summoning us hence before the midnight clock strikes.  If this be thy condition, why standest thou still?  Dost thou see yonder shining light?  Keep that light in thine eye.  Go up straight to it, knock at the gate, and it shall be told thee there what thou shalt do next.  Burdened sinner, son of man in rags and terror:  What has burdened thee so?  What has torn thy garments into such shameful rags?  What is it in thy burden that makes it so heavy?  And how long has it lain so heavy upon thee?  ’I cannot run,’ said the man, ‘because of the burden on my back.’  And it has been noticed of you that you do not laugh, or run, or dress, or dance, or walk, or eat, or drink as once you did.  All men see that there is some burden on your back; some sore burden on your heart and your mind.  Do you see yonder wicket gate?  Do you see yonder shining light?  There is no light in all the horizon for you but yonder light over the gate.  Keep it in your eye; make straight, and make at once for it, and He who keeps the gate and keeps the light burning over it, He will tell you what to do with your burden.  He told John Gifford, and He told John Bunyan, till both their burdens rolled off their backs, and they saw them no more.  What would you not give to-night to be released like them?  Do you not see yonder shining light?

Having set Christian fairly on the way to the wicket gate, Evangelist leaves him in order to seek out and assist some other seeker.  But yesterday he had set Faithful’s face to the celestial city, and he is off now to look for another pilgrim.  We know some of Christian’s adventures and episodes after Evangelist left him, but we do not take up these at present.  We pass on to the next time that Evangelist finds Christian, and he finds him in a sorry plight.  He has listened to bad advice.  He has gone off the right road, he has lost sight of the gate, and all the thunders and lightnings of Sinai are rolling and flashing out against him.  What doest thou here of all men in the world? asked Evangelist, with a severe and dreadful countenance.  Did I not direct thee to His gate, and why art thou here?  Christian told him that a fair-spoken man had met him, and had persuaded him to take an easier and shorter way of getting rid of his burden.  Read the whole place for yourselves.  The end of it was that Evangelist set Christian right again, and gave him two counsels which would be his salvation if he attended to them:  Strive to enter in at the strait gate, and, Take up thy cross daily.  He would need more counsel afterwards than that; but, meantime, that was enough.  Let Christian follow that, and he would before long be rid of his burden.