PIETY. Come, good Christian, since we have been so loving to you, to receive you into our house this night, let us, if perhaps we may better ourselves thereby, talk with you of all things that have happened to you in your pilgrimage.
CHR. With a very good will, and I am glad that you are so well disposed.
PIETY. What moved you at first to take up a pilgrim's life?
CHR. I was driven out of my native country by a dreadful sound that was in mine ears; to wit, that unavoidable destruction did attend me if I abode in that country place where I was.
PIETY. But how did it happen that you came out of your country this way?
CHR. It was as God would have it; for when I was under the fears of destruction, I did not know whither to go; but by chance there came a man, even to me, as I was trembling and weeping, whose name is Evangelist, and he directed me to the wicket-gate, which else I should never have found, and so set me into the way that hath led me directly to this house.
PIETY. But did you not come by the Interpreter's house?
CHR. Yes, and did see such things there, the remembrance of which will stick by me as long as I live; especially three things, to wit, how Christ, in despite of Satan, maintains His work of grace in the heart; how the man had sinned himself quite out of hopes of God's mercy; and also the dream of him that thought in his sleep the day of judgment was come.
PIETY. Why did you hear him tell his dream?
CHR. Yes, and a dreadful one it was. I thought it made my heart ache as he told it, but I am glad I heard it.
PIETY. Was that all that you saw at the house of the Interpreter?
CHR. No, he took me and had me where he showed me a stately palace, and how the people were clad in gold that were in it; and how there came a venturous man and cut his way through the armed men that stood in the door to keep him out; and how he was bid to come in, and win eternal glory. Methought those things did ravish my heart! I would have stayed at that good man's house a twelvemonth, but that I knew I had further to go.
PIETY. And what saw you else in the way?
CHR. Saw! why, I went but a little further, and I saw one, as I thought in my mind, hang bleeding upon the tree; and the very sight of Him made my burden fall off my back (for I groaned under a very heavy burden), but then it fell down from off me. It was a strange thing to me, for I never saw such a thing before; yea, and while I stood looking up, for then I could not forbear looking, three Shining Ones came to me. One of them testified that my sins were forgiven me; another stripped me of my rags and gave me this embroidered coat, which you see; and the third set the mark which you see in my forehead and gave me this sealed roll. (And with that, he plucked it out of his bosom).
PIETY. But you saw more than this, did you not?
CHR. The things that I have told you were the best, yet some other matters I saw, as, namely, I saw three men, Simple, Sloth, and Presumption, lie asleep a little out of the way, as I came, with irons upon their heels; but do you think I could awake them? I also saw Formality and Hypocrisy come tumbling over the wall, to go, as they pretended, to Zion, but they were quickly lost, even as I myself did tell them; but they would not believe. But above all, I found it hard work to get up this hill, and as hard to come by the lions' mouths; and truly if it had not been for the good man, the porter that stands at the gate, I do not know but that after all I might have gone back again; but now, I thank God I am here, and I thank you for receiving of me.
Then Prudence thought it good to ask him a few questions and desired his answers.
PRUD. Do you not think sometimes of the country from whence you came?
CHR. Yes, but with much shame and detestation: "truly if I had been mindful of that country from whence I came out, I might have had opportunity to have returned; but now I desire a better country, that is, a heavenly" (Heb. 11:15, 16).
PRUD. Do you not yet bear away with you some of the things that then you were conversant withal?
CHR. Yes, but greatly against my will; especially my inward and carnal cogitations, with which all my countrymen, as well as myself, were delighted; but now all those things are my grief; and might I but choose mine own things, I would choose never to think of those things more; but when I would be doing of that which is best, that which is worst is with me (Rom. 7).
PRUD. Do you not sometimes find, as if those things were vanquished, which at other times are your perplexity?
CHR. Yes, but that is but seldom; but they are to me golden hours, in which such things happen to me.
PRUD. Can you remember by what means you find your annoyances, at times, as if they were vanquished?
CHR. Yes, when I think what I saw at the cross, that will do it; and when I look upon my embroidered coat, that will do it; also when I look into the roll that I carry in my bosom, that will do it; and when my thoughts wax warm about whither I am going, that will do it.
PRUD. And what is it that makes you so desirous to go to Mount
Zion?
CHR. Why, there I hope to see Him alive that did hang dead on the cross; and there I hope to be rid of all those things that to this day are in me an annoyance to me; there, they say, there is no death; and there I shall dwell with such company as I like best (Isa. 25:8; Rev. 21:4). For, to tell you truth, I love Him, because I was by Him eased of my burden; and I am weary of my inward sickness. I would fain be where I shall die no more, and with the company that shall continually cry, "Holy, holy, holy."
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