GREAT-HEART. Why, what would, or could you have done, to have helped yourself, if we indeed had been of that company. HON. Done! why I would have fought as long as breath had been in me; and had I so done, I am sure you could never have given me the worst on it; for a Christian can never be overcome, unless he should yield of himself.[206]
GREAT-HEART. Well said, father Honest, quoth the guide; for by this I know thou art a cock of the right kind, for thou hast said the truth.
HON. And by this, also, I know that thou knowest what true pilgrimage is; for all others do think that we are the soonest overcome of any.
GREAT-HEART. Well, now we are so happily met, pray let me crave your name, and the name of the place you came from.
HON. My name I cannot; but I came from the town of Stupidity; it lieth about four degrees beyond the City of Destruction.
GREAT-HEART. Oh! are you that countryman, then? I deem I have half a guess of you; your name is Old Honesty, is it not? So the old gentleman blushed, and said, Not Honesty, in the abstract,[207] but Honest is my name; and I wish that my nature shall agree to what I am called.
HON. But, Sir, said the old gentleman, how could you guess that I am such a man, since I came from such a place?
GREAT-HEART. I had heard of you before, by my Master; for He knows all things that are done on the earth; but I have often wondered that any should come from your place, for your town is worse than is the City of Destruction itself.
HON. Yes, we lie more off from the sun, and so are more cold and senseless; but was a man in a mountain of ice, yet if the Sun of Righteousness will arise upon him, his frozen heart shall feel a thaw; and thus it hath been with me.[208]
GREAT-HEART. I believe it, father Honest, I believe it; for I know the thing is true.