now whether he had faith, but "whether he was one of the elect or not, and if not, what then?" "He might as well leave off and strive no further." And then the strange fancy occurred to him, that the good people at Bedford whose acquaintance he had recently made, were all that God meant to save in that part of the country, and that the day of grace was past and gone for him; that he had overstood the time of mercy. "Oh that he had turned sooner!" was then his cry. "Oh that he had turned seven years before! What a fool he had been to trifle away his time till his soul and heaven were lost!" The text, "compel them to come in, and yet there is room," came to his rescue when he was so harassed and faint that he was "scarce able to take one step more." He found them "sweet words," for they showed him that there was "place enough in heaven for him," and he verily believed that when Christ spoke them He was thinking of him, and had them recorded to help him to overcome the vile fear that there was no place left for him in His bosom. But soon another fear succeeded the former. Was he truly called of Christ? "He called to them when He would, and they came to Him." But they could not come unless He called them. Had He called him? Would He call him? If He did how gladly would he run after Him. But oh, he feared that He had no liking to him; that He would not call him. True conversion was what he longed for. "Could it have been gotten for gold," he said, "what could I have given for it! Had I a whole world, it had all gone ten thousand times over for this, that my soul might have been in a converted state." All those whom he thought to be truly converted were now lovely in his eyes. "They shone, they walked like people that carried the broad seal of heaven about them. Oh that he were like them, and shared in their goodly heritage!" About this time Bunyan was greatly troubled, though at the same time encouraged in his endeavours after the blessedness he longed for so earnestly but could not yet attain to, by "a dream or vision" which presented itself to him, whether in his waking or sleeping hours he does not tell us. He fancied he saw his four Bedford friends refreshing themselves on the sunny side of a high mountain while he was shivering with dark and cold on the other side, parted from them by a high wall with only one small gap in it, and that not found but after long searching, and so strait and narrow withal that it needed long and desperate efforts to force his way through. At last he succeeded. "Then," he says, "I was exceeding glad, and went and sat down in the midst of them, and so was comforted with the light and heat of their sun."