f truth dissolving into Divine Wisdom.

The spectacle he now beholds, perhaps suggested to the poet by the
passage from the Apocalypse (XXII, 1). "And he showed me a river of
water of life, clear as crystal proceeding from the throne of God and of
the Lamb,"--the spectacle which now presents itself is that of a river
of light flowing between two banks of flowers and vivid with darting
sparks. The river represents illuminating grace, the sparks angels, the
flowers saints. This river of light wherein are reflected the Elect, as
verdure and flowers on a hillside are mirrored in a limpid stream at
its foot, is poetically represented as having the effect of a
sacrament. It bestows grace and that grace called _lumen gloriae_, light
of glory, endowing the soul with a faculty beyond its natural needs or
merits, so disposes the soul that it becomes deiform and is rendered
capable of immediate intuition of the Divine Essence.

"There is a light above, which visible
Makes the Creator unto every creature
Who only in beholding Him, has peace."
(XXX, 100.)

Beatrice tells Dante that he must drink his fill of the stupendous
splendor by gazing intently on the river of pure light, so that he may
be able to contemplate the whole unveiled glory and then see God
directly.

As Dante gazes on the illuminating stream it undergoes a marvelous
transformation, taking the form of a Rose the center of which is a sea
of radiance.

"And even as the penthouse of mine eyelids
Drank of it, it forthwith appeared to me
Out of its length to be transformed to round.
Then as a folk who have been under masks
Seem other than before, if they divest
The semblance not their own they disappeared in,
Thus into greater pomp were changed for me
The flowerets and the sparks, so that I saw
Both of the Courts of Heaven made manifest."
(XXX, 87.)

The two courts of Heaven, angels and saints, are made manifest in the
Rose which spreads out like a vast amphitheatre the lowest circle of
which is wider than the circumference of the sun. Above the center of
the Rose as the Point of light, is God in all His glory and love, adored
in blissful raptures by the saints who form the petals of the heavenly
flower. Angels with faces aflame, in white garments and with golden
wings fly down to the petals as bees to flowers, bringing God's
blessings to the saints and fly back to God as bees to their hive,
carrying the adoration of