'Where are we now?' called Pliable to his companion, as they both went over head and ears into the Slough of Despond. 'Truly,' said Christian, 'I do not know.'--No work of man is perfect, not even the all-but-perfect _Pilgrim's Progress_. Christian was bound to fall sooner or later into a slough filled with his own despondency about himself, his past guilt, his present sinfulness, and his anxious future. But Pliable had not knowledge enough of himself to make him ever despond. He was always ready and able to mend his pace. He had no burden on his back, and therefore no doubt in his heart. But Christian had enough of both for any ten men, and it was Christian's overflowing despondency and doubt at this point of the road that suddenly filled his own slough, and, I suppose, overflowed into a slough for Pliable also. Had Pliable only had a genuine and original slough of his own to so sink and be bedaubed in, he would have got out of it at the right side of it, and been a tender- stepping pilgrim all his days.--'Is this the happiness you have told me all this while of? May I get out of this with my life, you may possess the brave country alone for me.' And with that he gave a desperate struggle or two, and got out of the mire on that side of the slough which was next his own house; so he went away, and Christian saw him no more. 'The side of the slough which was next his own house.' Let us close with that. Let us go home thinking about that. And in this trial of faith and patience, and in that, in this temptation to sin, and in that, in this actual transgression, and in that, let us always ask ourselves which is the side of the slough that is farthest away from our own house, and let us still struggle to that side of the slough, and it will all be well with us at the last. HELP 'I was brought low, and He helped me.'--David.