I saw, indeed, that many old offenders appeared to be sorry for what they had done; that is, they did not like to be punished for it. They were willing enough to be delivered from the penalty of their guilt, but they did not heartily wish to be delivered from the power of it. Many declared, in the most public manner, once every week, that they were sorry they had done amiss; that they had erred and strayed like lost sheep, but it was not enough to declare their sorrow, ever so often, if they gave no other sign of their penitence. For there was so little truth in them, that the lord required other proofs of their sincerity beside their own word, for they often lied with their lips and dissembled with their tongue. But those who professed to be penitent must give some outward proof of it. They were neither allowed to raise heaps of clay, by circumventing their neighbors, or to keep great piles lying by them useless; nor must they barter them for any of those idle vanities which reduced the heaps on a sudden; for I found that among the grand articles of future reckoning, the use they had made of the heaps would be a principal one.
I was sorry to observe many of the fairer part of these pilgrims spend too much of their heaps in adorning and beautifying their tenements of clay, in painting, whitewashing, and enameling them. All those tricks, however, did not preserve them from decay; and when they grew old, they even looked worse for all this cost and varnish. Some, however, acted a more sensible part, and spent no more upon their moldering tenements than just to keep them whole and clean, and in good repair, which is what every tenant ought to do; and I observed, that those who were most moderate in the care of their own tenements, were most attentive to repair and warm the ragged tenements of others. But none did this with much zeal or acceptance, but those who had acquired a habit of overlooking the things below, and who also, by the constant use of the telescope had got their natural weak and dim sight so strengthened, as to be able to discern pretty distinctly the nature of the things above. The habit of fixing their eyes on these glories made all the shining trifles, which compose the mass of things below, at last appear in their own diminutive littleness. For it was in this case particularly true, that things are only big or little by comparison; and there was no other way of making the things below, appear as small as they really were, but by comparing them, by means of the telescope, with the things above. But I observed that the false judgment of the pilgrims ever kept pace with their wrong practices; for those who kept their eyes fastened on the things below, were reckoned wise in their generation, while the few who looked forward to the future glories, were accounted by the bustlers, or heapers, to be either fools or mad.
Most of these pilgrims went on in adorning their tenements, adding to their heaps, grasping the things below as if they would never let them go, shutting their eyes, instead of using their telescope, and neglecting their title-deed, as if it was the parchment of another man's estate, and not of their own; till one after another each felt his tenement tumbling about his ears. Oh! then what a busy, bustling, anxious, terrifying, distracting moment was that! What a deal of business was to be done, and what a strange time was this to do it in! Now, to see the confusion and dismay occasioned by having left every thing to the last minute. First, some one was sent for to make over the yellow heaps, to another, which the heaper now found would be of no use to himself in shooting the gulf; a transfer which ought to have been made while the tenement was sound. Then there was a consultation between two or three masons at once perhaps, to try to patch up the walls, and strengthen the props, and stop the decays of the tumbling tenement; but not till the masons were forced to declare it was past repairing (a truth they were rather too apt to keep back) did the tenant seriously think it was time to pack up, prepare and begone. Then what sending for the wise men who professed to explain the title-deed! And oh! what remorse that they had neglected to examine it till their senses were too confused for so weighty a business! What reproaches, or what exhortations to others, to look better after their own affairs than they had done. Even to the wisest of the inhabitants the falling of their tenements was a solemn thing; solemn, but not surprising; they had long been packing up and preparing; they praised their lord's goodness that they had been suffered to stay so long; many acknowledged the mercy of their frequent warnings, and confessed that those very dilapidations which had made the house uncomfortable had been a blessing, as it had set them on diligent preparation for their future inheritance; had made them more earnest in examining their title to it, and had set them on such a frequent application to the telescope, that the things above had seemed every day to approach nearer and nearer, and the things below to recede and vanish in proportion. These desired not to be unclothed but to be clothed upon, for they knew that if their tabernacle was dissolved, they had an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
THE VALLEY OF TEARS.
A VISION;
OR, BEAR YE ONE ANOTHER'S BURDENS.
Once upon a time methought I set out upon a long journey, and the place through which I traveled appeared to be a dark valley, which was called the Valley of Tears. It had obtained this name, not only on account of the many sorrowful adventures which poor passengers commonly meet with in their journey through it; but also because most of these travelers entered it weeping and crying, and left it in very great pain and anguish. This vast valley was full of people of all colors, ages, sizes and descriptions. But whether white or black, or tawny, all were traveling the same road; or rather they were taking different little paths which all led to the same common end.
Now it was remarkable, that notwithstanding the different complexions, ages, and tempers of this vast variety of people, yet all resembled each other in this one respect, that each had a burden on his back which he was destined to carry through the toil and heat of the day, until he should arrive, by a longer or shorter course, at his journey's end. These burdens would in general have made the pilgrimage quite intolerable, had not the lord of the valley, out of his great compassion for these poor pilgrims, provided, among other things, the following means for their relief.
In their full view over the entrance of the valley, there were written, in great letters of gold, the following words: