irst be overcome;
Who live abroad would, first must die at home.

6. Greatheart again and again at the river-side, Greatheart sending
pilgrim after pilgrim over the river with rapture, and he himself still
summoned to turn his back on the Celestial City, and to retrace his steps
through the land of Beulah, through the Valley of the Shadow of Death,
and through the Valley of Humiliation, and back to the Interpreter's
house to take on another and another and another convoy of fresh
pilgrims, and his own abundant entrance still put off and never to
come,--our hearts bleed for poor Greatheart. Back and forward, back and
forward, year after year, this noble soul uncomplainingly goes. And,
ever as he waves his hand to another pilgrim entering with trumpets
within the gates, he salutes his next pilgrim charge with the brave
words: "Yet what I shall choose I wot not. For I am in a strait betwixt
two: having a desire to depart and to be with Christ. Nevertheless to
abide in the flesh is more needful for you, for your furtherance and joy
of faith by my coming to you again." If Greatheart could not "usher
himself out of this life" along with Christiana, and Mercy, and Mr.
Honest, and Standfast, and Valiant-for-truth--if he had still to toil
back and bleed his way up again at the head of another happy band of
pilgrims--well, after all is said, what had the Celestial City itself to
give to Greatheart better than such blessed work? With every such
returning journey he got a more and more enlarged, detached, hospitable,
and Christ-like heart, and the King's palace in very glory itself had
nothing better in store for this soldier-guide than that. A nobler
heaven Greatheart could not taste than he had already in himself, as he
championed another and another pilgrim company from his Master's earthly
gate to his Master's heavenly gate. Like Paul, his apostolic prototype,
Greatheart sometimes vacillated just for a moment when he came a little
too near heaven, and felt its magnificent and almost dissolving
attractions full in his soul. You will see Greatheart's mind staggering
for a moment between rest and labour, between war and peace, between
"Christ" on earth and "Christ" in heaven--you will see all that set forth
with great sympathy and great ability in Principal Rainy's new book on
Paul's Epistle to the Philippians, and in the chapter entitled, The
Apostle's Choice between Living and Dying.

Then there came a summons for