Another advanced with much confidence of success; for having little worldly riches or honors, the gate did not seem so strait to him.  He got to the threshold triumphantly, and seemed to look back with disdain on all that he was quitting.  He soon found, however, that he was so bloated with pride, and stuffed out with self-sufficiency, that he could not get in.  Nay, he was in a worse way than the rich man just named, for he was willing to throw away some of his outward luggage; whereas this man refused to part with a grain of that vanity and self-applause which made him too big for the way.  The sense of his own worth so swelled him out, that he stuck fast in the gateway, and could neither get in nor out.

Finding now that he must cut off all those big thoughts of himself, if he wished to be reduced to such a size as to pass the gate, he gave up all thoughts of it.  He scorned that humility and self-denial which might have shrunk him down to the proper dimensions:  the more he insisted on his own qualifications for entrance, the more impossible it became to enter, for the bigger he grew.  Finding that he must become quite another manner of man before he could hope to get in, he gave up the desire; and I now saw, that though when he set his face towards the Happy land he could not get an inch forward, yet the instant he made a motion to turn back into the world, his speed became rapid enough, and he got back into the Broad-way much sooner than he had got out of it.

Many, who for a time were brought down from their usual bulk by some affliction, seemed to get in with ease.  They now thought all their difficulties over; for having been surfeited with the world during their late disappointment, they turned their backs upon it willingly enough.  A fit of sickness perhaps, which is very apt to reduce, had for a time brought their bodies into subjection, so that they were enabled just to get in at the gateway; but as soon as health and spirits returned, the way grew narrower and narrower to them; they could not get on, but turned short, and got back into the world.

I saw many attempt to enter who were stopped short by a large burden of worldly cares; others by a load of idolatrous attachments; but I observed that nothing proved a more complete bar than that vast bundle of prejudices with which multitudes were loaded.  Others were fatally obstructed by loads of bad habits which they would not lay down, though they knew they prevented their entrance.  Some few, however, of most descriptions who had kept their light alive by craving constant supplies from the King’s treasury, got through at last by a strength which they felt not to be their own.

One poor man, who carried the largest bundle of bad habits I had seen, could not get on a step; he never ceased, however, to implore for light enough to see where his misery lay:  he threw down one of his bundles, then another, but all to little purpose, still he could not stir.  At last, striving as if in agony—­which is the true way of entering—­he threw down the heaviest article in his pack:  this was selfishness.  The poor fellow felt relieved at once, his light burned brightly, and the rest of his pack was as nothing.