vainglorious heart: We come from the land of Vainglory, and are going for praise to Mount Zion.

The right way by the gate, the way by Christ and his righteousness, was deemed too far. But, said Christian, will it not be counted a trespass against the Lord of the City whither we are bound, thus to violate his revealed will? Christian is always for Scripture. But they told him that they had plenty of examples for the way they came in, and testimony for more than a thousand years; yea, the antiquity of the custom was such that every impartial judge would admit it as a thing legal, The fathers would doubtless be brought to justify it, and all antiquity was in its favor; and when such multitudes had been justified by works for more than a thousand years, they would have been fools indeed, seeing that in the land of Vainglory there was plenty of that commodity, works done to be seen of men, if they should trouble themselves about faith and the gate. Besides, if we are in, we are in, said they. Thou art only in, who didst come by the gate; and we are also in, who came over the wall; so there is no difference.

Now here is depicted to the life that pretended liberality which you so often hear in men's conversation. All persuasions, it says, are right, and we are all travelling one way; they that reject eternal punishment, and they that believe in it, they that deny the atonement, and they that recieve it; they will all get to heaven at last. Ah, but, said Christian, there is a Rule, and I walk by it, the Rule of my Master; but you walk by the rude working of your own fancies. You are

thieves and robbers, by the Lord's own description; and as you come in by yourselves, without the Lord's direction, you will also go out by yourselves, without the Lord's mercy.

This was a plainness, honesty and simplicity, characteristic of Christian. But the men told him to take care of himself, and they would take care of themselves; and as to laws and ordinances they should keep them as conscientiously as he; and as to all his pretence of inward experience, the new birth, repentance and faith, and all that, it might do for such a ragged creature as he had been. All the neighbors knew that he had been a worthless wretch, and it was well indeed that he had got such a coat to cover his nakedness; but they had always gone well dressed, and having never been so bad as he was, needed not so great a change; their laws and ordinances would save them. So Christian told them that this inward experience, this regeneration by the Holy Spirit, this faith in Christ alone as an atoning Saviour, and this evidence of that Saviour's mercy in a renewed heart and life, were as absolutely necessary for them, as for him, and that if they had come in at the gate, they would certainly have had these things also; and that when they came to the Celestial Gate, they would be shut out without them. He told them moreover that the Lord of the place had given him that coat which was on his back, and not any of his neighbors; and that he did indeed give it to him to hide his nakedness, for that before he had indeed been a poor, miserable, ragged, guilty sinner; but now the Lord Jesus

had given him for his garment his own wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption, and had thus sealed him by his grace in such a manner, that he would know him well when he came to give in his roll at the Celestial Gate. For all this, the men cared nothing at all, but looked at each other and laughed; it was so ridiculous to them to hear Christian talking of a new birth, and of grace and faith, and the love of the Saviour. All that cant may do very well for a conventicle, said they, but we abide by respectable antiquity and the forms of our church. So they all went on, and Christian communed with himself, seeing that they both laughed at him, and could not understand him. They thought he was a harmless mystic, probably weak in his mind, and very illiterate. So he went sometimes sighingly and sometimes comfortably, but much refreshed by reading in his roll.

Together therefore they went on, till they came at the foot of the Hill Difficulty; and this is about as far as Formalist and Hypocrisy will ever go in religion. You will always find them stopping at the foot of Hill Difficulty. Formalism and Hypocrisy may always be a ridiculing and persecuting religion, but never a suffering one. At the bottom of this hill there were two other paths beside the strait one, turning off one to the left, the other to the right; and there always will be such paths where there are difficulties; there always will be ways, by which persons so disposed may avoid difficulties, and indulge themselves; but when people turn aside to go in them, it were well to note distinctly that they are not the strait and narrow

way, and do not lead to heaven. Over this Hill Difficulty must Christian go. But Formalist and Hypocrisy, seeing how high and steep it was, concluded between themselves that these two convenient paths, winding off so opportunely and invitingly at the bottom, must of course meet again in the strait and narrow way on the other side of the hill, and so determined to try them.

Mark you, they did not intend to quit the strait way entirely, into which they came at first by tumbling over the wall, but to come into it again, after avoiding the Hill Difficulty. And so a great many persons intend to conform to the world, or to indulge in sinful things only in certain points, only for the present distress, and then come up again, just as a boat may strike her sails in being under a bridge, and then raise them again. And a great many persons intend to come at Heaven without its costing them any thing. I will not undertake to say that if Formalist and Hypocrisy had known that these by-paths would never come again into the right way, they would not have gone over the hill; perhaps they might, and not have turned aside till they came to a more fearful evil. But Christian saw them no more. The names of these paths were Danger and Destruction, and they each took one, and wandered on till they came to dreary woods and dark mountains, where they stumbled and fell, and rose no And herein was fulfilled that in the one hundred and twenty-fifth Psalm, As for such as turn aside into crooked ways, the Lord shall lead them forth with the workers of iniquity.

more.

There was a cool delicious spring at the bottom of this Hill Difficulty, as there generally is where the Lord's people have peculiar hardships to encounter, according to the promise, As thy strength is, so shall thy day be. There are angels for Hagar in the wilderness, quails for Elijah pursued by his enemies, springs of water in the desert, where, when God pleases, the rain shall fill the pools to give drink to his beloved ones. Unto whatever conflict or labor God calls his people, he always gives the necessary preparation thereunto. So Christian went and drank of this precious spring at the bottom of the Hill Difficulty. From the eyes of Formality and Hypocrisy it seems to have been kept sealed, or, as it was pure cold water for a thirsty soul, they, having no spiritual thirst, cared not for it; but Christian drank thereof and was sweetly refreshed; for God hath said, He that hath mercy on them shall lead them, even by the springs of water shall he guide them. So with this draught of the water of life, Christian, animated and invigorated, addressed himself to the hill.

At first he ran, then he had to content himself with walking, and that very wearily and slowly, but at length it became so steep that he was fain to clamber up on his hands and knees. Sometimes it is with the greatest labor and trial, that in our Christian course we make any progress whatever. We have to clamber from duty to duty, from prayer to prayer, from chapter to chapter in God's word. It is like an invalid climbing the pyramids, and with all the assistance we can get,