clouds, these, without water; bodies, these, of putrescent vapour
and skin, without blood or flesh: blown bag-pipes for the fiends to
pipe with--corrupt, and corrupting,--" Swollen with wind, and the
rank mist they draw."

Lastly, let us return to the lines respecting the power of the keys,
for now we can understand them. Note the difference between Milton
and Dante in their interpretation of this power: for once, the
latter is weaker in thought; he supposes BOTH the keys to be of the
gate of heaven; one is of gold, the other of silver: they are given
by St. Peter to the sentinel angel; and it is not easy to determine
the meaning either of the substances of the three steps of the gate,
or of the two keys. But Milton makes one, of gold, the key of
heaven; the other, of iron, the key of the prison in which the
wicked teachers are to be bound who "have taken away the key of
knowledge, yet entered not in themselves."

We have seen that the duties of bishop and pastor are to see, and
feed; and of all who do so it is said, "He that watereth, shall be
watered also himself." But the reverse is truth also. He that
watereth not, shall be WITHERED himself; and he that seeth not,
shall himself be shut out of sight--shut into the perpetual prison-
house. And that prison opens here, as well as hereafter: he who is
to be bound in heaven must first be bound on earth. That command to
the strong angels, of which the rock-apostle is the image, "Take
him, and bind him hand and foot, and cast him out," issues, in its
measure, against the teacher, for every help withheld, and for every
truth refused, and for every falsehood enforced; so that he is more
strictly fettered the more he fetters, and farther outcast as he
more and more misleads, till at last the bars of the iron cage close