ST. MATTHEW vn. 13, 14 i97
that they so enter. And yet the knowledge may not be very express or clear. From want of reflection, from want of observ- ance of the real character and consequences of things, men may go on from youth to age without being aware that they pass through " gates " at all. They live as they list, or as they can. They take life as it comes, and they are not conscious of points of transition. They see no gates in life, pass through none to their own consciousness. To-day is as yesterday, and to-morrow will be as to-day ! All this is consistent with the spirit of the passage "wide is the gate." One may go through it and hardly know it is there. No one needs to jostle another in passing through. No one needs to ruffle his garments or to lay anything aside or to leave anything behind ; no one needs to part from his companions ; all can enter together, for the gate is wide.
TJ The pangs of pity which Dante's sensitive soul feels for the forlorn and tormented spirits in the Inferno serve to show how intense is his conviction that nothing can set aside the laws of eternal right. Francesca will arouse in him infinite and over- whelming compassion, but Francesca must face the withering tempest which her fault has aroused against her. Mr. J. A. Symonds expressed his wonder that Dante should be so hard and pitiless in his judgment upon the weaklings who hesitated to identify themselves on either side in the great battle of all time. Others may have felt that the harsh contempt expressed by the poet was out of proportion to a fault which might be called weakness, but never vice; but to Dante the cowardice which refused the call of high duty or noble ideal was sin almost beyond forgiveness: it revealed a spirit dead to righteousness through the paralysing influence of self-interest.1
2. The way is broad. — If there is amplitude even at the entrance, or at the critical points of life when the gates are passed, we may well expect that there will be space, and allow- ance, and freedom in the way. All kinds of persons may walk in it. The man of the world may work out his schemes, gather his money, and achieve his position. The pleasure-seeker may eat and drink and dance and sleep and sing. The sensual man who kills his moral life and vilifies the Divine image within him may pass on unchecked. The formalist may count his beads and say his prayers. The Pharisee may draw his garments
1 W. Boyd Carpenter, The Spiritual Message of Dante, 33.
198 CHOOSING A ROAD
away from the sinner's touch. The sceptic may think his doubt- ing thoughts ; and the crowds of persons who never think, who live without a purpose, who do good or evil as the case may be, may all find a place here.
T| There is a wide gate. It opens into a broad way. But the broad way leads to destruction. The idea of an enclosure, a place enclosed within a wall, lies at the basis of the representa- tion. One might have supposed, from the spacious entrance, that the way would conduct to some magnificent home, a palace of beauty and of bliss. But no. It leads to destruction, to some kind of everlasting death. What may this broad way be, with its wide gate ? It is doubtless the way of self-licence, of that self-gratification which is determined to take a wide berth for itself, spurning Divine prohibitions, and laughing at the limits of a strict and narrow morality. It is the way of things that is counter to the way and will of Christ. There were many in Christ's day "entering in through it." There are still many. The multitude still goes that way. He who would be a Christian must still be somewhat singular in his habits and manner of life.1
3. It leads to destruction. — All who journey upon the broad way come at last to its conclusion. And what do they find ? Life ? Happiness ? Peace ? They find destruction. Destruc- tion ! Destruction of our higher sentiments, of the peace of our conscience, of the life of our spirit ! Destruction of our faith, our love, our hope, of our character, of our soul. Destruction ! The pains of the final condemnation of God, of banishment from His presence into the darkness unutterable, into the penal fires of self-reproach and remorse.
By a natural law man leans towards destruction. It may be called the gravitation of a fallen being. Let a man only be at ease in himself, satisfied with what he is, and consent to the usurping customs of the world, drawing in the unwholesome breath of refined evil, and letting his moral inclination run its natural course, without check or stay, and he will most surely tide onward, with an easy and gentle motion, down the broad current to eternal death. Such a man is seldom strongly tempted. The less marked solicitations of the tempter are enough. The suggestion of a great sin might rouse his conscience, and scare him from the toils. We may take this, then, as a most
1 J am os Morison.