And there appeared other bands from the number of those who had passed
to the right of the first great rock; and seeing the tumult and
confusion of the others, they said to themselves: "These are they who
followed not us. We have chosen the better part. Our leader bears the
only perfect Chart. All other charts are the invention of men. In the
right Chart there can be nothing false; in the others there can be
nothing true. Those who have not the true Chart can never go right,
not even for a moment. For even good deeds done in the paths of evil
must partake of the nature of sin. Straight is the way and narrow is
the gate, but there is no safety except ye walk therein."

So they went on, stumbling ever along the rocky road, never resting,
never murmuring. "For the way at best is a vale of tears," said they,
"and no one would have it otherwise. He found it thus in his time. He
was ever a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. More than all
others had he suffered. It was his glory to be despised and rejected
of men. For the greater the abasement the greater the exaltation in
the land beyond the river." So day by day they walked in the hardest
part of the road. But they spoke often together of a land of pure
delight, of sweet fields beyond the swelling floods, and of turf soft
as velvet that rose from the river's bank.

If perchance on the way they came to green pastures, they would hasten
on, lest they should be tempted to rest before the day of rest was
come. From sweet springs they turned aside, that theirs might be the
greater satisfaction when they came to the sweetest springs of all.
They shut their eyes to beauty and their ears to music, that the light
and music of the unknown shore might burst upon them as a sudden
revelation. They looked not at the stars, lest perchance these should