of life.  They drank also of the water of the river, which was pleasant and enlivening to their weary spirits.  On either side of the river was there a meadow curiously beautified with lilies, and it was green all the year long.  In this meadow they lay down and slept, for here they might lie down and sleep safely.  When they awoke they gathered again of the fruits of the trees, and drank again of the water of the river, and then lay down again to sleep.  Thus they did several days and nights.  Now, could you have believed it that two such men as our pilgrims were could be in the enjoyment of all that the first half of the week, and then by their own doing should be in Giant Despair’s deepest dungeon before the end of the same week?  And yet so it was.  And all that is written for the solemn warning of those who are at any time in great enlargement and refreshment and joy in their spiritual life.  It is intended for all those who are at any time revelling in a season of revival:  those, for example, who are just come home from Keswick or Dunblane, as well as for all those who at home have just made the discovery of some great master of the spiritual life, and who are almost beside themselves with their delight in their divine author.  If they are new beginners they will not take this warning well, nor will even all old pilgrims lay it aright to heart; but there it is as plain as the plainest, simplest, and most practical writer in our language could put it.

   Behold ye how these crystal streams do glide
   To comfort pilgrims by the highway side;
   The meadows green, besides their fragrant smell,
   Yield dainties for them:  And he that can tell
   What pleasant fruits, yea leaves, these trees do yield,
   Will soon sell all that he may buy this field.

Thus the two pilgrims sang:  only, adds our author in a parenthesis, they were not, as yet, at their journey’s end.

2.  ’Now, I beheld in my dream that they had not journeyed far when the river and the way for a time parted.  At which the two pilgrims were not a little sorry.’  The two pilgrims could not perhaps be expected to break forth into dancing and singing at the parting of the river and the way, even though they had recollected at that moment what the brother of the Lord says about our counting it all joy when we fall into divers temptations.  But it would not have been too much to expect from such experienced pilgrims as they by this time were, that they should have suspected and checked and commanded their sorrow.  They should have said something like this to one another:  Well, it would have been very pleasant had it been our King’s will and way with us that we should have finished the rest of our pilgrimage among the apples and the lilies and on the soft and fragrant bank of the river; but we believe that it must in some as yet hidden way be better for us that the river and our road should part from one another at least for a season.  Come,