Did not disdain to make Himself its creature.
Within thy womb rekindled was the love
By heat of which in the eternal peace,
After such wise, this flower was germinated.
Here unto us thou art a noonday torch
Of charity, and below there among mortals
Thou art the living fountainhead of hope.

Lady, thou art so great and so prevailing,
That he who wishes grace nor runs to thee,
His aspirations without wings would fly.
Not only thy benignity gives succor
To him who asketh it, but oftentimes
Forerunneth of its own accord the asking.
In thee compassion is, in thee is pity,
In thee magnificence; in thee unites
Whatever of goodness is in any creature."

The third private devotion of Dante is devotion to the Souls in
Purgatory--a pious practice founded upon the scriptural words: "It is a
holy and a wholesome thought to pray for the dead that they may be
loosed from their sins." Not only does Dante answer the objection raised
as to the efficacy of prayer offered for the souls in Purgatory (VI, 28)
but in many passages he promises his own prayers and works and seeks to
arouse in others on earth a helpful sympathy for those souls. "Truly" he
says, "we ought to help them to wash away their stains which they have
borne hence, so that, pure and light, they may go forth to the starry
spheres," (Purg. VI, 34.)

To sum up Dante's attachment to his religion we can truly say not only