was he at first in his religion. But, no: forward before all his
neighbours as Temporary was, to begin with, yet all the time his mind was
not really changed. His forwardness did not properly spring out of his
true mind at all, but only out of his momentarily awakened conscience and
his momentarily excited heart. A sinner with a truly changed mind is
never forward. His mind is so changed that forwardness in anything is
utterly alien to it, and especially all forwardness in the profession of
religion. The change that had taken place in Temporary, whatever was the
seat of it, only led him to bully men like Christian and Hopeful, who
would not go fast enough for him. "Come," said Pliable, in the beginning
of the book, "come on and let us mend our pace." "I cannot go so fast as
I would," humbly replied Christian, "because of this burden on my back."
It is a common observation among mountaineers that he who takes the hill
at the greatest spurt is the last climber to come to the top, and that
many who so ostentatiously make spurts at the bottom of the hill never
come within sight of the top at all. And this is one of the constant
dangers that wait on all revivals, religious retreats, conferences, and
even communion seasons. Our hot fits, the hotter they are, are only the
more likely, unless we take the greatest care, to cast us down into all
the more deadly a chill. It is this danger that our Lord points out so
plainly in His parable of apostasy. The same is he, says our Lord, that
heareth the word, and anon with joy receiveth it; yet hath he not root in
himself, but dureth for a while. In Hopeful's words, his mind and will
were never changed with all his joy, only his passing moods and his
momentary emotions.

Multitudes of men who are as forward at first as Pliable and Temporary
were turn out at last to have no root in themselves; but here and there
you will discover a man who is all root together. There are some men
whose whole mind and heart and will, whose whole inward man, has gone to