INTRODUCTORY NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR. 19

“Through all my life Thy favor is
So frankly showed to me,
That in Thy house for evermore
My dwelling-place shall be.”’
And another responding,—
“For why? The Lord our God is good ;
His mercy is for ever sure:
His truth at all times firmly stood,
And shall from age to age endure.”

Not less lovely, when Christiana passes through, is the Valley of Humiliation, green and fertile, and
“ beautified with lilies,’ where “cur Lord formerly had his country house, and loved to walk the
meadows, for he found the air was pleasant,” where “laboring men have good estates,” where the
shepherd boy doth sing his artless song, giving utterance to his heart’s content,—

‘*He that is down needs fear no fall;
He that is poor no pride ;
He that is humble ever shall
Have God to be his guide.”’

And that land of Beulah, so near the gates of the city with only the river between, where the pilgrim,
after the toils of the way, rests and ripens for glory, is so vivid'y presented to us, that, forgetting
our surroundings, we can sometimes fancy ourselves in it, soothed and refreshed by its delicious in-
fluences, bathed in its golden light, and breathing its balmy air. And the Celestial City itself, shin-
ing like the sun, with its bells and trumpets, its golden pavement, its white-robed inhabitants, wearing
crowns and waving palms, with “harps to play withal”—what reader does not feel as if he stood
with the writer looking in at the open gate, and, sympathizing with his desire, when carried away by
his own imaginings, he says, “ which, when I had seen, I wished myself among them.”

But time would fail and space forbids us to expatiate on the beauties of the book. The more
we study it, the more do we feel how much it deserves its matchless popularity ; and the more
cordially do we commend it to the careful perusal of our readers. Our desire and prayer is, that
some of them may be influenced by Bunyan’s pleasant companionship and wise guidance to commence,
or, if they have commenced already, to persevere in and complete the pilgrimage which he so
graphically describes.