sentation of God The relation of the in- dividual to society is that of finite to in l finite. By cooperating with society for 1 It's moral advancement the individual shares in it's benefits. The return to him is infinite. This is the medieval conception of Christian grace. If the deed is evil, society reacts in an infinite capacity. This is divine justice "Inasmuch as ye have done 1t unto one of the least of these, ye 1 have done it unto Me"
 The human will in acting acts upon the doer Sin and it's consequences are in- separably bound together, so that the sinner in shining determines his own fate.
 The lessons of the divine comedy are clear. Sin is vile and contemptible; Satan is hideous and repulsive. Miltons Lucifer is majestic and excites degree of admir- ation as he defies the omnipotent There is no such alluring picture in Dante. Sin is a perversion of the will but not an initiation Suffering brings purification l only when the soul is turned toward God. When paradise, the goal of all endeavor, is reached, the will is perfected and pur- flied. and life is a spontaneous reception of light, truth and love.
 Purgatory as a state of the soul comes nearer our actual life than the other two. The problem of purgatory is found in modern fiction. Eliot's Middlemarch and Hawthorne's Marble Faun are in- stances of the soul struggling through the consciousness of sin into the light o1 truth. The soul under the guidance oi human reason, the servant of God, may rise through sin and suffering to the terrestrial paradise, but we must follow l of fai di1rina love if