Chapter XI

Early in the morning the angels command Lot to depart from Sodom, with his wife and two daughters, and to look straight before him, for Sodom and Gomorrah shall be destroyed. Lot asks what is best to be done, that he may escape. He is told to choose himself a dwelling which shall be saved from destruction. He chooses Zoar. The angels command Lot to depart quickly. He wakes his wife and daughters. All four are hastened on by the angels, who “preach to them the peril” of delay. Before daylight Lot comes to a hill. God aloft raises a storm. A rain falls thick of fire and sulphur. Upon the four cities it comes, and frightens all folks therein. The great bars of the abyss do burst. Cliffs cleave asunder. The cities sink to hell. Such a cry arises that the clouds clatter again. Lot and his companions are frightened, but continue to follow their face. Lot’s wife looks behind her, and is turned to a stiff stone “as salt as any sea.” Her companions do not miss her till they reach Zoar. By this time all were drowned. The people of Zoar, for dread, rush into the sea and are destroyed. Only Zoar with three therein (Lot and his daughters) are saved. Lot’s wife is an image of salt for two faults: 1. She served salt before the Lord at supper. 2. She looked behind her. Abraham is up full early on the morn. He looks towards Sodom, now only a pit filled with pitch, from which rise smoke, ashes and cinders, as from a furnace. A sea now occupies the place of the four cities. It is a stinking pool, and is called the Dead Sea. Nothing may live in it. Lead floats on its surface. A feather sinks to the bottom of it. Lands, watered by this sea, never bear grass or weed. A man cannot be drowned in it. The clay clinging to it is corrosive, as alum, alkaran, sulphur, etc., which fret the flesh and fester the bones. On the shores of this lake grow trees bearing fair fruits, which, when broken or bitten, taste like ashes. All these are tokens of wickedness and vengeance. God loves the pure in heart. Strive to be clean. Jean de Meun tells how a lady is to be loved. By doing what pleases her best. Love thy Lord! Conform to Christ, who is polished as a pearl. By how comely a contrivance did he enter the womb of the virgin! In what purity did he part from her! No abode was better than his. The sorrow of childbirth was turned to joy. Angels solaced the virgin with organs and pipes. The child Christ was so clean that ox and ass worshipped him. He hated wickedness, and would never touch ought that was vile. Yet there came to him lazars and lepers, lame and blind. Dry and dropsical folk. He healed all with kind speech. His handling was so good, that he needed no knife to cut or carve with. The bread he broke more perfectly than could all the tools of Toulouse. How can we approach his court except we be clean? God is merciful. Through penance we may shine as a pearl. Why is the pearl so prized? She becomes none the worse for wear. If she should become dim, wash her in wine. She then becomes clearer than before. So may the sinner polish him by penance. Beware of returning to sin. For then God is more displeased than ever. The reconciled soul God holds as His own. Ill deeds rob Him of it. God forbids us to defile any vessels used in His service. In Belshazzar’s time, the defiling of God’s vessels brought wrath upon the king.