Let dissolution come when it will, it can do the Christian no harm, for it will be but a passage out of a prison into a palace: out of a sea of troubles into a haven of rest; out of a crowd of enemies to an innumerable company of true, loving, and faithful friends; out of shame, reproach, and contempt, into exceeding great and eternal glory.
Temptations, when we meet them at first, are as the lion that roared upon Samson; but if we overcome them, the next time we see them we shall find a nest of honey within them.
The heart, when broken, is like sweet gums and spices when beaten; for as such cast their fragrant scent into the nostrils of men, so the heart, when broken, casts its sweet smell into the nostrils of God.
The Pilgrim they laid in a large upper chamber, whose window opened toward the sun-rising; the name of the chamber was Peace, where he slept till break of day, and then he awoke and sang.
The relations of Christians to each other are like the several flowers in a garden that have upon each the dew of heaven, which, being shaken by the wind, they let fall the dew at each other’s roots, whereby they are jointly nourished, and become nourishers of one another.
The shepherds led the pilgrims to Mount Charity, where they showed them a man that had a bundle of cloth lying before him, out of which he cut coats and garments for the poor that stood about him; yet his bundle or roll of cloth was never the less. Then said they: “What should this be?” “This is,” said the shepherds, “to show you that he who has a heart to give of his labor to the poor shall never want wherewithal. ‘He that watereth shall be watered himself.’ And the cake that the widow gave to the prophet did not cause that she had the less in her barrel.”
