seeing only a withered tree, another by reading the lives and deaths of the antediluvian fathers, one by hearing of heaven, another of hell, one by reading of the love or wrath of God, another of the sufferings of Christ, may find himself, as it were, melted into penitence all of a sudden.  It may be granted also that the greatest sinner may in a moment be converted to God, and may feel himself wounded in such a degree as perhaps those never were who have been turning to God all their lives.  But, then, it is to be observed that this suddenness of change or flash of conviction is by no means of the essence of true conversion.  This stroke of conversion is not to be considered as signifying our high state of a new birth in Christ, or a proof that we are on a sudden made new creatures, but that we are thus suddenly called upon and stirred up to look after a newness of nature.  The renewal of our first birth and state is something entirely distinct from our first sudden conversion and call to repentance.  That is not a thing done in an instant, but is a certain process, a gradual release from our captivity and disorder, consisting of several stages and degrees, both of life and death, which the soul must go through before it can have thoroughly put off the old man.  It is well worth observing that our Saviour’s greatest trials were near the end of His life.  This might sufficiently show us that our first awakenings have carried us but a little way; that we should not then begin to be self-assured of our own salvation, but should remember that we stand at a great distance from, and are in great ignorance of, our severest trials.”  Such was the way that Christian in his experience and in his wisdom talked to his young companion till his outward trials and the consequent discoveries he made of his own weakness and corruption made even Hopeful himself a sober-minded and a thoughtful man.  “Where pain ends, gain ends too.”

Then, again, no one can read Hopeful’s remarkable history without discovering this about him, that he showed best in adversity and distress, just as he showed worst in deliverance and prosperity.  It is a fine lesson in Christian hope to descend into Giant Despair’s dungeon and hear the older pilgrim groaning and the younger pilgrim consoling him, and, again, to stand on the bank of the last river and hear Hopeful holding up Christian’s drowning head.  “Be of good cheer, my brother, for I feel the bottom, and it is good!” Bless Hopeful for that, all you whose deathbeds are still before you.  For never was more true and fit word spoken for a dying hour than that.  Read, till you have it by heart and in the dark, Hopeful’s whole history, but especially his triumphant end.  And have some one bespoken beforehand to read Hopeful in the River to you when you have in a great measure lost your senses, and when a great horror has taken hold of your mind.  “I sink in deep waters,” cried Christian, as his sins came to his mind, even the sins which he had committed both since and before he came to be a pilgrim.  “But I see the gate,” said Hopeful, “and men standing at it ready to receive us.”  “Read to me where I first cast my anchor,” said John Knox to his weeping wife.