To which the older woman made
the characteristic reply: 'You know your sore and I know mine, and we
shall both have enough evil to face before we come to our journey's end.'
Now, I do not for a moment suppose that there is any one here who can
need to be told what the Slough of Despond in reality is. Indeed, its
very name sufficiently declares it. But if any one should still be at a
loss to understand this terrible experience of all the pilgrims, the
explanation offered by the good man who gave Christian his hand may here
be repeated. 'This miry slough,' he said, 'is such a place as cannot be
mended. This slough is the descent whither the scum and filth that
attends conviction of sin doth continually run, and therefore it is
called by the name of Despond, for still as the sinner is awakened about
his lost condition there ariseth in his soul many fears and doubts and
discouraging apprehensions, which all of them get together, and settle in
this place, and this is the reason of the badness of the ground.' That
is the parable, with its interpretation; but there is a passage in _Grace
Abounding_ which is no parable, and which may even better than this so
pictorial slough describe some men's condition here.
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