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
FAITH. But, good brother, hear me out. So soon as the man overtook me,
he was but a word and a blow; for down he knocked me, and laid me for
dead. But, when I was a little come to myself again, I asked him
wherefore he served me so. He said, because of my secret inclining to
Adam the First. And, with that, he struck me another deadly blow on the
breast, and beat me down backwards; so I lay at his feet as dead as
before. So, when I came to myself again, I cried him mercy; but he said,
"I know not how to show mercy;" and, with that, he knocked me down
again. He had doubtless made an end of me, but that One came by, and bid
him forbear.
CHRIS. Who was that that bid him forbear?
FAITH. I did not know him at first; but, as He went by, I perceived the
holes in His hands and His side; then I concluded that He was our Lord.
So I went up the hill.
CHRIS. That man that overtook you was Moses. He spareth none, neither
knoweth he how to show mercy to those that disobey his law.
FAITH. I know it very well: it was not the first time that he has met
with me. It was he that came to me when I dwelt securely at home, and
that told me he would burn my house over my head if I stayed there.
CHRIS. But Did not you see the house that stood there, on the top of
that hill on the side of which Moses met you?
FAITH. Yes, and the lions too, before I came at it. But, for the lions,
I think they were asleep, for it was about noon; and because I had so
much of the day before me I passed by the Porter, and came down the
hill.
CHRIS. He told me, indeed, that he saw you go by; but I wished you had
called at the house, for they would have showed you so many rarities,
that you would scarce have forgot them to the day of your death. But
pray tell me, did you meet nobody in the Valley of Humility?
FAITH. Yes, I met with one Discontent, who would willingly have
persuaded me to go back again with him: his reason was, for that the
valley was altogether without honor. He told me, moreover, that there to
go was the way to disoblige all my friends, as Pride, Arrogancy,
Self-Conceit, Worldly-Glory, with others, who he knew, as he said, would
be very much offended if I made such a fool of myself as to wade through
this valley.
CHRIS. Well, and how did you answer him?
FAITH. I told him that, although all these that he named might claim
kindred of me, and that rightly (for, indeed, they were my relations
according to the flesh), yet, since I became a pilgrim, they have
disowned me, as I also have rejected them; and therefore they were to me
now no more than if they had never been of my lineage. I told him,
moreover, that as to this valley, he had quite misrepresented the thing;
for before honor is humility, and a haughty spirit before a fall.
"Therefore," said I, "I had rather go through this valley to the honor
that was so accounted by the wisest, than choose that which he esteemed
most worthy of our affections."
CHRIS. Met you with nothing else in that valley?
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