ometimes with father Adam's family. Here and there, in Darkland,
in Destruction, and in Stupidity, a child will be born with a surprising
likeness to the first Adam in his first estate. That happy child at his
best is but the relics and ruins of his first father; at the same time,
in him the relics are more abundant and the ruins more easy to trace out.
And little Honest was such a well-born child. For, Stupidity and all,
there was a real inborn and inbred integrity, uprightness,
straightforwardness, and nobleness about this little and not over-clever
man-child. And, on the principle of "to him that hath shall be given,"
there was something like a special providence that hedged this boy about
from the beginning. "I girded thee though thou hast not known Me" was
never out of Old Honest's mouth as often as he remembered the days of his
own youth and heard other pilgrims mourning over theirs. "I have
surnamed thee though thou hast not known Me," he would say to himself in
his sleep. Slow-witted as he was, no one had been able to cheat young
Honest out of his youthful integrity. He had not been led, and he had
led no one else, into the paths of the destroyer. He could say about
himself all that John Bunyan so boldly and so bluntly said about himself
when his enemies charged him with youthful immorality. He left the town
in nobody's debt. He left the print of his heels on no man or woman or
child when he took his staff in his hand to be a pilgrim. The upward
walk of too many pilgrims is less a walk than an escape and a flight. The
avenger of men's blood and women's honour has hunted many men deep into
heaven's innermost gate. But Old Honest took his time. He walked, if
ever pilgrim walked, all the way with an easy mind. He lay down to sleep
under the oaks on the wayside, and smiled like a child in his sleep. And,
when he was suddenly awaked, instead of crying out for mercy and starting
to his heels, he grasped his staff and demanded even of an armed man what
business he had to break in on an honest pilgrim's midday repose! The
King of the Celestial City had a few names even in Stupidity which had
not defiled their garments, and Old Honest was one of them. And all his
days his strength was as the strength of ten, because his heart was pure.

3. At the same time, honesty is not holiness; and no one knew that
better than did this honest old saint. When any one spoke to Old Honest
about his blameless youth, th