Answering Discontent

CHRISTIAN: But pray tell me, Did you meet nobody in the Valley of Humility?

FAITHFUL: Yes, I met with one Discontent, who would willingly have persuaded me to go back again with him; his reason was, for that the valley was altogether without honour. He told me, moreover, that there to go was the way to disobey all my friends, as Pride, Arrogance, Self-conceit, Worldly-glory, with others, who he knew, as he said, would be very much offended, if I made such a fool of myself as to wade through this valley.

CHRISTIAN: Well, and how did you answer him?

Faithful’s answer to Discontent

FAITHFUL: I told him, that although all these that he named might claim kindred of me, and that rightly, for indeed they were my relations according to the flesh; yet since I became a pilgrim, they have disowned me, as I also have rejected them; and therefore they were to me now no more than if they had never been of my lineage.

I told him, moreover, that as to this valley, he had quite misrepresented the thing; for before honour is humility, and a haughty spirit before a fall. Therefore, said I, I had rather go through this valley to the honour that was so accounted by the wisest, than choose that which he esteemed most worthy our affections.