The happy, heavenly, divine disposition of the gatekeeper was such, that
it overflowed from the pilgrim who stood beside him and descended upon
his wife and children who remained behind him in the doomed city. So
full of love was the gatekeeper's heart, that it ran out upon Obstinate
and Pliable also. His heart was so large and so hospitable, that he was
not satisfied with one pilgrim received and assisted that day. How is
it, he asked, that you have come here alone? Did any of your neighbours
know of your coming? And why did he who came so far not come through?
Alas, poor man, said Goodwill, is the celestial glory of so little esteem
with him that he counteth it not worth running the hazards of a few
difficulties to obtain it? Our pilgrim got a lifelong lesson in goodwill
to all men at that gate that day. The gatekeeper showed such deep and
patient and genuine interest in all the pilgrim's past history, and in
all his family and personal affairs, that Christian all his days could
never show impatience, or haste, or lack of interest in the most long-
winded and egotistical pilgrim he ever met.
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