Page:The Pilgrim's Progress, the Holy War, Grace Abounding Chunk1.djvu/258

254 pilgrimage is; for all others do think that we are the soonest overcome of any.

Great. Well, now we are so happily met, pray let me crave your name, and the name of the place you came from.

Hon. My name I cannot. But I came from the town of Stupidity; it lieth about four degrees beyond the City of Destruction.

Great. Oh! are you that countryman? Then I deem I have half a guess of you: your name is Old Honesty, is it not!

Hon. So the old gentleman blushed, and said, Not Honesty in the abstract; but Honest is my name, and I wish that my nature may agree to what I am called. But, sir, said the old gentleman, how could you guess that I am such a man, since I came from such a place?

Great. I had heard of you before, by my Master; for he knows all things that: are done on the earth: but I have often wondered that any should come from your place, for your town is worse than is the City of Destruction itself.

Hon. Yes; we lie more off from the sun, and so are more cold and senseless: but were a man in a mountain of ice, yet if the Sun of Righteousness should arise upon him, his frozen heart shall feel a thaw. And thus it has been ith me.

Great. I believe it, father Honest, I believe it; for I know the thing is true

Then the old gentleman saluted all the pilgrims with a holy kiss of charity, and asked them their names, and how they had fared since they set out on their pilgrimage.

Then said Christiana, My name, I suppose, you have heard of: good Christian was my husband, and these four are his children. But can you think how the old gentleman was taken when she told him who she was! He skipped, he smiled, he blessed them with a thousand good wishes, saying, I have heard much of your husband, and of his travels and wars which he underwent in his days. Be it spoken to your