EVANGELIST EXHORTS CHRISTIAN. 108

before you, and it is an uncorruptible one: so run that you may obtain it.” Some
there be that set out for this crown, and after they have gone far for it, another comes
in and takes it from them: ‘ Hold fast, therefore, that you have; let no man take your
crown.’ ‘You are not yet out of the gunshot of the devil; you have not yet ‘ resisted
unto blood, striving against sin.’ Let the kingdom be always before you, and believe
steadfastly concerning things that are invisible. Let nothing that is on this side the
other world get within you. And, above all, look well to your own hearts, and to the
lusts thereof; for they are ‘ deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. Set
your faces like a flint: you have all power in heaven and earth on your side.”

Then Christian thanked him for his exhortation, but told him withal that they
would have him speak further to them, for their help the rest of the way ; and the
rather, for that they well knew that he was a prophet, and could tell them of things
that might happen unto them, and also how they might resist and overcome them. ‘To
which request Faithful also consented. So Evangelist began as followeth :

Evan. My sons, you have heard, in the words of the truth of the Gospel, that you
must “through many tribulations enter into the kingdom of heaven ;” and again, that
“in every city bonds and afflictions await you;” and therefore you cannot expect that
you should go long on your pilgrimage without them in some sort or other. You have
found something of the truth of these testimonies upon you already, and more will
immediately follow; for now, as you see, you are almost out of this wilderness, and
therefore you will soon come into a town that you will by-and-by sce before you; and
in that town you will be hardly beset with enemies, who will strain hard but they will
kill you ; and be you sure that one or both of you must seal the testimony which you
hold with blood: but be you faithful unto death, and the King will give you a crown
of life. He that shall die there, although his death will be unnatural, and his pain,
perhaps, great, he will yet have the better of his fellow ; not only because he will bz
arrived at the Celestial City soonest, but because he will escape many miseries that the
other will meet with in the rest of his journey. But when you are come to the town,
and shall find fulfilled what I have here related, then remember your friend, and quit
yourselves like men, and commit the keeping of your souls to God in well-doing, as
unto a faithful Creator.

Then I saw in my dream, that, when they were got out of the wilderness, they
presently saw a town before them, and che name of that town is Vanity; and at the
town there is a fair kept, called Vanity Fair. It is kept all the year long. It heareth
the name of Vanity Fair, because the town where it is kept is lighter than vanity, and