d so fatal to so many false pilgrims,
and so all but fatal to so many true pilgrims, should lie around the very
borders of Beulah, and should be within all but eye-shot of the Celestial
City itself,--that is something to be thankful for, and something to lay
up in the deepest and the most secret place in our heart. That these
pilgrims, after all their feastings and entertainments--after the
Delectable Mountains and the House Beautiful--should all be plunged upon
a land where there was not so much as a roadside inn, where the ways were
so dark and so long that the pilgrims had to shout aloud in order to keep
together, where, instead of moon or stars, they had to walk in the spark
of a small tinder-box--what an encouragement and assurance to us is all
that! That is no strange thing, then, that is now happening to us, when,
after our fine communion season, we have suddenly fallen back into this
deep darkness, and are cast into these terrible temptations, and feel as
if all our past experiences and attainments and enjoyments had been but a
self-delusion and a snare. That we should all but have fallen fast
asleep, and all but have ceased both from watching against sin and from
waiting upon God--well, that is nothing more than Hopeful himself would
have done had he not had a wary old companion to watch over him, and to
hold his eyes open. Let all God's people present who feel that they are
nothing better of all they have enjoyed of Scriptures and sacraments, but
rather worse; let all those who feel sure that they have wandered into a
castaway land, so dark, so thorny, so miry, and so lonely is their
life--let them read this masterpiece of John Bunyan again and again and
take heart of hope.

"When Saints do sleepy grow, let them come hither
And hear how these two pilgrims talk together;
Yea, let them hear of them, in any wise,
Thus to keep ope their drowsy slumb'ring eyes;
Saints' fellowship, if it be managed well,
Keeps them awake, and that in spite of hell."

2. But far worse than all its briars and thorns, far more fatal than all
its ditches and pitfalls, were the enchanted arbours they came on here
and there planted up and down that evil land. For those arbours are all
of this fatal nature, that if a man falls asleep in any of them it arises
a question whether he shall ever come to himself again in this world.
Now, where there are no inns nor victualling-houses, no Gaius and no Mr.
Mnason, what a