The principle that every deed is a seed that contains the germ of its own reward or punishment has received full interpretation by the poets and dramatists. In his "Paradise Lost," Milton has made a detailed study of the principles of the spiritual harvests. The poet represents Satan as an angel, fallen indeed, and sadly battered by his fall, yet still an archangel glorious for strength and beauty. Having visited Paradise and accomplished the destruction of Eve's innocence and Adam's happiness, Satan returns home, passing over a bridge of more prodigious length than now arches the gulf between earth and hell. When the prince arrived at Pandemonium, the capital of Lucifer's realm, he found that the leaders of the fallen host had arranged a reception in the great banquet-hall of the palace. In the presence of the applauding throng, the prince told the story of how he had succeeded in opening the earth as a place to which these exiled angels might retreat from the prison in which they had been so long confined, and pointed to the great bridge spanning the abyss 'twixt earth and hell. When the loud cheerings and rejoicings over this fact had ceased, Satan told by what stratagem he had succeeded in inducing man to break friendship with God. It was not by disguising himself as an angel of light. But, affirmed Satan, man cared so little for the laws of God that, although disguised as a serpent, he induced man to sin. "Then awhile Satan stood, expecting their universal shout and high applause To fill his ear, when contrary he hears On all sides from innumerable tongues A dismal universal hiss, the sound Of public scorn. He wondered, but not long Had leisure. Wondering at himself no more, His visage drawn, he felt; too sharp and spare His arms clung to his ribs, his legs entwining Each the other, till supplanted down he fell, _A monstrous serpent_ on his belly prone, _Reluctant, but in vain_. A greater power Now ruled him, _punished in the shape he sinned_, According to his doom." Also when Satan attempted to speak, Milton says, only a hiss went forth "from forked tongue to forked tongue." When many days had passed by and their hunger was very sore because these fallen angels had seduced man by an apple, it came about that when, fierce with hunger, they seized the fruit ripe upon the branches, the apples were found to be filled with soot and ashes. By these striking suggestions Milton gives us his idea how angels and men reap what they sow. Should the literary critic seek an appropriate heading for the tenth book of "Paradise Lost," he could hardly find one more appropriate than this: "What Man Soweth, That Shall He Also Reap."