of; the Place where I found my self to be, was a wide and spacious Plain, full of People that wandered up and down through several beaten Paths, whereof some few were strait, and in direct lines, but most of them winding and turning like a Labyrinth; but yet it appear’d to me afterwards, that these last all met in one Issue, so that many that seemed to steer quite contrary Courses, did at length meet and face one another, to the no little Amazement of many of them.

’In the midst of the Plain there was a great Fountain:  They called it the Spring of Self-Love; out of it issued two Rivulets to the Eastward and Westward, the Name of the first was Heavenly-Wisdom, its Water was wonderfully clear, but of a yet more wonderful Effect; the other’s Name was Worldly-Wisdom, its Water was thick, and yet far from dormant or stagnating, for it was in a continual violent Agitation; which kept the Travellers whom I shall mention by and by, from being sensible of the Foulness and Thickness of the Water; which had this Effect, that it intoxicated those who drunk it, and made ’em mistake every Object that lay before them:  both Rivulets were parted near their Springs into so many others, as there were strait and crooked Paths, which they attended all along to their respective Issues.

’I observ’d from the several Paths many now and then diverting, to refresh and otherwise qualify themselves for their Journey, to the respective Rivulets that ran near them; they contracted a very observable Courage and Steadiness in what they were about, by drinking these Waters.  At the end of the Perspective of every strait Path, all which did end in one Issue and Point, appeared a high Pillar, all of Diamond, casting Rays as bright as those of the Sun into the Paths; which Rays had also certain sympathizing and alluring Virtues in them, so that whosoever had made some considerable progress in his Journey onwards towards the Pillar, by the repeated impression of these Rays upon him, was wrought into an habitual Inclination and Conversion of his Sight towards it, so that it grew at last in a matter natural to him to look and gaze upon it, whereby he was kept steddy in the strait Paths, which alone led to that radiant Body, the beholding of which was now grown a Gratification to his Nature.

’At the Issue of the crooked Paths there was a great black Tower, out of the Centre of which streamed a long Succession of Flames, which did rise even above the Clouds; it gave a very great Light to the whole Plain, which did sometimes outshine the Light, and opprest the Beams of the Adamantine Pillar; tho’ by the Observation I made afterwards, it appeared that it was not for any Diminution of Light, but that this lay in the Travellers, who would sometimes step out of the strait Paths, where they lost the full Prospect of the Radiant Pillar, and saw it but side-ways:  but the great Light from the black Tower, which was somewhat particularly