_Atheist._ I laugh to see what ignorant persons you are, to take upon you so tedious a Journey, and yet are like to have nothing but your travel for your paines. _Chr._ Why, man? Do you think we shall not be received? _Atheist._ Received! There is no such place as you dream of in all this World. _Chr._ But there is in the World to come. _Atheist._ When I was at home in mine own Country, I heard as you now affirm, and from that hearing went out to see, and have been seeking this City this twenty years; but find no more of it than I did the first day I set out. _Chr._ We have both heard and believe that there is such a place to be found. _Atheist._ Had not I when at home believed, I had not come thus far to seek; but finding none, (and yet I should, had there been such a place to be found, for I have gone to seek it further than you) I am going back again, and will seek to refresh myself with the things that I then cast away, for hopes of that which I now see is not. _Chr._ Then said _Christian_ to _Hopeful_ his fellow, Is it true which this man hath said? _Hope._ Take heed, he is one of the _Flatterers_; remember what it hath cost us once already for our harkening to such kind of Fellows. What! no Mount _Sion_? Did we not see from the Delectable Mountains the Gate of the City? Also, are we not now to walk by Faith? Let us go on, said _Hopeful_, lest the man with the Whip overtakes us again. You should have taught me that lesson, which I will round you in the ears withall: _Cease, my Son, to hear the instruction that causeth to err from the words of knowledge_. I say, my Brother, cease to hear him, and let us believe to the saving of the Soul. _Chr._ My Brother, I did not put the question to thee for that I doubted of the Truth of our belief myself, but to prove thee, and to fetch from thee a fruit of the honesty of thy heart. As for this man, I know that he is blinded by the god of this World. Let thee and I go on, knowing that we have belief of the Truth, and no lie is of the Truth. _Hope._ Now do I rejoyce in hope of the glory of God. So they turned away from the man; and he laughing at them went his way. THE CELESTIAL CITY _By John Bunyan_