more clear than his illustration of saving faith which worketh by
love, when in after-life he wrote the Pilgrim's Progress. Hopeful
was in a similar state of inquiry whether he had faith. 'Then I said,
But, Lord, what is believing?' And then I saw from that saying, He
that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth in me
shall never thirst, that believing and coming was all one, and that
he that came, that is, ran out in his heart and affections after
salvation by Christ, he indeed believed in Christ (John 6:25).[77]

In addition to his want of scriptural education, it must be remembered
that, when he thought of miraculous power being an evidence of faith,
his mind was in a most excited state--doubts spread over him like
a huge masses of thick black clouds, hiding the Sun of Righteousness
from his sight. Not only is he to be pardoned for his error, but
admired for the humility which prompted him to record so singular
a trial, and his escape from 'this delusion of the tempter.' While
'thus he was tossed betwixt the devil and his own ignorance,'[78]
the happiness of the poor women whose conversation he had heard at
Bedford, was brought to his recollection by a remarkable reverie
or day dream:--

'About this time, the state and happiness of these poor people at
Bedford was thus, in a dream or vision, represented to me. I saw
as if they were set on the sunny side of some high mountain, there
refreshing themselves with the pleasant beams of the sun, while
I was shivering and shrinking in the cold, afflicted with frost,
snow, and dark clouds. Methought also, betwixt me and them, I saw
a wall that did compass about this mountain; now through this wall
my soul did greatly desire to pass, concluding that if I could, I
would go even into the very midst of them, and there also comfort