"Let the Most Blessed be my guide, If 't be His blessed will, Unto His gate, into His fold, Up to His holy hill. "And never let Him suffer me To swerve or turn aside From His free grace and holy ways, Whate'er shall me betide. "And let Him gather them of mine That I have left behind: Lord, make them pray they may be Thine, With all their heart and mind." Now my old friend proceeded, and said, "But when Christiana came to the Slough of Despond, she began to be at a stand; 'For,' said she, 'this is the place in which my dear husband had like to have been smothered with mud.' She perceived also that, notwithstanding the command of the King to make this place for pilgrims good, yet it was rather worse than formerly." So I asked if that was true. "Yes," said the old gentleman, "too true, for many there be that pretend to be the King's laborers, and say they are for mending the King's highway, that bring dirt and dung instead of stones, and so mar instead of mending. Here Christiana, therefore, with her boys, did make a stand. But said Mercy, 'Come, let us venture, only let us be wary.' Then they looked well to their steps, and made shift to get staggeringly over. Yet Christiana had to have been in, and that not once nor twice. "Now, they had no sooner got over, but they thought they heard words that said unto them, 'Blessed is she that believeth, for there shall be a performance of those things which were told her from the Lord.' "Then they went on again; and said Mercy to Christiana, 'Had I as good ground to hope for a loving reception at the wicket-gate as you, I think no Slough of Despond would discourage me.' "'Well,' said the other, 'You know your trouble, and I know mine; and, good friend, we shall have enough evil before we come at our journey's end. For can it be imagined that the people that design to attain such excellent glories as we do, and that are so envied that happiness as we are, but that we shall meet with what fears, with what troubles and afflictions they can possibly assault us with, that hate us?'" [Sidenote: AT THE WICKET GATE]