by the faith of adherence." And then the whole truth is in a
nutshell in Isaiah and in John: "The effect of righteousness shall be
quietness and assurance for ever," and "My little children, let us not
love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth. And hereby we
shall know that we are of the truth, and so shall assure our hearts
before Him."

CHRISTIANA

"Honour widows that are widows indeed."--_Paul_.

We know next to nothing of Christiana till after she is a widow indeed.
The names of her parents, and what kind of parents they were, the schools
and the boarding-schools to which they sent their daughter, her school
companions, the books she read, if she ever read any books at all, the
amusements she was indulged in and indulged herself in--on all that her
otherwise full and minute biographer is wholly silent. He does not go
back beyond her married life; he does not even go back to the beginning
of that. The only thing we are sure of about Christiana's early days is
that she was an utterly ungodly woman and that she married an utterly
ungodly man. "Have you a family? Are you a married man?" asked Charity
of Christian in the House Beautiful. "I have a wife and four small
children," he replied. "And why did you not bring them along with you?"
Then Christian wept, and said: "Oh, how willingly would I have done it;
but they were all utterly averse to my going on pilgrimage." "But you
should have talked to them," said Charity, "and have endeavoured to have
shown them the danger of being behind." "So I did," answered Christian.
"And did you pray to God that He would bless your counsel to them?" "Yes,
and with much affection; for you must think that my wife and poor
children were very dear unto me." "But what could they say for
themselves why they came not?" "Why, my wife was afraid of losing the
world, and my children were given over to the foolish delights of youth;
so what with one thing and what with another, they left me to wander in
this manner alone."

But what her husband's conversion, good example, and most earnest
entreaties could not all do for his worldly wife, that his sudden death
speedily did. And thus it is that both Christiana's best life, all our
interest in her, and all our information about her, dates, sad to say,
not from her espousal, nor from her marriage day, nor from any part of
her married life, but from her husband's death. Her maidenhood has no
interest for