do; still his dimensions were
too large. He now looked up and read these words: "How hardly shall
they who have riches enter into the kingdom of God!" The poor man
sighed to find that it was impossible to enjoy his fill of both
worlds, and "went away sorrowing." If he ever afterwards cast a
thought towards the Happy land, it was only to regret that the road
which led to it was too narrow to admit any but the meagre children of
want, who were not so encumbered by wealth as to be too big for the
passage. Had he read on, he would have seen that "with God all things
are possible."

Another advanced with much confidence of success; for having little
worldly riches or honors, the gate did not seem so strait to him. He
got to the threshold triumphantly, and seemed to look back with
disdain on all that he was quitting. He soon found, however, that he
was so bloated with pride, and stuffed out with self-sufficiency, that
he could not get in. Nay, he was in a worse way than the rich man just
named, for _he_ was willing to throw away some of his outward luggage;
whereas this man refused to part with a grain of that vanity and
self-applause which made him too big for the way. The sense of his own
worth so swelled him out, that he stuck fast in the gateway, and could
neither get in nor out.

Finding now that he must cut off all those big thoughts of himself,
if he wished to be reduced to such a size as to pass the gate, he gave
up all thoughts of it. He scorned that humility and self-denial which
might have shrunk him down to the proper dimensions: the more he
insisted on his own qualifications for entrance, the more impossible
it became to enter, for the bigger he grew. Finding that he must
become quite another manner of man before he could hope to get in, he
gave up the desire; and I now saw, that though when he set his face
towards the Happy land he could not get an inch forward, yet the
instant he made a motion to turn back into the world, his speed became
rapid enough, and he got back into the Broad-way much sooner than he
had got out of it.

Many, who for a time were brought down from their usual bulk by some
affliction, seemed to get in with ease. They now thought all their
difficulties over; for having been surfeited with the world during
their late disappointment, they turned their backs upon it willingly
enough. A fit of sickness perhaps, which is very apt to _reduce_, had
for a time brought their bodies into subjecti