Away the image moved with graceful ease into Elysian bowers of sensual joy. There he remained to breathe its poisoned air and feed upon the husks of such a clime.
I also saw a man of riper years who looked curiously at another image similar to the one that had just moved away. At first he was doubtful whether to test it or not, and as he stood in consideration he raised his eyes and saw these words plainly written over the King’s Highway:-To ALL DESCENDANTS OF ADAM:
Beware, O pilgrim, of this woman’s heart, Lest you should from the Narrow Way depart; For if you touch a secret chord within, You’re borne away to wider fields of sin.
He read this sign a few times and also heard the voice of a good friend who told him that he had seen thousands go to ruin by not heeding this warning. Nevertheless he was urged by curiosity and carnality, and being hardened by former acts of disobedience and seeing nothing but innocent pleasure before him, he yielded to his baser desires.
“O! rescue me, Mr. Law, I am in the clutches of this woman,” was his beseeching cry, not long after. But I saw that no one came to his help.
There were many such places in this valley where men, both young and old, were enticed; many of whom could not have been caught by the snares of vice at other places along the Broad Highway.
I saw also, farther down the valley, that Satan used all manner of traps and nets to catch the silly and the foolish. That which attracted my attention the most was a series of stations built close to the King’s Highway. At each place Satan employed a company of expert men who were trained to use a lasso. I saw certain men and women of the King’s Highway who became so inflated with their own vanity and imaginations that they rose head and shoulder above their humbler comrades, thus enabling the lasso of Pride to get hold of them. Some, by heeding advice, escaped; others submitted to the drawing power and landed in the kingdoms of the World where they could worship their new god with increasing ardor.
There was also a certain young man who doted so much on his own ways that his head rose unusually high. He was, therefore, easily caught by a lasso called Conceit. Good friends came to his rescue and told him to realize at once that he was nothing, and thereby he would suddenly become so small that he would drop completely out of his trouble.
But he said that he could not believe a lie, whereat the lasso tightened still more about his neck, and he succeeded by still further struggling to remain a very brief time on the King’s Highway; but being in pain, he soon yielded to the inevitable and went to worship before the shrine of his own god.
I also saw that the women of the King’s Highway were an exceeding great army, mighty in battling against the foe, much to the discomfiture of Satan and his allies.