Page:The pilgrim's progress by John Bunyan every child can read (1909).djvu/338

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322
PILGRIM'S PROGRESS

and with the wave-breast, where his heart lay, he used to lean upon his harp when he played. These two dishes were very fresh and good, and they all ate heartily well thereof.

The next they brought up was a bottle of wine, red as blood. So Gaius said to them, "Drink freely: this is the true juice of the vine, that makes glad the heart of God and man." So they drank and were merry. The next was a dish of milk, well crumbed; but Gaius said, "Let the boys have that, that they may grow thereby."

Then they brought up in course of dish of butter and honey. Then said Gaius, "Eat freely of this, for this is good to cheer up and strengthen your judgments and understandings. This was our Lord's dish when He was a child: 'Butter and honey shall He eat, that He may know to refuse the evil and choose the good.'"

Then they brought them up a dish of apples, and they were very good tasted fruit. Then said Matthew, "May we eat apples, since they were such by and with which the serpent deceived our first mother Eve?"

Then said Gaius:

"Apples were they with which we were beguiled;
Yet sin, not apples, hath our souls defiled.
Apples forbid, if ate, corrupt the blood;
To eat such, when commanded, does us good.
Drink of His flagons, then, thou Church, His dove,
And eat His apples who are sick of love."

Then said Matthew, "I made the objection,