you have come uninjured among us, you must hear from us an account of all that you have seen. This region is the terrestrial paradise from which man was first expelled for his sins, and plunged into that miserable condition in which men die in the world. All of us who are here were born in the flesh, and in original sin, and by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, which we received in our baptism, we returned to this paradise ; but since we all committed actual sins without number after we Avere baptized, it was only by being purged of our sins, and receiving punishment for them, that Ave were able to reach this place. For. the penance Avhich we undertook before our death, or at the hour of death, but did not complete on earth, must still be discharged by suffering in the places of punishment which you have seen, according to the nature and magnitude of the sin. All of us who are here have been in those places of punishment for our sins, and all whom you there saw suffering punishment, except those who are within the mouth of the infernal pit, will come to this place of rest and at last be saved. For some of them come here every day, purified from their sins, and we go to meet them and bring them in, as we did you ; neither does any of us know how long he will remain here. But by masses and psalms, by the alms and prayers of the universal church, as well as the special aid of their own friends, the torments of those who are iu purgatory may be much lessened, or they may even receive a lighter kind of punishment in exchange for those to which they were first doomed, until in the end they are released entirely. Thus, as you behold, Ave here enjoy much tranquillity, though not yet Avorthy to enter into the full happiness of heaven. Each of us, hereafter, when the time which God has fixed arrives, shall pass into the heavenly kingdom, according as God shall provide. How the knight was refreshed by a heavenly vision, and strengthened with spiritual food. The reverend prelates now led the knight to the sloping side of a mountain, and bade him look upwards ; which when he had done, they asked him of what colour heaven was in respect of the place on which he stood. He replied that it was like the colour of gold that is red-hot in the furnace. "This," said they, "which you now see, is the