now looked back with so much shame
and detestation was not England or Bedfordshire, but the wicked life he
had lived in that land and in that shire. And when Charity asked him as
to whether he was a married man and had a family, she knew quite well
that he was, only she made a pretence of asking him those domestic
questions in order thereby to start the touching conversation.

Beginning, then, at home, as she always began, Charity said to Christian,
'Have you a family? Are you a married man?' 'I have a wife and four
small children,' answered Christian. 'And why did you not bring them
with you?' Then Christian wept and said, 'Oh, how willingly would I have
done so, but they were all of them utterly averse to my going on
pilgrimage.' 'But you should have talked to them and have shown them
their danger.' 'So I did,' he replied, 'but I seemed to them as one that
mocked.' Now, this of talking, and, especially, of talking about
religious things to children, is one of the most difficult things in the
world,--that is, to do it well. Some people have the happy knack of
talking to their own and to other people's children so as always to
interest and impress them. But such happy people are few. Most people
talk at their children whenever they begin to talk to them, and thus,
without knowing it, they nauseate their children with their conversation
altogether. To respect a little child, to stand in some awe of a little
child, to choose your topics, your opportunities, your neighbourhood,
your moods and his as well as all your words, and always to speak your
sincerest, simplest, most straightforward and absolutely wisest is
indispensable with a child. Take your mannerisms, your condescensions,
your affectations, your moralisings, and all your insincerities to your
debauched equals, but bring your truest and your best to your child.
Unless you do so, you will be sure to lay yourself open to a look that
will suddenly go through you, and that will swiftly convey to you that
your child sees through you and despises you and your conversation too.
'You should not only have talked to your children of their danger,' said
Charity, 'but you should have shown them their danger.' Yes, Charity;
but a man must himself see his own and his children's danger too, before
he can show it to them, as well as see it clearly at the time he is
trying to show it to them. And how many fathers, do you suppose, have
the eyes to see such danger, a