Now, there were on the tops of those mountains certain shepherds feeding
their flocks, and they stood by the highway side. The two travellers
therefore went up to the shepherds, and leaning upon their staves (as is
common with weary travellers when they stand to talk with any by the
way), they asked: Whose delectable mountains are these? and whose be the
sheep that feed upon them? These mountains, replied the shepherds, are
Immanuel's Land, and they are within sight of the city; the sheep also
are His, and He laid down His life for them. After some more talk like
this by the wayside, the shepherds, being pleased with the pilgrims,
looked very lovingly upon them and said: Welcome to the Delectable
Mountains. The shepherds then, whose names were Knowledge, Experience,
Watchful, and Sincere, took them by the hand to lead them to their tents,
and made them partake of what was ready at present. They said, moreover:
We would that you should stay with us a while to be acquainted with us,
and yet more to solace yourselves with the cheer of these Delectable
Mountains. Then the travellers told them they were content to stay; and
so they went to rest that night because it was now very late. The four
shepherds lived all summer-time in a lodge of tents well up among their
sheep, while their wives and families had their homes all the year round
in the land of Beulah. The four men formed a happy fraternity, and they
worked among and watched over their Master's sheep with one united mind.
What one of those shepherds could not so well do in the tent or in the
fold or out on the hillside, some of the others better did. And what one
of them could do to any perfection all the others by one consent left
that to him to do. You would have thought that they were made by a
perfect miracle to fit into one another, so harmoniously did they live
and work together, and such was the bond of brotherly love that held them
together. At the same time, there was one of the happy quaternity who,
from his years on the hills, and his services in times of trial and
danger, and one thing and another, fell always, and with the finest
humility too, into the foremost place, and his name, as you have already
heard, was Knowledge. Old Mr. Know-all the children in the villages
below ran after him and named him as they clustered round his staff and
hid in the great folds of his shepherd's coat.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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