They gave them to understand likewise that a Mutual Insurance Company had been established, guaranteeing all travellers a perfect security from every danger by the way, and engaging a certainty of passage even at the latest hour, when if the regular trains were all full, extra trains would always be sent on for the convenience of passengers. They informed them likewise of their system of through tickets, by which any traveller might spend a year or more at any intermediate station, as at the great town of Vanity Fair, or at the Gold Mines, where also was a great city, or anywhere else, as they might choose, and afterwards proceed, without loss, by the same ticket, which would be as good as ever, and just as available for entrance to the Celestial City.

Now Peter and John were for the moment taken. all aback, as well they might be, by all these things, for the speech and preaching of them was as smooth as oil; and if they had not set out as common sailors to work their passage, they might have been completely confounded. But though at this time, so far from the sea, yet their hearts clung to their ship, and from their own experience they knew there was an ocean to cross, and that it was not possible to get to the Celestial City without crossing it. Besides, they preferred a good sailing vessel to any steamer. So they said one to another, This is all very well for

those that are righteous, but the books of science and the farms, and the Mutual Admiration Societies, will never keep the world from burning. It will never do for sinners like ourselves to stop here.

Then said John to his brother, Do you remember that Psalm where it says, My steps had well nigh slipped, my feet were almost gone. Now it comes into my mind like a flame. If these things that the people here tell us were true, then verily we have cleansed our heart in vain, and washed our hands in innocency; if we could say that we have done this, even as the Psalmist did. What need of a wearisome painful pilgrimage to heaven, if there is no hell?

Ah my brother, said Peter, that is a good Psalm to think upon, when so tempted. Surely thou didst set them in slippery places. O, there is no truth in those vain hopes. When the end comes, then what will become of their tickets, and their insurance companies? How are they brought into desolation as in a moment! They are utterly consumed with terrors. As a dream when one awaketh, so, O Lord, when thou awakest, thou shalt despise their image.

7

Well, said John, I feel as though we had been dreaming, and the conversation of these men about

4 Psa. lxxiii. 2.
Psa. lxxiii. 18.

5 Psa. lxxiii. 13.

7 Psa. lxxiii. 18-20.

their railroads and joint-stock companies, before the end, makes me think of the talk of the rich man in hell with Abraham in heaven, after the end. Oh, that poor rich man thought he was one of these stock-holders, but he found it was a great mistake. For alas, what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul.'

Yes, answered Peter, and now I hear a voice saying to us, Arise ye and depart hence, for this is not your rest, because it is polluted, it shall destroy you, even with a sore destruction.10 Oh, my brother, we have been here too long; we have no business here; we ought never to have come here. Let us be going.

So they thought. But there were temptations and trials in wait for them, of which they never dreamed when on board ship. One day, being tired with their journey, they were persuaded to taste a cordial of the country, universally used there, and it had a quality that made them light-headed, and for a season took away their sober judgment; and under this delusion they fell into the hands of some landsharks, that had had notice of their being in those parts, and had followed them up from the sea, who stripped them of their means of subsistence, and almost of their clothing, and then turned them out

8 Luke xvi. 23.

• Mark viii. 36.

10 Mic. ii. 10.

of doors. They told them they were a couple of self-conceited fools for refusing to stop in that country.

And now for the first time Peter and John bethought themselves to ask the name of the country; a thing, the which, if they had done at the outset, and then examined their chart and instructions, they never would have left the ship, nor got into this difficulty. And, indeed, the moment they were told that this itself was the high and mighty country of Self-Conceit, they seemed like men amazed, but brought to their senses. They remembered now with shame their foolish feelings of elation on coming up the river, and they sat down by the wayside, and wept for very anguish at the manner in which they had neglected the precious heavenly instructions of their King, and even had began almost to despise their own humble and lowly views, when with contrite hearts they had waited on him, and trembled at his Word.

And now they were reduced to great straits, and wished they had never left their vessel, and began to despair of ever getting back, especially as a change of weather set in, and the rains fell in torrents, and the roads became almost impassable. For though the ways of that region were well enough in dry and pleasant weather, yet in the rainy season they were

nothing but a great bog. So the pilgrims again and again were plunged almost to destruction in pits and quagmires, and once or twice they were nearly lost in fording streams. They lost the way entirely, and could find no person in all that region who so much as knew the river where their ship lay. So they wept and mourned, and besought God to have mercy upon them.

They thought now, that any storm at sea was better to be endured than such misery. They thought, if they could once get back to the vessel, they never would leave it again, no, not for a day, on any consideration. They sometimes thought it would even have been better for them, if they were back to their native land, so as to take a new start, for they felt that so far from making progress toward the Celestial City, they had gone a great way backward. Their pride was most effectually humbled and broken, and with contrite hearts they struggled towards the quarter where they believed the ship lay.

Ah Peter, said John to his brother, as they were painfully working on in that direction, this will be sad stuff to put in our log-book. Who would have thought that a few steps could have led us so far out of the way?

A few steps indeed, said Peter, I think we have