Chr.—"Yes, and did see such things there, the thoughts of which will stick by me as long as I live; in chief, three things; to wit, how Christ, in spite of the Foe of Man, keeps up his work of grace in the heart; how the man, through sin, had got quite out of hopes of God's ruth; and, in like way, the dream of him that thought in his sleep the day of doom was come."
Pi.—"And what saw you else in the way?"
Chr.—"Saw! Why, I went but a wee way and I saw One, as I thought in my mind, hang and bleed on a tree; and the sheer sight of him made my load fall off my back; for I did groan through the great weight, but then it fell down from off me."
Pi.—"But you saw more than this, did you not?"
Chr.—"The things that I have told you were the best; yet some more things I saw, as, first of all, I saw three men, Simple, Sloth, and Presumption, lie in sleep, not far out of the way as I came, with gyves on their heels; but do you think I could rouse them? I saw, in like way, Formalist and Hypocrisy come and roll from the top of a wall, to go, as they fain would have me think, to Zion; but they were lost in a trice, just as I did tell them; but they would not heed my words."
Pr.—"Do you think at times of the land from whence you came?"
Chr.—"Yes, but with much shame and hate."
Pr.—"Do you not yet bear hence with you some of the things that you well knew there?"
Chr.—"Yes, but much in strife with my will; the more so the crass thoughts of my heart, with which all the folk of my land, as well as I, would find joy; but now all those things are my grief, and might I but choose mine own things, I would choose not to think of those things more; but when I would do that which is best, that which is worst is with me."
Pr.—"And what is it that makes you so long to go to Mount Zion?"