ATHEIST. I laugh to see what ignorant persons you are, to take upon yourselves so tedious a journey, and yet are like to have nothing but your travel for your pains. [Illustration: Atheist Laughing at Christian and Hopeful. Page 170] CHRIS. Why, man, do you think we shall not be received? ATHEIST. Received! There is no such a place as you dream of in all this world. CHRIS. 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 these twenty years, but find no more of it than I did the first day I set out. CHRIS. 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 farther 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. CHRIS. 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 hearkening to such kind of fellows. What! no Mount Zion? 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, lest the man with the whip overtake us again. I say, my brother, cease to hear him, and let us believe to the saving of the soul. CHRIS. 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. Let thee and me go on, knowing that we have belief of the truth, and no lie is of the truth. HOPE. Now do I rejoice in hope of the glory of God. So they turned away from the man, and he, laughing at them, went his way. I then saw in my dream that they went till they came into a certain country, whose air naturally tended to make one drowsy if he came a stranger into it. And here Hopeful began to be very dull and heavy of sleep; wherefore he said unto Christian, "I do now begin to grow so drowsy, that I can scarcely hold up mine eyes; let us lie down here, and take one nap." CHRIS. "By no means," said the other, "lest sleeping, we never awake more." HOPE. Why, my brother? sleep is sweet to the laboring man: we may be refreshed if we take a nap. CHRIS. Do not you remember that one of the shepherds bid us beware of the Enchanted Ground? He meant by that that we should beware of sleeping; wherefore let us not sleep as others, but let us watch and be sober.