e buzz of salutation,
congratulation, and benediction. Here they heard voices from out of the
city, loud voices, saying, Say ye to the daughter of Zion, Behold, thy
salvation cometh; behold, his reward is with him. Here all the
inhabitants of the country called them the holy people, the redeemed of
the Lord, sought out, a city not forsaken.

6. Now, as they walked in this land they had more rejoicing than in
parts more remote from the kingdom to which they were bound. And still
drawing nigh to that city they had yet a more perfect view thereof. It
was builded of pearls and precious stones, also the street thereof was
paved with gold, so that by reason of the natural glory of the city and
the reflection of the sunbeams upon it, Christian with desire fell sick.
Hopeful also had a fit or two of the same disease. Wherefore here they
lay by it awhile, crying out because of their pangs, If you see my
beloved, tell him that I am sick of love. There are in all good cases of
recovery three successive stages of soul-sickness. True, soul-sickness
always runs its own course, and it always runs its own course in its own
order. This special sickness first shows itself when the soul becomes
sick with sin. We have that sickness set forth in many a psalm, notably
in the thirty-eighth psalm; and in a multitude of other scriptures, both
old and new, this evil disease is dealt with if we had only the eyes and
the heart to read such scriptures. The second stage of this sickness is
when a sinner is not so much sick with the sin that dwelleth in him as
sick of himself. Sinfulness in its second stage becomes so incorporate
with the sinner's whole life--sin so becomes the sinner's very nature,
and, indeed, himself,--that all his former loathing of sin passes over
henceforth into loathing of himself. This is the most desperate stage in
any man's sickness; but, bad as it is, incurable as it is, it must be
passed into before the third stage of the healing process can either be
experienced or understood. In the case in hand, by the time the pilgrims
had come to Beulah they had all had their full share of sin and of
themselves till they here entered on an altogether new experience.
"Christian with desire fell sick," we read, "and Hopeful also had a fit
or two of the same disease. Wherefore here they lay by it a while,
crying out because of their pangs, If you see my beloved, tell him that I
am sick of love." David, Paul, Bernard, Buny