Now there were four capital errors which the Pilgrims had already committed; (1,) they had discontentedly wished for a better way; (2,) they had gone up to the stile to look over it; (3,) they had climbed over the stile; (4,) they had taken encouragement by a wrong example, and followed Vain-confidence; and, what was strange, the older and stronger Christian had led the younger and weaker one out of the way. Now when the night came on, and the storm, they began to find how evil and bitter a thing it is to wander from God. They heard the fall of Vain-confidence into a deep, dreadful pit, and they heard him groan, but could see nothing; and now they bemoan their folly, and though they are both in a sad case, yet Christian's is certainly the worse, for having led Hopeful out of the way; and most humbly and ingenuously does he beg his brother's pardon.

But why, in that tempestuous night, when the waters were rising around them, did they not obey the voice which they heard, and persevere, amidst all dangers, till they had gotten again into the King's highway? Sometimes the Pilgrims, who have thus wandered into darkness, seek relief by duties, and not by Christ; and so conscience gets a temporary quiet, but a false one; there is no place of safety, short of Christ. Some such relief these Pilgrims seem to have gotten, in that they reached a rising ground, above the waters, and there being thoroughly tired, and not being able, or thinking they were not, to reach the King's highway that night, they there lay down and slept. But ah, what sleep can there be until the soul has come

back to Christ? unforgiven sin? at all, but kept

What sleep can there be amidst They had better not have slept struggling amidst the storm all night long, for these grounds were the grounds of Giant Despair, and Giant Despair found them, not striving to get back, but fast asleep for sorrow and weariness. Ah, what safety can there be for sleepers away from Christ? This sleep was worse for Christian and Hopeful that that in the Arbor. So do Christians sometimes make an imperfect return to duty in their own strength; and conscience thus being imperfectly quieted, lulled by a sleep, and not sprinkled by the blood of Christ, Giant Despair after all finds them in his grounds, and carries them away to his castle.

Now were Christian and Hopeful in a dreadful case; deep down in darkness, the bars of the earth and of death around them, no food, nor drink, nor light, nor comfort, the weeds were wrapped about their head, and in this dungeon they cried as out of the belly of hell, bemoaning themselves to one another with groans and lamentations. The description which Bunyan has given of their treatment by the Giant is exquisitely beautiful and affecting; no part of the Pilgrim's Progress makes a deeper impression than this; and the different manner in which the two Pilgrims endure these trials, forms a development of charac ter which in no other portion of the work is more profound and instructive. Hopeful continues hopeful, even in despair; Christian at one time abandons all hope, and listens seriously to the Giant's infernal temptations to self-destruction. Hopeful

had not fallen so far as Christian, for Christian had been the more eminent and experienced Pilgrim of the two, and had also led his fellow astray. But this did not make all the difference. Hopeful's frame of mind was naturally more elastic than Christian's; he was of a more joyous temperament, and more apt to look on the bright side; not so deep, grave and far-sighted as Christian, and not capable, in any case, of quite such deep trials of feeling. Hopeful's spirits soon rose again, but Christian, when he is down on account of sin, is brought even to the gates of hell. How affectingly instructive are Hopeful's arguments with Christian to dissuade him from suicide. Doubtless, good men have been tempted in this way, but strange enough it seems that a sense of God's wrath and desertion on account of sin should tempt a man to plunge deeper into such wrath, nay, to incur it past redemption.

Christian never dreamed of destroying himself when he was fighting with Apollyon, in passing through the Valley of the Shadow of Death; but a sense of sin, and of God's wrath on account of it, quite unmans the soul; none can stand against God's terrors. A thousand fiends may

easier be met with, than the remembrance of one sin. Besides, in the conflict with Apollyon, and the passage of the Valley of the Shadow of Death, Christian was in the course of his duty; both these dangers lay directly in the path to the Celestial City, so that, though hard beset, and pressed out of measure, Christian was not despairing, for he knew he met those evils in the right way; but here

thus gradually the soul gets farther and farther from God, from Christ, from grace, from duty, and duty becomes more difficult, and the allurements of By-Path Meadow more dangerous, perhaps openly sinful; and then the night and storm come on, and in the morning, Giant Despair, prowling about his grounds, takes the trespassers, and shuts them under lock and key in his dungeon.

The pursuit of duty, though it be the way of self-denial, is without doubt the only way of peace and safety. But some Pilgrims get into Doubting Castle by neglecting one set of duties while they perform others. In all our callings there are

some duties more difficult than others, and some that are more pleasing to our natural inclinations. A merchant or tradesman loves to be diligent in his business, and all the active duties and even great fatigue in the course of it, are yet pleasing to him; but the Word of God and prayer are not so naturally pleasing to him, and spiritual fatigue is not so readily encountered by him. A farmer loves the external occupations of his farm, and he must make hay while the sun shines, and he is not likely to get into By-Path Meadow by neglecting the making of his hay; but it is not so natural for him to pray, and he may possibly get into Doubting Castle by neglecting his prayers in August, that he may get in his hay in its season during the fair weather. A minister, who loves more to study, or to visit, than to pray, finds it very easy to study but very hard to pray; sometimes his very sermons may so occupy him, that he too may think he has not present time

for prayer; nevertheless, by neglects and omissions in any way, he may fall into Doubting Castle, kept by Giant Despair. A prudent, busy house-wife may love much better to be like Martha, anxious and troubled about many things, bustling and busy from morning till night, than to be like Mary, sitting at the feet of Jesus. Domestic avocations often constitute a By-Path Meadow, where spiritual duties are neglected, and so the soul wanders into the regions of Giant Despair.

The delineation of By-Path Meadow, with the experience of the Pilgrims in it, is very affecting and very beautiful. Every man knows what ByPath Meadow means, as well as what Doubting Castle signifies. In general, some habit or mode of self-indulgence, some shrinking back from the hardness of the pilgrimage, and some departure from its duties, for indulgence to the flesh, is here shadowed forth. But it is observable that just before the Pilgrims wandered from the right way into this Meadow they had a season of great delight in the Word of God, great enjoyment in their Christian pilgrimage. After by divine grace they had been delivered from the temptations of Demas, they had sweet communion with God, reviving communications of the Holy Spirit, rich draughts from the Water of Life, delightful views of the preciousness of Christ, and such green pastures, such quiet meadows, with lillies and still waters, that it seemed as if all their conflicts were over, and they had nothing to do but to enjoy these abundant consolations. The passage in which Bunyan has descibed these earnests of the