ream. You would have
thought it was Paul himself talking to himself on the road to Assos. For
I defy even the apostle himself to have talked better or more boldly to
himself even on the solid midday road than Standfast talked to himself in
the bridgeless river. "I see myself," he said, "at the end of my journey
now. My toilsome days are all ended. I am going now to see that head
that was crowned with thorns, and that face that was spat upon for me. I
loved to hear my Lord spoken of, and wherever I have seen the print of
His shoe in the earth I have coveted to set my foot also. His name has
been to me as a civet-box; yea, sweeter than all perfumes. His word I
did use to gather for my food, and for antidotes against my faintings. He
has held me, and I have kept me from my iniquities. Yea, my steps He has
strengthened in my way." Now, while Standfast was thus in discourse his
countenance changed, his strong man bowed down under him, and after he
had said "Take me!" he ceased to be seen of them. But how glorious it
was to see how the open region was now filled with horses and chariots,
with trumpeters and pipers, and with singers and players on stringed
instruments, all to welcome the pilgrims as they went up and followed one
another in at the beautiful gate of the city!

MADAM BUBBLE

"Vanity of vanities, all is vanity."--_Solomon_.

"I have overcome the world."--_Our Lord_.

"Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. For
all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes,
and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And
the world passeth away, and the lust thereof."--_John_.

"This bubble world."--_Quarles_.

Madam Bubble's portrait was first painted by the Preacher. And he
painted her portrait with extraordinary insight, boldness, and
truthfulness. There is that in the Preacher's portrait of Madam Bubble
which only comes of the artist having mixed his colours, as Milman says
that Tacitus mixed his ink, with resentment and with remorse. Out of His
reading of Solomon and Moses and the Prophets on this same subject, as
well as out of His own observation and experience, conflict and conquest,
our Lord added some strong and deep and inward touches of His own to that
well-known picture, and then named it by the New Testament name of the
World. And then, after Him, His longest-lived disciple set forth the
same mother