ough
the Slough, and first up and then down the Hill Difficulty, and past all
the lions, and over a thousand other obstacles and stumbling-blocks, till
he arrived at mine host's so hospitable door? The first surprised sight
we get of this so handicapped pilgrim is when Greatheart and Feeble-mind
are in the heat of their discourse at the hostelry door. At that moment
Mr. Ready-to-halt came by with his crutches in his hand, and he also was
going on pilgrimage. Thus, therefore, they went on. Mr. Greatheart and
Mr. Honest went on before, Christiana and her children went next, and Mr.
Feeble-mind and Mr. Ready-to-halt came behind with his crutches.

"Put by the curtains, look within my veil,
Turn up my metaphors, and do not fail,
There, if thou seekest them, such things to find,
As will be helpful to an honest mind."

1. Well, then, when we put by the curtains and turn up the metaphors,
what do we find? What, but just this, that poor Mr. Ready-to-halt was,
after all, the greatest and the best believer, as the New Testament would
have called him, in all the pilgrimage. We have not found so great faith
as that of Mr. Ready-to-halt, no, not in the very best of the pilgrim
bands. Each several pilgrim had, no doubt, his own good qualities; but,
at pure and downright believing--at taking God at His bare and simple
word--Mr. Ready-to-halt beat them all. All that flashes in upon us from
one shining word that stands on the margin of our so metaphorical author.
This single word, the "promises," hangs like a key of gold beside the
first mention of Mr. Ready-to-halt's crutches--a key such that in a
moment it throws open the whole of Mr. Ready-to-halt's otherwise lockfast
and secret and inexplicable life. There it all is, as plain as a pike-
staff now! Yes; Mr. Ready-to-halt's crutches are just the divine
promises. I wonder I did not see that all the time. Why, I could
compose all his past life myself now. I have his father and his mother
and his nurse at my finger-ends now. This poor pilgrim--unless it would
be impertinence to call him poor any more--had no limbs to be called
limbs. Such limbs as he had were only an encumbrance to this unique
pedestrian. All the limbs he had were in his crutches. He had not one
atom of strength to lean upon apart from his crutches. A bone, a muscle,
a tendon, a sinew, may be ill-nourished, undeveloped, green, and unknit,
but, at the worst, they are inside of a man and the