ss likely place than even
the City of Destruction. For he came, this rare old soul, of all places
in the world, from the Town of Stupidity. So he tells us himself. And,
partly to explain to us the humiliating name of his native town, and
partly to exhibit himself as a wonder to many, the frank old gentleman
goes on to tell us that his birthplace actually lies four degrees further
away from the sun than does the far-enough away City of Destruction
itself. So that you see this grey-haired saint is all that he always
said he was--a living witness to the fact that his Lord is able to save
to the uttermost, and to gather in His Father's elect from the utmost
corner of the land. Men are mountains of ice in my country, said Old
Honest. I was one of the biggest of those icebergs myself, he said. No
man was ever more cold and senseless to divine things than I was, and
still sometimes am. It takes the Sun of Righteousness all His might to
melt the men of my country. But that He can do it when He rises to do
it, and when He puts out His full strength to do it--Look at me! said the
genial old soul.

We have to construct this pilgrim's birth and boyhood and youth from his
after-character and conversation; and we have no difficulty at all in
doing that. For, if the child is the father of the man, then the man
must be the outcome of the child, and we can have no hesitation in
picturing to ourselves what kind of child and boy and young man dear Old
Honest must always have been. He never was a bright child, bright and
beaming old man as he is. He was always slow and heavy at his lessons;
indeed, I would not like to repeat to you all the bad names that his
schoolmasters sometimes in their impatience called the stupid child.
Only, this was to be said of him, that dulness of uptake and
disappointment of his teachers were the worst things about this poor boy;
he was not so ill-behaved as many were who were made more of. When his
wits began to waken up after he had come some length he had no little
leeway to make up in his learning; but that was the chief drawback to Old
Honest's pilgrimage. For one thing, no young man had a cleaner record
behind him than our Honest had; his youthful garments were as unspotted
as ever any pilgrim's garments were. Even as a young man he had had the
good sense to keep company with one Good-conscience; and that friend of
his youth kept true to Old Honest all his days, and even lent him his
hand a