I am away on a mission, so while I am away I thought I’d share seven sections of the best book (save the Bible) that anyone could ever read and from which this blog acquired its name. I hope you are spurred on to pick up a copy of Pilgrim’s Progress and read it.

I looked then, and saw a man named Evangelist coming to him, and he asked, ‘Wherefore dost thou cry?’

He answered, ‘Sir, I perceive, by the book in my hand, that I am condemned to die, and after that to come to judgment; and I find that I am not willing to do the first, nor able to do the second.’

Then said Evangelist, ‘Why not willing to die, since this life is attended with so many evils?’

The man answered, ‘Because, I fear this burden that is upon my back will sink me lower than the grave, and I shall fall into Tophet. And Sir, if I be not fit to go to prison, I am not fit to go to judgment, and from thence to execution; and the thoughts of these things makes me cry’.

Then said Evangelist, ‘If this be thy condition, why standest thou still?’ He answered, ‘Because I know not whither to go.’ Then he gave him a parchment roll, and there was written within, ‘Fly from the wrath to come.’

The man therefore read it, and looking upon Evangelist very carefully, said, ‘Whither must I fly?’

Then said Evangelist, (pointing with his finger over a very wide field,) ‘Do you see yonder wicket-gate?’

The man said, ‘No’. Then said the other, ‘Do you see yonder shining light?’ He said, ‘I think I do.’ Then said Evangelist, ‘Keep that light in your eye, and go directly thereto, so shalt thou see the gate; at which, when thou knockest, it shall be told thee what thou shalt do.’

So I saw in my dream that the man began to run. Now he had not run far from his own door when his wife and children, perceiving it, began to cry after him to return; but the man put his fingers in his ears, and ran on crying, ‘Life! Life! Eternal Life!’ So he looked not behind him, but fled towards the middle of the plain.