His
illustrations and Arguments carried so much Persuasion and Conviction
with them, that they remained a considerable while fresh, and working
in my Memory; till at last the Mind, fatigued with Thought, gave way
to the forcible Oppressions of Slumber and Sleep, whilst Fancy,
unwilling yet to drop the Subject, presented me with the following
Vision.

'Methought I was just awoke out of a Sleep, that I could never
remember the beginning of; the Place where I found my self to be, was
a wide and spacious Plain, full of People that wandered up and down
through several beaten Paths, whereof some few were strait, and in
direct lines, but most of them winding and turning like a Labyrinth;
but yet it appear'd to me afterwards, that these last all met in one
Issue, so that many that seemed to steer quite contrary Courses, did
at length meet and face one another, to the no little Amazement of
many of them.

'In the midst of the Plain there was a great Fountain: They called it
the Spring of _Self-Love_; out of it issued two Rivulets to the
Eastward and Westward, the Name of the first was _Heavenly-Wisdom_,
its Water was wonderfully clear, but of a yet more wonderful Effect;
the other's Name was _Worldly-Wisdom_, its Water was thick, and yet
far from dormant or stagnating, for it was in a continual violent
Agitation; which kept the Travellers whom I shall mention by and by,
from being sensible of the Foulness and Thickness of the Water; which
had this Effect, that it intoxicated those who drunk it, and made 'em
mistake every Object that lay before them: both Rivulets were parted
near their Springs into so many others, as there were strait and
crooked Paths, which they attended all along to their respective
Issues.

'I observ'd from the several Paths many now and then diverting, to
refresh and otherwise qualify themselves for their Journey, to the
respective Rivulets that ran near them; they contracted a very
observable Courage and Steadiness in what they were about, by drinking
these Waters. At the end of the Perspective of every strait Path, all
which did end in one Issue and Point, appeared a high Pillar, all of
Diamond, casting Rays as bright as those of the Sun into the Paths;
which Rays had also certain sympathizing and alluring Virtues in them,
so that whosoever had made some considerable progress in his Journey
onwards towards the Pillar, by the