The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan Every Child Can ReadBunyan, John
Religion
The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan Every Child Can Read
Bunyan, John
Christian life -- Juvenile literature; Christian pilgrims and pilgrimages -- Juvenile literature
APOL. There is no prince that will thus lightly lose his subjects,
neither will I as yet lose thee; but, since thou complainest of thy
service and wages, be content to go back, and what our country will
afford I do here promise to give thee.
CHRIS. But I have let myself to another, even to the King of princes;
and how can I with fairness go back with thee?
APOL. Thou hast done in this according to the proverb, "changed a bad
for a worse;" but it is common for those that have called themselves His
servants, after awhile to give Him the slip, and return again to me. Do
thou so too, and all shall be well.
CHRIS. I have given Him my faith, and sworn my service to Him; how,
then, can I go back from this, and not be hanged as a traitor?
APOL. Thou didst the same to me, and yet I am willing to pass by all,
if now thou wilt yet turn again and go back.
CHRIS. What I promised thee was in my youth, and besides, I count that
the Prince under whose banner I now stand is able to set me free, yea,
and to pardon also what I did as to my service with thee. And besides, O
thou destroying Apollyon, to speak the truth, I like His service, His
wages, His servants, His government, His company, and country, better
than thine; therefore leave off to persuade me further: I am His
servant, and I will follow Him.
APOL. Consider again when thou art in cold blood, what thou art likely
to meet with in the way that thou goest. Thou knowest that for the most
part His servants come to an ill end, because they are disobedient
against me and my ways. How many of them have been put to shameful
deaths! And besides, thou countest His service better than mine; whereas
He never came yet from the place where He is, to deliver any that served
Him out of their hands; but as for me, how many times, as all the world
very well knows, have I delivered, either by power or fraud, those that
have faithfully served me, from Him and His, though taken by them! And
so I will deliver thee.
CHRIS. His forbearing at present to deliver them is on purpose to try
their love, whether they will cleave to Him to the end; and, as for the
ill end thou sayest they come to, that is most glorious in their
account. For, for present deliverance, they do not much expect it; for
they stay for their glory, and then they shall have it when their prince
comes in His and the glory of the angels.
APOL. Thou hast already been unfaithful in thy service to Him; and how
dost thou think to receive wages of Him?
CHRIS. Wherein, O Apollyon, have I been unfaithful to Him?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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