men we feel it unsafe to leave long alone with our friends. We feel
sure that they will be talking about us, and that to our hurt, as soon as
our backs are about. But to give that tall man his due, he was not given
with all his talk to tale-bearing or scandal or detraction. Had he been
guilty of any of these things, Faithful would soon have found him out,
and would have left him to go to the Celestial City by himself. But,
after talking for half a day with Talkative, instead of finding out
anything wrong in the tall man's talk, Faithful was so taken and so
struck with it, that he stepped across to Christian and said, 'What a
brave companion we have got! Surely this man will make a most excellent
pilgrim!' 'So I once thought too,' said Christian, 'till I went to live
beside him, and have to do with him in the business of daily life.' Yes,
it is near neighbourhood and the business of everyday life that try a
talking man. If you go to a meeting for prayer, and hear some men
praying and speaking on religious subjects, you would say to yourself,
What a good man that is, and how happy must his wife and children and
servants and neighbours be with such an example always before them, and
with such an intercessor for them always with God! But if you were to go
home with that so devotional man, and try to do business with him, and
were compelled to cross him and go against him, you would find out why
Christian smiled so when Faithful was so full of Talkative's praises.

But of all the religiously-loquacious men of our day, your ministers are
the chief. For your ministers must talk in public, and that often and at
great length, whether they are truly religious men at home or no. It is
their calling to talk to you unceasingly about religious matters. You
chose them to be your ministers because they could talk well. You would
not put up with a minister who could not talk well on religious things.
You estimate them by their talk. You praise and pay them by their talk.
And if they are to live, talk incessantly to you about religion they
must, and they do. If any other man among us is not a religious man,
well, then, he can at least hold his tongue. There is no necessity laid
on him to speak in public about things that he does not practise at home.
But we hard-bested ministers must go on speaking continually about the
most solemn things. And if we are not extraordinarily watchful over
ourselves, and extraordinarily and i