_From Christian to Piscator_.
Walton and Bunyan were men who should have known each other. It is a
pleasant fancy, to me, that they may have met on the banks of Ouse, while
John was meditating a sermon, and Izaak was “attentive of his trembling
quill.”
SIR,—Being now come into the Land of Beulah; here, whence I cannot so
much as see Doubting Castle; here, where I am solaced with the sound of
voices from the City,—my mind, that is now more at peace about mine own
salvation, misgives me sore about thine. Thou wilt remember me,
perchance, for him that met thee by a stream of the Delectable Mountains,
and took thee to be a man fleeing from the City of Destruction. For,
beholding thee from afar, methought that thou didst carry a burden on thy
back, even as myself before my deliverance did bear the burden of my sins
and fears. Yet when I drew near I perceived that it was but a
fisherman’s basket on thy back, and that thou didst rather seek to add to
the weight of thy burden than to lighten it or fling it away. But, when
we fell into discourse, I marvelled much how thou camest so far upon the
way, even among the sheep and the shepherds of that country. For I found
that thou hadst little experience in conflict with Apollyon, and that
thou hadst never passed through the Slough of Despond nor wandered in the
Valley of the Shadow. Nay, thou hadst never so much as been distressed
in thy mind with great fear, nor hadst thou fled from thy wife and
children, to save, if it might be, thy soul for thyself, as I have done.
Nay, rather thou didst parley with the shepherds as one that loved their
life; and I remember, even now, that sweet carnal song
The Shepherd swains shall dance and sing,
For thy delight, each May morning;
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me and be my love.
These are not the songs that fit the Delectable Country; nay, rather they
are the mirth of wantons. Yet didst thou take pleasure in them; and
therefore I make bold to ask how didst thou flee at all from the City of
Destruction, and come so far upon thy way? Beware lest, when thou
winnest to that brook wherein no man casts angle, even to that flood
where there is no bridge to go over and the River is very deep—beware, I
say, of one Vain Hope, the Ferryman! For I would not have thee lost,
because thou art a kindly man and a simple. Yet for Ignorance there is
an ill way, even from the very gates of the City.—Thy fellow-traveller,