SENDING FORTH HIS SECOND PART. 181

ANSWER.

My Curistiana, if with such thou meet,

By all means in all loving-wise them greet ;
Render them not reviling for revile ;

But if they frown, I prithee on them smile.
Perhaps ’tis nature, or some ill report,

Has ‘made them thus despise or thus retort.

Some love no cheese, some love no fish, and some
Love not their friends, nor their own house or home ;
Some start at pig, slight chicken, love not fowl
‘More than they love a cuckoo or an owl.

Leave such, my Curistiawa, to their choice,
And seek those who to find thee will rejoice.
By no means strive, but in all humble-wise
Present thee to them in thy Pilgrim’s guise.

Go then, my little book, and show to all

That entertain and bid thee welcome shall,
What thou shalt keep close shut up from the rest ;
And wish what thou shalt show them may be blest
To them for good—may make them choose to be
Pilgrims better by far than thee or me.

Go then, I say, tell all men who thou art;

Say, [am Curistrana, and my part

Is now, with my four sons, to tell you what
Tt is for men to take a Pilgrim’s lot.

Go, also tell them who and what they be
That now do go on pilgrimage with thee:
Say, ‘ Here’s my neighbor Mercy ; she is one
That has long time with me a Pilgrim gone:
Come, see her in her virgin face, and learn
’Twixt idle ones and Pilgrims to discern ;
Yea, let young damsels learn of her to prize
The world which is to come, in any wise.”
When little tripping maidens follow God,
And leave old doting sinners to His rod,

*Tis like those days wherein the young ones cried
“ Hosanna!” to whom old ones did deride.

Next tell them of old Honest, whom you found,
With his white hairs, treading the Pilgrims’ ground
Yea, tell them how plain-hearted this man was ;
How after his good Lord he bare his cross.
Perhaps with some gray head this may prevail
With Christ to fall in Jove, and sin bewail.

Tell them also how Master Fearing went
On pilgrimage, and how the time he spent
In solitariness, with fears and cries ;

And how at last he won the joyful prize.