Chr.  The things that I have told you were the best; yet some other matters I saw, as, namely —­ I saw three men, Simple, Sloth, and Presumption, lie asleep a little out of the way, as I came, with irons upon their heels; but do you think I could awake them?  I also saw Formality and Hypocrisy come tumbling over the wall, to go, as they pretended, to Zion, but they were quickly lost, even as I myself did tell them; but they would not believe.  But above all, I found it hard work to get up this hill, and as hard to come by the lions’ mouths, and truly if it had not been for the good man, the porter that stands at the gate, I do not know but that after all I might have gone back again; but now I thank God I am here, and I thank you for receiving of me.

{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!”