science was too tender, and his sense of divine things too vivid; and so the sorrows of death compassed him, and the pains of hell gat hold upon him; he found trouble and sorrow; and back did he go, weeping and looking for his roll, and crying, O Lord, I beseech thee deliver my soul.

Now God sees all this in his children, and permits them to endure this distress, that they may gain a lesson from it, which will last them as long as they live. But he knows what he does unto them, and just what they need. When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, then thou knewest my way. And just so, when Christian had well nigh given up in despair, and was sitting himself down to weep, disconsolate and broken-hearted, as kind Providence would have it, looking through his tears beneath the settle, there he espied the roll, and with what trembling, eager haste did he catch it up and secure it again in his bosom! Oh, who can tell how joyful he was when he had gotten his roll again! And now returning thanks to God for directing his eye to the place where it lay, (and ever should the Christian who has been wandering from God, and so has gotten into darkness, be thankful for the least ray of returning light, and ever will he, for no deliverance is so grateful to the soul as that,) Christian did with joy and tears betake himself again to his journey. But he had lost a great deal of time, and it was now growing dark, and now he began again to think of what Mistrust and Timorous had told him about the lions, a thing which his misery in the loss of his roll had driven at first from his mind, just as great griefs medicine

the less. Now, said Christian to himself, these beasts range abroad in the night for their prey, and if I should meet them in the dark, how should I escape being torn in pieces?

So he went on, troubling himself greatly with these thoughts, when suddenly there rose before him like a dream a very stately palace, close by the highway side, which being within the walls of salvation, and directly where he must pass by, he knew to belong to the Lord of the way, and therefore to the Pilgrims; or at any rate that the Pilgrims would there be welcome. Now if he might get to that palace, and be lodged there, he would care little for the lions; but as he went forward towards the narrow passage which led up to the gate, being very closely on the watch to see the lions of Mistrust and Timorous' description, there they were, sure enough, grim and terrible; and now he thought of going back, but the porter cried out to him, reproving him for his want of strength and faith, and telling him that the lions were chained, and were suffered to be there to try the faith of pilgrims, if they had it, and to discover if they had none. With this was Christian greatly encouraged; but with all this he went trembling and afraid, and keeping to the middle of the path; and though he heard the lions roar on him, yet they did him no harm, and when he got passed them he clapped his hands, and made haste up to the porter at the entrance to the Palace Beautiful. May I lodge here to-night? said he. So he was told that the Lord of the Hill himself had built this house for the relief and security of pilgrims. The

porter asked Christian several questions, as who he was, and where from, and what was his name, and whither he was going, and why he came so late, all which interrogatories Christian ingenuously answered, especially the last, confessing his sinful, sorrowful sleep.

There are some important lessons to be learned from this Hill Difficulty, as first, the folly of thinking to gain heaven without trouble and self-denial. In nothing else in this world do men ever act on this principle. If there be any great thing to be gained in this life, all men are sure that it is going to cost great effort, and they are ready to make such effort; nor is it a light thing that will turn them aside. They will go up a Hill Difficulty, without drinking at any spring but that of their own sanguine expectation, and without deigning to rest in any arbor by the way, much more without losing time by sleeping in it. And if there be lions in the way, they will go at them at once; yea, if a loaded cannon stood in their path, and a bag of gold beyond it, or the cup of sinful pleasure, they would go on. If there be mountains which they cannot overtop, they will dig through them; and they will suffer days of weariness and nights of pain, they will make long pilgrimages, will expatriate themselves for years, and suffer banishment from families, friends, firesides, into strange lands, will cross oceans, and encounter perils of every name and shape, to accomplish and realize the object of their earthly ambition; and after all, what is it? A dream, a straw, a bauble, a flake of foam on the surface of a river. They pluck it, it