The Pilgrim’s Progress

FAITH. He hath, since his going back, been held greatly in derision, and that among all sorts of people: some do mock and despise him, and scarce any will set him on work. He is now seven times worse than if he had never gone out of the city.

CHRIS. But why should they be set so against him, since they also despise the way that he forsook?

FAITH. “Oh,” they say, “hang him; he is a turncoat! he was not true to his profession!” I think God has stirred up even his enemies to hiss at him and laugh at him, because he hath forsaken the way.

CHRIS. Had you no talk with him before you came out?

FAITH. I met him once in the streets, but he leered away on the other side, as one ashamed of what he had done; so I spake not to him.

CHRIS. Well, at my first setting out, I had hopes of that man, but now I fear he will perish in the overthrow of the city. For it has happened to him according to the true proverb, “The dog is turned to his vomit again, and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.”

FAITH. These are my fears of him too; but who can hinder that which will be?

CHRIS. “Well, neighbor Faithful,” said Christian, “let us leave him, and talk of things that more immediately concern ourselves. Tell me now what you have met with in the way as you came; for I know you have met with some things, or else it may be writ for a wonder.”

FAITH. I escaped the slough that I perceive you fell into, and got up to the gate without that danger; only I met with one whose name was Wanton, that had like to have done me a mischief.

CHRIS. It was well you escaped her net: Joseph was hard put to it by her, and he escaped her as you did; but it had like to have cost him his life. But what did she do to you?

FAITH. You cannot think (but that you know something) what a flattering tongue she had; she lay at me hard to turn aside with her, promising me all manner of enjoyment.

CHRIS. Nay, she did not promise you the enjoyment of a good conscience.

FAITH. You know what I mean—not the enjoyment of the soul, but of the body.

CHRIS. Thank God you have escaped her: the abhorred of the Lord shall fall into her ditch.

FAITH. Nay, I know not whether I did wholly escape her or no.

CHRIS. Why, I suppose you did not consent to her desires?

FAITH. No, not to defile myself; for I remembered an old writing that I had seen which saith, “Her steps take hold of hell.” So I shut mine eyes, because I would not be bewitched with her looks. Then she railed on me, and I went my way.

CHRIS. Did you meet with no other assault as you came?

FAITHFUL AND ADAM THE FIRST

FAITH. When I came to the foot of the hill called Difficulty, I met with a very aged man, who asked me what I was and whither bound. I told him that I was a pilgrim, going to the Celestial City. Then said the old man, “Thou lookest like an honest fellow: wilt thou be content to dwell with me, for the wages that I shall give thee?” Then I asked him his name, and where he dwelt. He said his name was Adam the First, and that he dwelt in the town of Deceit. I asked him then what was his work, and what the wages that he would give. He told me that his work was many delights; and his wages, that I should be his heir at last. I further asked him what house he kept, and what other servants he had. So he told me that his house was filled with all the dainties of the world, and that his servants were his own children. Then I asked him how many children he had. He said that he had but three daughters, the Lust of the Flesh, the Lust of the Eyes, and the Pride of Life, and that I should marry them if I would. Then I asked, how long time he would have me live with him? And he told me, As long as he lived himself.

CHRIS. Well, and what conclusion came the old man and you to at last?

FAITH. Why, at first I found myself somewhat inclinable to go with the man, for I thought he spake very fair; but looking in his forehead, as I talked with him, I saw there written, “Put off the old man with his deeds.”

CHRIS. And how then?

FAITH. Then it came burning hot into my mind, whatever he said, and however he flattered, when he got home to his house he would sell me for a slave. So I bid him forbear, for I would not come near the door of his house. Then he reviled me, and told me that he would send such a one after me that should make my way bitter to my soul. So I turned to go away from him; but, just as I turned myself to go thence, I felt him take hold of my flesh, and give me such a deadly twitch back, that I thought he had pulled part of me after himself: this made me cry, “O wretched man!” So I went on my way up the hill. Now, when I had got about half-way up, I looked behind me, and saw one coming after me, swift as the wind; so he overtook me just about the place where the settle stands.

CHRIS. “Just there,” said Christian, “did I sit down to rest me; but being overcome with sleep, I there lost this roll out of my bosom.”

FAITH. But, good brother, hear me out. So soon as the man overtook me, he was but a word and a blow; for down he knocked me, and laid me for dead. But, when I was a little come to myself again, I asked him wherefore he served me so. He said, because of my secret inclining to Adam the First. And, with that, he struck me another deadly blow on the breast, and beat me down backwards; so I lay at his feet as dead as before. So, when I came to myself again, I cried him mercy; but he said, “I know not how to show mercy;” and, with that, he knocked me down again. He had doubtless made an end of me, but that One came by, and bid him forbear.

CHRIS. Who was that that bid him forbear?

FAITH. I did not know him at first; but, as He went by, I perceived the holes in His hands and His side; then I concluded that He was our Lord. So I went up the hill.

CHRIS. That man that overtook you was Moses. He spareth none, neither knoweth he how to show mercy to those that disobey his law.

FAITH. I know it very well: it was not the first time that he has met with me. It was he that came to me when I dwelt securely at home, and that told me he would burn my house over my head if I stayed there.

CHRIS. But did not you see the house that stood there, on the top of that hill on the side of which Moses met you?

FAITH. Yes, and the lions too, before I came at it. But, for the lions, I think they were asleep, for it was about noon; and because I had so much of the day before me I passed by the Porter, and came down the hill.

CHRIS. He told me, indeed, that he saw you go by; but I wished you had called at the house, for they would have showed you so many rarities, that you would scarce have forgot them to the day of your death. But pray tell me, did you meet nobody in the Valley of Humility?

FAITH. Yes, I met with one Discontent, who would willingly have persuaded me to go back again with him: his reason was, for that the valley was altogether without honor. He told me, moreover, that there to go was the way to disoblige all my friends, as Pride, Arrogancy, Self-Conceit, Worldly-Glory, with others, who he knew, as he said, would be very much offended if I made such a fool of myself as to wade through this valley.

CHRIS. Well, and how did you answer him?

FAITH. I told him that, although all these that he named might claim kindred of me, and that rightly (for, indeed, they were my relations according to the flesh), yet, since I became a pilgrim, they have disowned me, as I also have rejected them; and therefore they were to me now no more than if they had never been of my lineage. I told him, moreover, that as to this valley, he had quite misrepresented the thing; for before honor is humility, and a haughty spirit before a fall. “Therefore,” said I, “I had rather go through this valley to the honor that was so accounted by the wisest, than choose that which he esteemed most worthy of our affections.”

CHRIS. Met you with nothing else in that valley?

SHAME A BOLD VILLAIN

FAITH. Yes, I met with Shame; but, of all the men that I met with in my pilgrimage, he I think, bears the wrong name. The others would take “No” for an answer, at least after some words of denial; but this bold-faced Shame would never have done.

CHRIS. Why, what did he say to you?

FAITH. What? why, he objected against religion itself. He said it was a pitiful, low, sneaking business for a man to mind religion. He said that a tender conscience was an unmanly thing; and that for a man to watch over his words and ways, so as to tie up himself from that liberty that the brave spirits of the times accustom themselves unto, would make him the ridicule of all the people in our time. He objected also, that but a few of the mighty, rich, or wise were ever of my opinion; nor any of them neither, before they were persuaded to be fools, to venture the loss of all for nobody else knows what. He, moreover, objected the base and low estate and condition of those that were chiefly the pilgrims of the times in which they lived; also their ignorance, and want of understanding in all worldly knowledge. Yea, he did hold me to it at that rate also, about a great many more things than here I relate; as, that it was a shame to sit whining and mourning under a sermon, and a shame to come sighing and groaning home; that it was a shame to ask my neighbor forgiveness for petty faults, or to give back what I had taken from any. He said also that religion made a man grow strange to the great, because of a few vices (which he called by finer names), and because religion made him own and respect the base, who were of the same religious company; “and is not this,” said he, “a shame?”

CHRIS. And what did you say to him?

FAITH. Say? I could not tell what to say at first. Yea, he put me so to it that my blood came up in my face; even this Shame fetched it up, and had almost beat me quite off. But at last I began to consider that that which is highly esteemed among men is had in abomination with God. And I thought again, This Shame tells me what men are, but it tells me nothing what God, or the Word of God is. And I thought, moreover, that at the day of doom we shall not be doomed to death or life according to the spirits of the world, but according to the wisdom and law of the Highest. Therefore, thought I, what God says is best—is best, though all the men in the world are against it. Seeing, then, that God prefers His religion; seeing God prefers a tender conscience; seeing they that make themselves fools for the kingdom of heaven are wisest, and that the poor man that loveth Christ is richer than the greatest man in the world that hates Him; Shame, depart! thou art an enemy to my salvation. Shall I listen to thee against my sovereign Lord? how, then, shall I look Him in the face at His coming? Should I now be ashamed of His way and servants how can I expect the blessing? But, indeed, this Shame was a bold villain: I could scarce shake him out of my company; yea, he would be haunting of me, and continually whispering me in the ear with some one or other of the weak things that attend religion. But at last I told him it was in vain to attempt further in this business; for those things that he despised, in those did I see most glory; and so, at last, I got past this persistent one. And when I had shaken him off, then I began to sing,

“The trials that those men do meet withal,

That are obedient to the heavenly call,

Are manifold, and suited to the flesh,

And come, and come, and come again afresh;

That now, or some time else, we by them may

Be taken, overcome, and cast away.

Oh, let the pilgrims, let the pilgrims then,