III
Suddenly the Vision Beautiful breaks upon him. He stumbles blindly through the forest until he arrives at the base of a sunlit mountain:
... a mountain’s foot I reached, where closed
The valley that had pierced my heart with dread.
I looked aloft, and saw his shoulders broad
Already vested with that planet’s beam
Who leads all wanderers safe through every way.
The hill is, of course, the life he fain would live—steep and difficult, but free from the mists of the valley and the entanglements of the wood. And is it not illumined by the Sun of Righteousness—‘Who leads all wanderers safe through every [189] way’? He stepped out from the valley and cheerfully commenced the ascent. And then his troubles began. One after the other, wild beasts barred his way and dared him to persist. His path was beset with the most terrible difficulties. Now here, if anywhere, the poet betrays that spiritual insight, that flash of genuine mysticism, that entitles him to rank with the great masters. For whilst he wandered in the murky wood no ravenous beasts assailed him. There, life, however unsatisfying, was at least free from conflict. But as soon as he essayed to climb the sunlit hill his way was challenged. It is a very ancient problem. The psalmist marvelled that, whilst the wicked around him enjoyed a most profound and unruffled tranquillity, his life was so full of perplexity and trouble. John Bunyan was arrested by the same inscrutable mystery. Why should he, in his pilgrim progress, be so storm-beaten and persecuted, whilst the people who abandoned themselves to folly enjoyed unbroken ease? I have often thought of the problem when out shooting. The dog invariably ignores the dead birds and devotes all his energy to the fluttering things that are struggling to escape. In the stress of the experience itself, however, such comfortable thoughts do not occur to us, and it seems passing strange that, whilst our days in the wood were undisturbed by hungry eyes or gleaming [190] fangs, our attempt to climb the sunlit hill should bring about us a host of unexpected enemies. Many a young and eager convert, fancying that the Christian life meant nothing but rapture, has been startled by the discovery of the beasts of prey awaiting him.
IV
And such beasts! Trouble seemed to succeed trouble; difficulty followed on the heels of difficulty; peril came hard upon peril.