6.  Then said Greatheart to Mr. Valiant-for-truth, “Thou hast worthily behaved thyself; let me see thy sword.”  So he showed it him.  When he had taken it in his hand and had looked thereon a while, the guide said:  “Ha! it is a right Jerusalem blade!” “It is so,” replied its owner.  “Let a man have one of these blades with a hand to wield it, and skill to use it, and he may venture upon an angel with it.  Its edges will never blunt.  It will cut flesh, and bones, and soul, and spirit, and all.”  Both Damascus and Toledo blades were famous in former days for their tenacity and flexibility, and for the beauty and the edge of their steel.  But even a Damascus blade would be worthless in a weak, cowardly, or unskilled hand; while even a poor sword in the hand of a good swordsman will do excellent execution.  And much more so when you have both a first-rate sword and a first-rate swordsman, such as both Valiant and his Jerusalem blade were.  Ha! yes.  This is a right wonderful blade we have now in our hand.  For this sword was forged in no earthly fire; and it was whetted to its unapproachable sharpness on no earthly whetstone.  But, best of all for us, when a good soldier of Jesus Christ has this sword girt on his thigh he is able then to go forth against himself with it; against his own only and worst enemy—­that is, against himself.  As here, against his own wildness of head and pride of heart.  Against his own want of consideration also.  “My people do not consider.”  As also against himself as a lawless invader of other men’s freedom of judgment, following of truth, public honour, and good name.  As the Arabian warriors see themselves and dress themselves in their swords as in a glass, so did Valiant-for-truth see the thoughts and intents, the joints and the marrow of his own disordered soul in his Jerusalem blade.  In the sheen of it he could see himself even when the darkness covered him; and with its two edges all his after-life he slew both all real error in other men and all real evil in himself.  “Thou hast done well,” said Greatheart the guide.  “Thou hast resisted unto blood, striving against sin.  Thou shalt abide by us, come in and go out with us, for we are thy companions.”

7.  “Sir,” said the widow indeed to Valiant-for-truth, “sir, you have in all places shown yourself true-hearted.”  The first time she ever saw this man that she is now seeing for the last time on this side the river, his own mother would not have known him, he was so hacked to pieces with the swords of his three assailants.  But as she washed the blood off the mangled man’s head and face and hands, she soon saw beneath all his bloody wounds a true, a brave, and a generous-hearted soldier of the Cross.  The heart is always the man.  And this woman had lived long enough with men to have discovered that.  And with all his sears she saw that it was at bottom the truth of his heart that had cast him into so many bloody encounters.