Page:The Pilgrim's Progress, the Holy War, Grace Abounding Chunk1.djvu/65

Rh "changed a bad for a worse:" but it is ordinary for those that have professed themselves his servants, after a while to give him the slip, and return again to me. Do thou so too, and all shall be well.

Chr. I have given him my faith, and sworn my allegiance to him; how, then, can I go back from this, and not be hanged as a taitor?

Apol. Thou didst the same to me, and yet I am willing to pass by all, if new thou wilt yet turn and go back.

Chr. What I promised thee was in my nonage; and, besides, I count that the Prince under whose banner I now stand is able to absolve me; yea, and to pardon also what I did as to my compliance with thee. And besides, O thou destroying Apollyon! to speak truth, I like his service, his wages, his servants, his government, his company, and country, better than thine; therefore leave offf to persuade me further: I am his servant, and I will follow him.

Apol. Consider, again, when thou art in cool blood, what thou art like to meet with in the way that thou goest. Thou knowest that, for the most part, his servants some to an ill end, because they are transgressors against me and my ways. How many of them have been put to shameful deaths! And, besides, thou countest his service better than mine; whereas he never came yet from the place where he is, to deliver any that served him out of their hands: but as for me, how many times, as all the world very well knows, have I delivered, either by power or fraud, those that have faithfully served me, from him and his, though taken by them? And so will I deliver thee.

Chr. His forbearing at present to deliver them is on purpose to try their love, whether they will cleave to him to the end; and as for the ill end thou sayest they come to, that is most glorious in their account: for, for present deliverance, they do not much expect it; for they stay for their glory,