It brings a man into junctures and into companionships, and it
puts offices and endurances upon one such as try a man if he has any
greatness of spirit about him at all. This life on which you are
entering, said Shame, will cost you many a blush before you are done with
it. You will lay yourself open to many a scoff. The Puritan religion,
and all the ways of that religious fraternity, are peculiarly open to the
shafts of ridicule. Now, all that was quite true. There was no denying
the truth of what Shame said. And Faithful felt the truth of it all, and
felt it most keenly, as he confessed to Christian. The blood came into
my face as the fellow spake, and what he said for a time almost beat me
out of the upward way altogether. But in this dilemma also all true
Christians can fall back, as Faithful fell back, upon the example of
their Master. In this as in every other experience of temptation and
endurance, our Lord is the forerunner and the example of His people. Our
Lord was in all points tempted like as we are, and among all His other
temptations He was tempted to be ashamed of His work on earth and of the
life and the death His work led Him into.
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