In chapter 17 of The Scarlet Letter, what does Rev. Dimmesdale tell Hester about their sin and Chillingworths' sin?

class="MsoNormal">"I do forgive you, ," replied the minister at length,
with a deep utterance, out of an abyss of sadness, but no anger.  "I freely forgive you
now.  May God forgive us both.  We are not, Hester, the worst sinners in the world.  There is
one worse than even the polluted priest!  That old man's revenge has been blacker than my sin. 
He has violated, in cold blood, the sanctity of a human heart.  Thou and I, Hester, never did
so!"

"Never, never!" whispered
she.  "What we did had a consecration of its own.  We felt it so!  We said so to each
other.  Hast thou forgotten it?"

"Hush,
Hester!" said , rising from the ground. "No; I have not
forgotten!"

 Dimmesdale clearly points to
what was called a sin of "passion" and compares it to a sin of "will."   A
sin of the will has always been viewed as worse.  However Hester goes further saying that what
they did had a "consecration."  This is a very special word to Catholics; it is the
moment in the Mass where bread and win become the body and blood of Christ.  But in their case,
it resulted from a feeling ("we felt it so").  And there lies the problem:  can we
create the "right" because we "say" it is so?  Can we make actions
"moral" because we say we feel they are?

class="MsoNormal"> It obviously didn't work all that well for Dimmesdale....

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