{122} Then Prudence thought good to ask him a few questions, and
desired his answer to them.
PRUD. Do you not think sometimes of the country from whence you
came?
Christian’s thoughts of his native country
CHR. Yes, but with much shame and detestation: “Truly, if I had
been mindful of that country from whence I came out, I might have
had opportunity to have returned; but now I desire a better country,
that is, an heavenly.” [Heb. 11:15,16]
PRUD. Do you not yet bear away with you some of the things that
then you were conversant withal?
CHR. Yes, but greatly against my will; especially my inward and
carnal cogitations, with which all my countrymen, as well as myself,
were delighted; but now all those things are my grief; and might
I but choose mine own things,
Christian’s choice
I would choose never to think of those things more; but when I
would be doing of that which is best, that which is worst is with
me. [Rom 7:16-19]
{123} PRUD. Do you not find sometimes, as if those things were
vanquished, which at other times are your perplexity?
Christian’s golden hours
CHR. Yes, but that is seldom; but they are to me golden hours in
which such things happen to me.
PRUD. Can you remember by what means you find your annoyances, at
times, as if they were vanquished?
CHR. Yes, when I think what I saw at the cross, that will do it;
and when I look upon my broidered coat, that will do it; also when
I look into the roll that I carry in my bosom, that will do it;
and when my thoughts wax warm about whither I am going, that will
do it.
{124} PRUD. And what is it that makes you so desirous to go to
Mount Zion?
CHR. Why, there I hope to see him alive that did hang dead on the
cross; and there I hope to be rid of all those things that to this
day are in me an annoyance to me; there, they say, there is no
death; and there I shall dwell with such company as I like best.
[Isa. 25:8; Rev. 21:4] For, to tell you truth, I love him,
because I was by him eased of my burden; and I am weary of my inward
sickness. I would fain be where I shall die no more, and with the
company that shall continually cry, “Holy, Holy, Holy!”
{125} Then said Charity to Christian, Have you a family? Are you
a married man?
CHR. I have a wife and four small children.
CHAR. And why did you not bring them along with you?
Christian’s love to his wife and children
CHR. Then Christian wept, and said, Oh, how willingly would I have
done it! but they were all of them utterly averse to my going on
pilgrimage.
CHAR. But you should have talked to them, and have endeavoured to
have shown them the danger of being behind.
CHR. So I did; and told them also of what God had shown to me
of the destruction of our city; “but I seemed to them as one that
mocked”, and they believed me not. [Gen. 19:14]
CHAR. And did you pray to God that he would bless your counsel to
them?
CHR. Yes, and that with much affection: for you must think that
my wife and poor children were very dear unto me.
CHAR. But did you tell them of your own sorrow, and fear of
destruction? for I suppose that destruction was visible enough to
you.
Christian’s fears of perishing might be read in his very countenance
CHR. Yes, over, and over, and over. They might also see my fears
in my countenance, in my tears, and also in my trembling under the
apprehension of the judgement that did hang over our heads; but
all was not sufficient to prevail with them to come with me.
CHAR. But what could they say for themselves, why they came not?
{126} CHR. Why, my wife was afraid of losing this world, and
my children were given to the foolish delights of youth: so what
by one thing, and what by another, they left me to wander in this
manner alone.
CHAR. But did you not, with your vain life, damp all that you by
words used by way of persuasion to bring them away with you?
{127} Christian’s good conversation before his wife and children
CHR. Indeed, I cannot commend my life; for I am conscious to myself
of many failings therein; I know also that a man by his conversation
may soon overthrow what by argument or persuasion he doth labour to
fasten upon others for their good. Yet this I can say, I was very
wary of giving them occasion, by any unseemly action, to make them
averse to going on pilgrimage. Yea, for this very thing they would
tell me I was too precise, and that I denied myself of things,
for their sakes, in which they saw no evil. Nay, I think I may
say, that if what they saw in me did hinder them, it was my great
tenderness in sinning against God, or of doing any wrong to my
neighbour.
CHAR. Indeed Cain hated his brother, “because his own works were
evil, and his brother’s righteous” [1 John 3:12]; and if thy wife
and children have been offended with thee for this, they thereby
show themselves to be implacable to good, and “thou hast delivered
thy soul from their blood”. [Ezek. 3:19]
{128} Now I saw in my dream, that thus they sat talking together
until supper was ready. So when they had made ready, they sat down
to meat. Now the table was furnished “with fat things, and with
wine that was well refined”: and all their talk at the table was
about the Lord of the hill; as, namely, about what he had done, and
wherefore he did what he did, and why he had builded that house.
And by what they said, I perceived that he had been a great warrior,
and had fought with and slain “him that had the Power of death”,
but not without great danger to himself, which made me love him
the more. [Heb. 2:14,15]
{129} For, as they said, and as I believe (said Christian), he did
it with the loss of much blood; but that which put glory of grace
into all he did, was, that he did it out of pure love to his country.
And besides, there were some of them of the household that said
they had been and spoke with him since he did die on the cross; and
they have attested that they had it from his own lips, that he is
such a lover of poor pilgrims, that the like is not to be found
from the east to the west.
{130} They, moreover, gave an instance of what they affirmed, and
that was, he had stripped himself of his glory, that he might do
this for the poor; and that they heard him say and affirm, “that
he would not dwell in the mountain of Zion alone.” They said,
moreover, that he had made many pilgrims princes, though by nature
they were beggars born, and their original had been the dunghill.
[1 Sam 2:8; Ps. 113:7]
