Now, says the Dreamer, just as the gates were opened to let in the men, I looked in after them, and behold the city shone like the sun; the streets also were paved with gold, and in them walked many men, with crowns upon their heads, palms in their hands, and golden harps to sing praises withal. There were also of them that had wings; and they answered one another without intermission, saying, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord; and after that, they shut up the gates; which, when I had seen, I wished myself among them. And who would not wish himself among them? or what man, reading of these things, or hearing of these things, can refuse to join them? In what attractive beauty of description are the life and the rewards of practical religion here delineated! The whole course of the Pilgrim's Progress shines with a light borrowed from its close. Just so it is in the reality. The splendors of the Celestial City, though rather to be dreamed of and guessed at, than distinctly seen, do, nevertheless, break from the clouds, and fall from mountain top to mountain top, flashing on forest and vale, down into the most difficult craggy passes of our mortal pilgrimage. At times, the domes and towers seem resting on our earthly horizon, and in a season of fair weather our souls have sight of the streets of gold, the gates of pearl, the walls of jasper. Then we walk many days under the remembrance of such a vision. At other times the inhabitants of that city seem to be walking with us, and ministering to men do eat angels' food; melodious music ravishes the ear; listening intently, we think we us; hear the chimes of bells wafted across the sea; and sometimes the gales are laden with such fragrant spicy airs, that a single breath of them makes the soul recognize its immortal Paradise, and almost transports it thither. When shall the day break, and the shadows flee away! It is night here, but there the sun shall never go down. Light is sown for the righteous, and in the harvest time it shall come up; but as Goodwin beautifully remarks in his "Child of Light Walking in Darkness," we must be content to let it lie under ground; and the longer it doth so, the greater crop and harvest will spring up in the end. In the Pilgrim's Progress there is a charming passage descriptive of the Pilgrim's entertainment in the House Beautiful, which was thus :-" The Pilgrim they laid in a large upper chamber, whose windows opened towards the sunrising; the name of the chamber was Peace; where he slept till break of day, and then he awoke and sang." A great and thoughtful poet has written a poem with this description as its motto, which he has entitled "Day-break," and which closes with the following stanza : How suddenly that strait and glittering shaft And pining Discontent, like them expire! Be called my chamber PEACE, when ends the day, ΟΕΩ ΜΟΝΩ ΔΟΞΑ. THE CITY OF DESTRUCTION AND SLOUGH OF DESPOND. Locality of the City of Destruction.-Character of Christian.-The awakened sinner.-The sinner convinced of sin, and fleeing from the wrath to come.--Character of Pliable.-Difference between a burden and no burden.-Pliable and Christian in the Slough of Despond.-Mr. Worldly Wiseman and his instructions.—Mr. Legality and the town of Carnal Policy.-The terrors of the Law of God to an awakened conscience.-Christian's entrance at the Wicket Gate. THE CITY OF DESTRUCTION! We are all inhabitants of it; no man needs ask, Where is it? What is it? Who are its people? Alas! our world of sin is the City of Destruction, and we know of a certainty from God's Word that it is to be burned up, and that if we do not escape from it, though we may die at peace in it before its conflagration, yet to be found with its spirit in our souls when we die, is to be forever miserable. There is a blessed pilgrimage from the City of Destruction to the City of Immanuel. It is full of dangers, trials, difficulties; but the perils are not worthy to be named in comparison with the glory at its close. And indeed the pilgrimage itself, with all its roughnesses and trials, is romantic and de |