FAITH. Why, at first, I found myself somewhat inclinable to go with the man, for I thought he spake very fair; but looking in his forehead, as I talked with him, I saw there written, "Put off the old man with his deeds."

CHR. And how then?

FAITH. Then it came burning hot into my mind, whatever he said, and however he flattered, when he got me home to his house, he would sell me for a slave. So I bid him forbear to talk, for I would not come near the door of his house. Then he reviled me, and told me, that he would send such a one after me that should make my way bitter to my soul. So 1 turned to go away from him; but, just as I turned myself to go thence, I felt him take hold of my flesh, and give me such a deadly twitch back, that I thought he had pulled part of me after himself: this made me cry, "O wretched man!" (Rom. vii. 24.) So I went on my way up the hill. Now, when I had got about half-way up, I looked behind me, and saw one coming after me, swift as the wind; so he overtook me just about the place where the settle stands.

CHR. Just there," said Christian, "did I sit down to rest me; but, being overcome with sleep, I there lost this roll out of my bosom."

FAITII. But, good brother, hear me out. So soon as the man overtook me, he was but a word and a blow; for down he knocked me, and laid me for dead. But, when I was a little come to myself again, I asked him wherefore he served me so. He said, because of my secret inclining to Adam the first. And, with that, he struck me another deadly blow on the breast, and beat me down backward; so I lay at his feet as dead as before. So, when I came to myself again, I cried him mercy but he said, I know not how to show mercy; and, with that, he knocked me down again. He had doubtless made an end of me, but that one came by, and bid him forbear.

CHR. Who was that that bid him forbear?

FAITH. I did not know him at first; but, as he went by, I perceived the holes in his hands and his side: then I concluded that he was our Lord. So I went up the hill.

CHR. That man that overtook you was Moses. He spareth none; neither knoweth he how to show mercy to those that transgress his law.

FAITH. I know it very well: it was not the first time that he has met with me. It was he that came to me when I dwelt securely at home, and that told me he would burn my house over my head if I stayed there.

CHR. But did not you see the house that stood there, on the top of that hill on the side of which Moses met you?

FAITH. Yes, and the lions too, before I came at it. But, for the lions, I think they were asleep, for it was about noon; and.

because I had so much of the day before me, I passed by the Porter, and came down the hill.

CHR. He told me, indeed, that he saw you go by; but I wish you had called at the house, for they would have showed you so many rarities, that you would scarce have forgot them to the day of your death. But pray tell me, did you meet nobody in the

would willingly reason was, for He told me,

Valley of Humility? FAITH. Yes, I met with one Discontent, who have persuaded me to go back again with him: his that the valley was altogether without honour. moreover, that there to go was the way to disoblige all my friends, as Pride, Arrogancy, Self-conceit, Worldly Glory, with others, who he knew, as he said, would be very much offended, if I made such a fool of myself as to wade through this valley.

CHR. Well, and how did you answer him?

FAITH. I told him, that, although all these that he named might claim kindred of me, and that rightly (for, indeed, they were my relations according to the flesh), yet, since I became a pilgrim, they have disowned me, as I also have rejected them; and therefore they were to me now no more than if they had never been of my lineage. I told him, moreover, that as to this valley, he had quite misrepresented the thing; for before honour is humility, and

a haughty spirit before a fall. Therefore, said I, I had rather go through this valley to the honour that was so accounted by the wisest, than choose that which he esteemed most worthy of our affections.

CHR. Met you with nothing else in that valley?

FAITH. Yes, I met with Shame: but, of all the men that I met with in my pilgrimage, he, I think, bears the wrong name. The other would be said nay, after a little argumentation, and somewhat else; but this bold-faced Shame would never have done.

CHR. Why, what did he say to you?

FAITH. What? why, he objected against religion itself. Hc said it was a pitiful, low, sneaking business for a man to mind religion. He said, that a tender conscience was an unmanly thing; and that for a man to watch over his words and ways, so as to tie up himself from that hectoring liberty that the brave spirits of the times accustom themselves unto, would make him the ridicule of the times. He objected also, that but few of the mighty, rich, or wise were ever of my opinion; nor any of them neither, before they were persuaded to be fools, and to be of a voluntary fondness, to venture the loss of all for nobody else knows what. (1 Cor. i. 26; iii. 18; Phil. iii. 7-9; John vii. 48.) He, moreover, objected the base and low estate and condition of those that were chiefly the pilgrims of the times in which they lived; also their ignorance, and want of understanding in all natural science. Yea, he did hold me to it at that rate also, about a great many more. things than here I relate; as, that it was a shame to sit whining and mourning under a sermon, and a shame to come sighing and groaning home; that it was a shame to ask my neighbour forgiveness for petty faults, or to make restitution where I had taken from any. He said also, that religion made a man grow strange to the great, because of a few vices (which he called by finer names), and made him own and respect the base, because of the same religious fraternity: and is not this, said he, a shame ?

CHR. And what did you say to him?

FAITH. Say? I could not tell what to say at first. Yea he put me so to it, that my blood came up in my face; even this Shame fetched it up, and had almost beat me quite off. But at last, I began to consider, that that which is highly esteemed among men, is had in abomination with God. (Luke xvi. 15.) And I thought again, this Shame tells me what men are; but it tells me nothing what God, or the word of God, is. And I thought, moreover, that at the day of doom we shall not be doomed to death or life, according to the hectoring spirits of the world, but according to the wisdom and law of the Highest. Therefore, thought I, what God says is best-is best, though all the men in the world are against it. Seeing, then, that God prefers his religion; seeing God prefers a tender conscience; seeing they that make them

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