said Christian; 'here is the easiest going. Come, good Hopeful,
and let us go over.' Hopeful: 'But how if the path should lead us out of
the way?' 'That's not like,' said the other; 'look, doth it not go along
by the wayside?' So Hopeful, being persuaded by his fellow, went after
him over the stile.

Call to mind, all you who are delivered and restored pilgrims, that same
stile that once seduced you. To keep that stile ever before you is at
once a safe and a seemly occupation of mind for any one who has made your
mistakes and come through your chastisements. Christian's eyes all his
after-days filled with tears, and he turned away his face and blushed
scarlet, as often as he suddenly came upon any opening in a wall at all
like that opening he here persuaded Hopeful to climb through. It is too
much to expect that those who are just mounting the stile, and have just
caught sight of the smooth path beyond it, will let themselves be pulled
back into the hard and narrow way by any persuasion of ours. Christian
put down Hopeful's objection till Hopeful broke out bitterly when the
thunder was roaring over his head and he was wading about among the dark
waters: 'Oh that I had kept myself in my way!' Are you a little sorry to-
night that the river and the way are parting in your life? Is your soul
discouraged in you because of the soreness of the way? And as you go do
you still wish for some better way than the strait way? And have you
just espied a stile on the left hand of your narrow and flinty path, and
on looking over it is there a pleasant meadow? And does your companion
point out to your satisfaction, and, almost to your good conscience, that
the soft road runs right along the hard road, only over the stile and
outside the fence? Then, good-bye. For it is all over with you. We
shall meet you again, please God; but when we meet you again, your mind
and memory will be full of shame and remorse and suffering enough to keep
you in songs of repentance for all the rest of your life on earth.
Farewell!

The Pilgrims now, to gratify the flesh,
Will seek its ease; but oh! how they afresh
Do thereby plunge themselves new grieves into:
Who seek to please the flesh themselves undo.

3. The two transgressors had not gone far on their own way when night
came on and with the night a very great darkness. But what soon added to
the horror of their condition was that they heard a man fall into a deep
pit r