By sorrow and love earth shows us the material, to speak in human language, out of which Purgatory is made. The pangs of remorse deaden the most intense bodily pain, and the power of love does more than render hard things sweet. _Many waters cannot quench charity, neither can the floods drown it_, says the voice of love in the Canticles. Whether human or divine, it is as a burning fire, which consumes all minor cares. I will not deal with passion, but with love in its noblest form and expression; the love, for instance, of a mother, or of a wife, or of an affianced bride. Earth has nothing better in the natural order than disinterested affection, a foreshadowing of Purgatory as much as the torture of remorse. Sin will not be there, neither will money-making; love will be the coin of the realm. _Non subtrahuntur deliciæ sed mutantur_. As the action of purification is perfected, each human intelligence in Purgatory will be more and more fixed on God. The soul disengaged from the senses will learn all the more promptly the lesson of Purgatory, if it has not been learnt here, the perfect love of God. There is joy in suffering under these conditions, a joy which makes pain acceptable. A _promessa sposa_ will be patient with sudden illness, and racking pain, if they promise to be temporary. She can afford to be so as long as her heart is fixed on the wedding day. The _sposo_, indeed, may weary of a sick affianced bride, and court another. This can happen in human things, but never in Purgatory. The souls there are fixed on the Unchangeable One, who can never prove them false; so be the suffering what it may, they can afford to bide his time, secure that the reward of their heart's long watching will never pass away. Their wedding day is far removed from the vicissitudes of earth, and the fever-tossed brides may suffer in perfect peace. On earth it is more difficult to unlearn than to learn afresh, and it must be feared that to the great majority Purgatory is an unlearning. The idols, the false standards of the world must be swept away. In the first instant of eternity the soul has an intuitive perception of her errors. It may be likened to arrival in a foreign land, of which the language has been badly learnt at home. English-French will serve as a comparison. It is very soon proved to be no French at all. The foreigner immediately says: "I am all wrong. I must begin again." He had much better have learnt no French--at least his professor will think so--for he has to unlearn more than he learns, his expressions, his quantities, his pronunciation. Fully aware as he now is of his shortcomings, the work of imparting real knowledge will take time. We say that knowledge is power. In Purgatory it is love; and who can call the process of arriving at it all painful, even if accompanied by torments? It is the burst of eternal day, coming gradually to those who ascend the steep mountain-side of Purgatory.