Page:The pilgrim's progress by John Bunyan every child can read (1909).djvu/383

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VALIANT'S DISCOURAGEMENTS
365

that had tried that way of old, and that had gone a great way therein, to see if they could find something of the glory there that so many had so much talked of from time to time; and how they came back again, and befooled themselves for setting a foot out of doors in that path, to the satisfaction of all the country. And they named several that did so, as Obstinate and Pliable, Mistrust and Timorous, Turn-away and old Atheist; with several more, who, they said, had some of them gone far to see what they could find, but not one of them found so much advantage by going as amounted to the weight of a feather.

Great. Said they anything more to discourage you?

Valiant. Yes; they told me of one Mr. Fearing, who was a pilgrim, and how he found this way so solitary, that he never had a comfortable hour therein; also that Mr. Despondency had like to have been starved therein; yea, and also (which I had almost forgot) that Christian himself, about whom there had been such a noise, after all his ventures for a celestial crown, was certainly drowned in the Black River, and never went a foot farther, however it was smothered up.

Great. And did none of these things discourage you?

Valiant. No; they seemed but as so many nothings to me.

Great. How came that about?

Valiant. Why, I still believed what Mr. Tell-