ll lay the
foundation of a habit of self-denial; ere ever you are aware of what you
are doing the habit will consolidate into a character; and what you begin
little by little in the body will be made perfect in the soul; till what
you did, almost against His command and altogether without His example,
yet because you did it for His sake and in His service, will have placed
you far up among those who have forsaken all, and themselves also, to
follow Jesus Christ, Son of Man and Son of God. Only, let this always be
admitted, and never for a moment forgotten, that all this is said by
permission and not of commandment. Our Lord never fasted as we fast. He
had no need. And He never commanded His disciples to fast. He left it
to themselves to find out each man his own case and his own cure. Let no
man, therefore, take fasting in any of its degrees, or times, or
occasions, on his conscience who does not first find it in his heart. At
the same time this may be said with perfect safety, that he who finds it
in his heart and then lays it on his conscience to deny himself anything,
great or small, for Christ's sake, and for the sake of his own
salvation,--he will never repent it. No, he will never repent it.

CHAPTER XXV--A FEAST-DAY IN MANSOUL

'He brought me into his banqueting house.'--_The Song_.

Emmanuel's feast-day in the Holy War excels in beauty and in eloquence
everything I know in any other author on the Lord's Supper. The Song of
Solomon stands alone when we sing that song mystically--that is to say,
when we pour into it all the love of God to His Church in Israel and all
Israel's love to God, and then all our Lord's love to us and all our love
back again to Him in return. But outside of Holy Scripture I know
nothing to compare for beauty, and for sweetness, and for quaintness, and
for tenderness, and for rapture, with John Bunyan's account of the feast
that Prince Emmanuel made for the town of Mansoul. With his very best
pen John Bunyan tells us how upon a time Emmanuel made a feast in
Mansoul, and how the townsfolk came to the castle to partake of His
banquet, and how He feasted them on all manner of outlandish food--food
that grew not in the fields of Mansoul; it was food that came down from
heaven and from His Father's house. They drank also of the water that
was made wine, and, altogether, they were very merry and at home with
their Prince. There was music also all the time at the table, a