es from the king's treasury, got
through at last by a strength which they felt not to be their own.
One poor man, who carried the largest bundle of bad habits I had
seen, could not get on a step; he never ceased, however, to implore
for light enough to see where his misery lay; he threw down one of
his bundles, then another, but all to little purpose; still he could
not stir. At last _striving as if in agony_ (which is the true way
of entering) he threw down the heaviest article in his pack; this
was _selfishness_; the poor fellow felt relieved at once, his light
burned brightly, and the rest of his pack was as nothing.

Then I heard a great noise as of carpenters at work. I looked what
this might be, and saw many sturdy travelers, who, finding they were
too bulky to get through, took it into their heads not to reduce
themselves, but to widen the gate; they hacked on this side, and
hewed on that; but all their hacking, and hewing, and hammering was
to no purpose, they got their labor for their pains. It would have
been possible for them to have reduced themselves, had they
attempted it, but to widen the narrow way was impossible.

What grieved me most was to observe that many who had got on
successfully a good way, now stopped to rest and to admire their own
progress. While they were thus valuing themselves on their
attainments, their light diminished. While these were boasting how
far they had left others behind who had set out much earlier, some
slower travelers, whose beginning had not been so promising, but who
had walked meekly and circumspectly, now outstripped them. These
last walked not as though they had already attained; but this one
thing they did, forgetting the things which were behind, they pushed
forward to the mark, for the prize of their high calling. These,
though naturally weak, yet _by laying aside every weight, finished
the race that was before them_. Those who had kept their "light
burning," who were not "wise in their own conceit," who "laid their
help on one that is mighty," who had "chosen to suffer affliction
rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season," came at
length to the _Happy Land_. They had indeed the _Dark and Shadowy
Valley_ to cross, but even there they found a _rod and a staff_ to
comfort them. Their light instead of being put out by the damps of
the Valley and of the Shadow of Death, often burned with added
brightness. Some indeed suffered the terrors of a short eclips