hen Mr. Ready-to-halt came in, and then Mr.
Despondency and his daughter Much-afraid, and then Mr. Feeble-mind. Now
the day drew on that Christiana must be gone. So the road was full of
people to see her take her journey. But, behold! all the banks beyond
the river were full of horses and chariots which were come down from
above to accompany her to the City gates, so she came forth and entered
the river with a beckon of farewell to those that followed her to the
river-side. The last word she was heard to say here was, "I come, Lord,
to be with Thee, and to bless Thee."

But with all this, you must not suppose that this good woman, this mother
in Israel, had forgotten her grandchildren. She would sooner have
forgotten her own children. But she was too good a woman to forget
either. For long ago, away back at the river on this side the Delectable
Mountains, she had said to her four daughters--I must tell you exactly
what she has said: "Here," she said, "in this meadow there are cotes and
folds for sheep, and an house is built here also for the nourishing and
bringing up of those lambs, even the babes of those women that go on
pilgrimage. Also there is One here who can have compassion and that can
gather these lambs with His arm and carry them in His bosom. This Man,
she said, will house and harbour and succour the little ones, so that
none of them shall be lacking in time to come. This Man, if any of them
go astray or be lost, He will bring them again, He will bind up that
which was broken, and will strengthen them that are sick. So they were
content to commit their little ones to that Man, and all this was to be
at the charge of the King, and so it was as a hospital to young children
and orphans."

And now I shall sum up my chief impressions of Christiana under the three
heads of her mind, her heart, and her widowhood indeed.

1. The mother of Christian's four sons was a woman of real mind, as so
many of the maidens, and wives, and widows of Puritan England and
Covenanting Scotland were. You gradually gather that impression just
from being beside her as the journey goes on. She does not speak much;
but, then, there is always something individual, remarkable, and
memorable in what she says. I have a notion of my own that Christiana
must have been a reader of that princely Puritan, John Milton. And if
that was so, that of itself would be certificate enough as to her
possession of mind. There is always a