retching out his thin and trembling right hand. His
left ankle is bound by a strong fetter of gold. When you have looked
at the picture for a little while, you see that he is in a prison cell.
A faint light glimmers through a grated window at the back, where steps
come down into the cell by the side of a pillar. Beside the old man a
lantern stands on the ground. Its glass sides are shaped like church
windows, but the flame of the candle inside is guttering and going out.
The straw on the floor is bursting into red flames and wreaths of
smoke, and the whole pile of rubbish is on the point of being burned up.

Behind the man with the muck-rake is another Figure, tall and straight,
yet bending down in pity. It is the Figure of Christ. He stands
motionless, with a look of sorrowful patience on His face. One of His
hands is laid on the old man's shoulder, and with the other He holds up
a bright crown. It is a crown of thorns, the same which He wore
Himself, but on the thorns are seven bright stars. They turn it into a
crown of glory, and shed a radiance over all the picture. You can see
that the Saviour's hands have been pierced, and that the thorns have
left bleeding marks upon His brow.

Away in the dim background, hovering on many-tinted pinions, and with
hands clasped in prayer, is an angel--the guardian angel of the old
man's soul. This angel has a face of unspeakable sadness, and eyes in
which you can almost see the trembling of big tears, ready to fall.

These are some of the things that the genius and the exquisite skill of
the painter have put into the picture for our eyes to see. What did he
mean our minds and hearts to understand by them all? Perhaps I may
begin to answer that question by reminding you of what John Banyan
meant by the man in his story.

_Then said Christiana_ (to the Interpreter), _I persuade myself that I
know somewhat the meaning of this; for this is a figure of a man of
this world: is it not, good Sir?_

_Thou hast said the right, said he; and his muck-rake doth show his
carnal mind. And whereas thou seest him rather give heed to rake up
straws and sticks, and the dust of the floor, than to do what he says
that calls to him from above, with the celestial crown in his hand, it
is to show that Heaven is but as a fable to some, and that things here
are counted the only things substantial. Now, whereas it was also
shewed thee that the man could look no way but downwards, it is to