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heart why he keeps such a dog: had I known that before, I should not have had heart enough to have ventured myself in this manner. But now we are in, we are in, and I am glad with all my heart.
MERCY: I will ask, if you please, next time he comes down, why he keeps such a filthy cur in his yard; I hope he will not take it amiss.
Do so, said the children, and persuade him to hang him; for we are afraid he will bite us when we go hence.
So at last he came down to them again, and Mercy fell to the ground on her face before him, and worshiped, and said, “Let my Lord accept the sacrifice of praise which I now offer unto him with the calves of my lips." So he said unto her, Peace be to thee; stand up. But she continued upon her face, and said, “Righteous art thou, O Lord, when I plead with thee; yet let me talk with thee of thy judgments." Jer. 12:1. Wherefore dost thou keep so cruel a dog in thy yard, at the sight of which such women and children as we are ready to fly from thy gate for fear.
He answered and said, That dog has another owner; he also is kept close in another man’s ground, only my pilgrims hear his barking; he belongs to the castle which you see there at a distance, but can come up to the walls of this place. He has frighted many an honest pilgrim from worse to better, by the great voice of his roaring. Indeed, he that owneth him doth not keep him out of any good-will to me or mine, but with intent to keep the pilgrims from coming to me, and that they may be afraid to come and knock at this gate for entrance. Sometimes also he has broken out, and has worried some that I loved; but I take all at present patiently. I also give my pilgrims timely help, so that they are not delivered to his power, to do with them what his doggish nature would prompt him to. But what my purchased one, I trow, hadst thou known never so much beforehand, thou wouldest not have been afraid of a dog. The beggars that go from door to door, will, rather than lose a supposed alms, run the hazard of the bawling, barking, and biting too of a dog; and shall a dog, a dog in another man’s yard, a dog whose barking I turn to the profit of pilgrims, keep any from coming to me. I deliver them from the lions, and my darling from the power of the dog. Psa.
22:21,22.
MERCY: Then said Mercy, I confess my ignorance; I spake what I understood not; I acknowledge that thou doest all things well.
CHRISTIANA: Then Christiana began to talk of their journey, and to inquire after the way. So he fed them and washed their feet, and set them in the way of his steps, according as he had dealt with her husband before.
THE SECOND STAGE So I saw in my dream, that they walked on their way, and had the weather very comfortable to them.
Then Christiana began to sing, saying, Blessed be the day that I began A pilgrim for to be; And blessed also be the man 108 John Bunyan Pilgrim's Progress
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