Page:The pilgrim's progress by John Bunyan every child can read (1909).djvu/370

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
354
PILGRIM'S PROGRESS

shall never want wherewithal. He that watereth shall be watered himself. And the cake that the widow gave to the prophet did not cause that she had ever the less in her barrel."

They had them also to a place where they saw one Fool, and one Want-wit, washing of an Ethiopian, with intention to make him white; but the more they washed him the blacker he was. Then they asked the shepherds what that should mean. So they told them, saying, "Thus shall it be with the vile person: all means used to get such an one a good name, shall, in the end tend but to make him more abominable. Thus it was with the Pharisees, and so shall it be with all pertenders to religion."

Then said Mercy, the wife of Matthew, to Christiana her mother, "Mother, I would, if it might be, see the hole in the hill, or that commonly called the By-way to Hell." So her mother brake her mind to the shepherds. Then they went to the door: it was in the side of a hill; and they opened it, and bid Mercy hearken awhile. So she hearkened, and heard one saying, "Cursed be my father for holding of my feet back from the way of peace and life." And another said, "Oh that I had been torn in pieces before I had, to save my life, lost my soul!" And another said, "If I were to live again, how would I deny myself rather than come to this place!" Then there was as if the very earth groaned and quaked under the feet of this young woman for fear; so she looked white, and