There were men in that company, and men near the river too, with far fewer marks of battle, and even of defeat, upon them, who did not get this noble certificate and its accompanying charge and trust from this clear-eyed widow.  And, then, she had never forgot—­how could she?—­his exclamation, and almost embrace of her as of his own mother, when he burst out with his eyes full of blood, “Why, is this Christian’s wife?  What! and going on pilgrimage too?  It glads my heart!  Good man!  How joyful will he be when he shall see her and her children enter after him in at the gates into the city!” He would have been hacked a hundred times worse than he was before the widow of Christian, and the mother of his children, would have seen anything but the manliest beauty in a young soldier who could salute an old woman in that way.  It gladdened her heart to hear him, you may be sure, as much as it gladdened his heart to see her.  And that was the reason that she actually set Greatheart himself aside, and left her children under this young man’s sword and shield.  “I would also entreat you to have an eye to my children,” she said.  Young men, has any dying mother committed her children, if you at any time see them faint, to you?  Have you ever spoken so comfortably to any poor widow about her sainted husband that she has passed by some of our foremost citizens, and has astonished and offended her lawyers by putting a stripling like you into the trusteeship?  Did ever any dying mother say to you that she had seen you to be so true-hearted at all times that she entreated you to have an eye to her children?  Speaking at this point for myself, I would rather see my son so trusted at such an hour by such a woman than I would see him the Chancellor of Her Majesty’s Exchequer, or the Governor of the Bank of England.  And so to-night would you.

STANDFAST

   “So stand fast in the Lord, my dearly beloved.”—­Paul.

In his supplementary picture of Standfast John Bunyan is seen at his very best, both as a religious teacher and as an English author.  On the Enchanted Ground Standfast is set before us with extraordinary insight, sagacity, and wisdom; and then in the terrible river he is set before us with an equally extraordinary rapture and transport; while, in all that, Bunyan composes in English of a strength and a beauty and a music in which he positively surpasses himself.  Just before he closes his great book John Bunyan rises up and once more puts forth his very fullest strength, both as a minister of religion and as a classical writer, when he takes Standfast down into that river which that pilgrim tells us has been such a terror to so many, and the thought of which has so often affrighted himself.