Pilgrim's Progress

We left Christian proceeding bravely with his journey after he had won the fight with Apollyon, the Fiend of Darkness, who would have killed him. We are now to see what further adventures befell him on his pilgrimage from the City of Destruction—which means the sinful world of this earth—to the Celestial City, or heaven. The trials and troubles of Christian, Faithful, and Hopeful are just those which each one of us has to meet in our way through life, for Bunyan has made an entrancing story out of the life of any Christian man or woman.

THE PILGRIMS IN VANITY FAIR
The Fate of Faithful, and Christian's Escape

Now, at the end of the Valley ot Humiliation was another, called the Valley of the Shadow of Death. And Christian must needs go through it, because the way to the Celestial City lay through the midst of it. The pathway was extremely narrow. On the right hand was a very deep ditch. On the left hand was a very dangerous quag. Besides, the darkness was so great that Christian could hardly tell where, or on what, in going forward he should next set his foot.

About the midst of this valley, and near the wayside, was the mouth of the Underworld. Ever and anon flame and smoke would come forth with hideous noises. Christian heard doleful voices, and fiends came towards him. Near the burning pit one of the fiends came up softly to him, and whisperingly suggested many bad thoughts to him, which he verily believed had proceeded from his own mind.

When Christian had travelled in this disconsolate condition some considerable time, he thought he heard the voice of a man, as going before him, saying :

" Though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me."

Then he was glad, because he gathered that some who feared God were in this valley as well as himself. Then the day broke, and Christian said:
"He hath turned the shadow of death into the morning."

This was another mercy to Christian. for, from the place where he now stood to the end of the valley, the way was all along set full of snares, nets, and pitfalls. In this light, therefore, he came to the end of the valley.

Now, as Christian went on his way he came to a little ascent, which was cast up on purpose that pilgrims might see before them. Up there Christian, looking forward, saw before him Faithful, his fellow townsman, of whom he had heard from the porter at the Palace Beautiful.
Then said Christian aloud : " Ho, ho, so ho ! stay, and I will be thy companion! "

Then I saw in my dream that they went very lovingly on together, and had sweet discourse of all the things that had befallen them in their pilgrimage, and of what had happened in the City of Destruction after Christian had left.

When they were got out of the wilderness, they presently saw a town before them, and the name of that town is Vanity. And at the town there is a fair kept, called Vanity Fair; it is kept all the year long.
Almost five thousand years ago there were pilgrims walking to the Celestial City, and Beelzebub, Apollyon, and Legion, with their companions in evil, perceiving that the pilgrims' way to that city lay through this town of Vanitv, contrived here to set up a fair, wherein should be sold all sorts of vanity, and that it should last all the year long.

As Christian and Faithful entered into Vanity Fair, the people wondered at their apparel and at their speech. The town itself was in a hubbub about them.

That which did not a little amuse the merchandisers was that these pilgrims set very light by all their wares. They cared not so much as to look upon them, and when asked what they would buy answered gravely : " We buy the truth."

The behaviour of Christian and Faithful so little suited the people of Vanity Fair that the pilgrims were taken and examined, and those that examined them did not believe them to be any other than mad, or else such as came to put all things into a confusion in the fair. Therefore they took them and beat them, and besmeared them with dirt, and then put them into a cage, that they might be a spectacle to all.