s and yielded almonds, so Tiresias' staff
budded eyes, and divine eyes too, for the blind prophet's guidance and
direction. Tiresias had but to take his heaven-given staff in his hand,
when, straightway, such a divinity entered into the staff that it both
saw for him with divine eyes, and heard for him with divine ears, and
then led him and directed him, and never once in all his after journeys
let him go off the right way. All other men about him, prophets and
priests both, often lost their way, but Tiresias after his blindness,
never, till Tiresias and his staff became a proverb and a parable in the
land. And just such a staff, just such a crutch, just such a pair of
crutches, were the crutches of our own so homely Mr. Ready-to-halt. With
all their lusty limbs, all the other pilgrims often stumbled and went out
of their way till they had to be helped up, led back, and their faces set
right again. But, last as Mr. Ready-to-halt always came in the
procession--behind even the women and the children as his crutches always
kept him--you will seek in vain for the dot of those crutches on any by-
path or on any wrong road. No; the fact is, if you wish to go to the
same city, and are afraid you lose the way; as Evangelist said, "Do you
see yon shining light?" so I would say to you to-night, "Do you see these
crutch-marks on the road?" Well, keep your feet in the prints of these
crutches, and as sure as you do that they will lead you straight to a
chariot and horses, which, again, will carry you inside the city gates.
For Mr. Ready-to-halt's crutches have not only eyes like Tiresias' staff,
they have ears also, and hands and feet. A lamp also burns on those
crutches; and wine and oil distil from their wonderful wood. Happy
blindness that brings such a staff! Happy exchange! eyes full of earth
and sin for eyes full of heaven and holiness!

4. "They began to be merry," says our Lord, telling the story of the
heart-broken father who had got back his younger son from a far country.
And even Feeble-mind and Ready-to-halt begin to be merry on the green
that day after Doubting Castle has fallen to Greatheart's arms. Now,
Christiana, if need was, could play upon the viol, and her daughter Mercy
upon the lute; and, since they were so merry disposed, she played them a
lesson, and Mr. Ready-to-halt would dance. So he paid a boy a penny to
hold one of his crutches, and, taking Miss Much-afraid by the hand, to
dancing they went