2

Is healed with leaves of the Tree of Life.

But Blessed Michael helped me; and I,
By dint of sword, did quickly make him fly;
Therefore to him let me give lasting praise,
And thank and bless his holy name always.1

51

Then there came to him a hand, with some of the leaves of the Tree of Life, the which Christian took and applied to the wounds that he had received in the battle, and was healed immediately. He also sat down in that place to eat bread, and to drink of the bottle that was given to him a little before; so, being refreshed, he addressed himself to his journey, with his sword drawn in his hand; for, he said, I know not but some other enemy may be at hand. But he met with no other affront from Apollyon quite through this valley.

Now at the end of this valley 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. Now, this valley is a very solitary place. The prophet Jeremiah thus describes it: "A wilderness, a land of deserts and pits; a land of drought, and of the shadow of death; a land that no man (but a Christian) passeth through, and where no man dwelt." (Jer. ii. 6.)

Now here Christian was worse put to it than in his fight with Apollyon, as by the sequel you shall see.

I saw then in my dream, that when Christian was got to the borders of the Shadow of Death, there met him two men, children of

1 Besides these verses, we meet in the old copies with these lines,-—

“A more unequal match can hardly be,

Christian must fight an angel; but you see,
The valiant man, by handling sword and shield,
Doth make him, though a dragon, quit the field."

2 The leaves of the tree of life,' Rev. xxii. 2. represent the present benefits of the redemption of Christ: 'the hand' may be the emblem of the instruments he employs in restoring to his discouraged servants" the joy of his salvation."

3 The Valley of the Shadow of Death seems intended to present a variation of inward discouragement, distress, conflict, and alarm, which arises from prevailing darkness of mind and want of lively spiritual affections. The words, quoted from Jeremiah, describe the waste howling wilderness through which Israel journeyed to Canaan; which typified the believer's pilgrimage through this world to heaven. The author therefore meant in general, that such dreary seasons may be expected; and that few believers wholly escape them; but not that all experience these various trials in the same order or degree as Christian did.

4

These men were spies, not pilgrims: and they related what they had observed at a distance, but had never experienced.-They represent those who have been conversant with