passages ever got by inspired apostles, or by any other men, but out of
their own bloody battles with their own wild-headedness, intolerance,
dislike, and resentment? Where do you suppose I got the true key to the
veiled metaphor of Valiant-for-truth? It does not exactly hang on the
doorpost of his history. Where, then, could I get it but off the inside
wall of my own place of repentance? Just as you understand what I am now
labouring to say, not from my success in saying it, but from your own
trespasses against humility and love, your unadvised speeches, and your
wild and whirling words. Without shame and remorse, without
self-condemnation and self-contempt, none of those great passages of
Paul, or John, or Bunyan, or Law were ever written; and without a like
shame, remorse, self-condemnation, and self-contempt they are not rightly
read.

"Oh! who shall dare in this frail scene
On holiest, happiest thoughts to lean,
On Friendship, Kindred, or on Love?
Since not Apostles' hands can clasp
Each other in so firm a grasp,
But they shall change and variance prove.

"But sometimes even beneath the moon
The Saviour gives a gracious boon,
When reconciled Christians meet,
And face to face, and heart to heart,
High thoughts of Holy love impart
In silence meek, or converse sweet.

"Oh then the glory and the bliss
When all that pained or seemed amiss
Shall melt with earth and sin away!
When saints beneath their Saviour's eye,
Filled with each other's company,
Shall spend in love the eternal day!"

6. Then said Greatheart to Mr. Valiant-for-truth, "Thou hast worthily
behaved thyself; let me see thy sword." So he showed it him. When he
had taken it in his hand and had looked thereon a while, the guide said:
"Ha! it is a right Jerusalem blade!" "It is so," replied its owner. "Let
a man have one of these blades with a hand to wield it, and skill to use
it, and he may venture upon an angel with it. Its edges will never
blunt. It will cut flesh, and bones, and soul, and spirit, and all."
Both Damascus and Toledo blades were famous in former days for their
tenacity and flexibility, and for the beauty and the edge of their steel.
But even a Damascus blade would be worthless in a weak, cowardly, or
unskilled hand; while even a poor sword in the hand of a good swordsman
will do excellent execution. And much more so when you have both a first-
rate sword and a firs