Page:The Pilgrims Progress (1890).djvu/146

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102
THE PILGRIM’S PROGRESS

way of understanding shall remain in the congregation of the dead.” Then Christian and Hopeful looked one upon another, with tears gushing out, but yet said nothing to the shepherds.

Then said Hopeful to the shepherds, I perceive that these had on them, even every one, an appearance of pilgrimage, as we have now; had they not?

Shep. Yes, and held it a long time, too.

Hope. How far might they go on in pilgrimage in their day, since they, notwithstanding, were thus miserably cast away?

Shep. Some farther, and some not so far as these mountains.

Then said the pilgrims one to the other, We had need to cry to the Strong for strength.

Shep. Aye, and you will have need to use it, when you have it, too.

By this time the pilgrims had a desire to go forward, and the shepherds a desire they should; so they walked together towards the end of the mountains. Then said the shepherds one to another, Let us here show the pilgrims the gates of the Celestial City, if they have skill to look through our spy-glass. The pilgrims then lovingly accepted the motion: so they had them to the top of a high hill, called Clear, and gave them the glass to look.

Then they tried to look; but the remembrance of that last thing that the shepherds had shown them made their hands shake, by means of which impediment they could not look steadily through the glass; yet they thought they saw something like the gate, and also some of the glory of the place.

When they were about to depart, one of the shepherds gave them a note of the way. Another of them