ack, then,
from thy well-earned rest, O brave Greatheart! go back to thy waiting
task. Put on again thy whole armour. Receive again, and again fulfil,
thy Master's commission, till He has no more commissions left for thy
brave heart and thy bold hand to execute. And, one glorious day, while
thou art still returning to thy task, it shall suddenly sound in thy
dutiful ears:--"Well done! good and faithful servant!" And then thou too

"Shalt hang thy trumpet in the hall
And study war no more."

MR. READY-TO-HALT

"For I am ready to halt."--_David_.

Mr. Ready-to-halt is the Mephibosheth of the pilgrimage. While
Mephibosheth was still a child in arms, his nurse let the young prince
fall, and from that day to the day of his death he was lame in both his
feet. Mephibosheth's life-long lameness, and then David's extraordinary
grace to the disinherited cripple in commanding him to eat continually at
the king's table; in those two points we have all that we know about Mr.
Ready-to-halt also. We have no proper portrait, as we say, of Mr. Ready-
to-halt. Mr. Ready-to-halt is but a name on John Bunyan's pages--a name
set upon two crutches; but, then, his simple name is so suggestive and
his two crutches are so eloquent, that I feel as if we might venture to
take this life-long lameter and his so serviceable crutches for our
character-lecture to-night.

John Bunyan, who could so easily and so delightfully have done it, has
given us no information at all about Mr. Ready-to-halt's early days. For
once his English passion for a pedigree has not compelled our author's
pen. We would have liked immensely to have been told the name, and to
have seen displayed the whole family tree of young Ready-to-halt's
father; and, especially, of his mother. Who was his nurse also? And did
she ever forgive herself for the terrible injury she had done her young
master? What were his occupations and amusements as a little cripple
boy? Who made him his first crutch? Of what wood was it made? And at
what age, and under whose kind and tender directions did he begin to use
it? And, then, with such an infirmity, what ever put it into Mr. Ready-
to-halt's head to attempt the pilgrimage? For the pilgrimage was a task
and a toil that took all the limbs and all the lungs and all the labours
and all the endurances that the strongest and the bravest of men could
bring to bear upon it. How did this complete cripple ever get thr