travelers might go thither with more security? And he said unto
me, This miry slough is such a place as cannot be mended. It is
the descent whither the scum and filth that attends conviction for
sin, doth continually run, and therefore it is called the Slough
of Despond: for still, as the sinner is awakened about his lost
condition, there ariseth in his soul many fears, and doubts, and
discouraging apprehensions, which all of them get together, and
settle in this place. And this is the reason of the badness of
this ground.

It is not the pleasure of the King that this place should remain
so bad (Isa. 35:3, 4); his labourers, also, have, by the directions
of his Majesty's surveyors, been, for above these 1,600 years,
employed about this patch of ground, if, perhaps, it might have
been mended; yea, and to my knowledge, said he, here have been
swallowed up at least 20,000 cart-loads; yea, millions of wholesome
instructions, that have, at all seasons, been brought from all
places of the King's dominions, and they that can tell, say, they
are the best materials to make good ground of the place, if so be
it might have been mended; but it is the Slough of Despond still;
and so will be when they have done what they can.[16]

True, there are, by the direction of the Lawgiver, certain good
and substantial steps, placed even through the very midst of this
slough; but at such time as this place doth much spew out its
filth, as it doth against change of weather, these steps are hardly
seen; or if they be, men, through the dizziness of their heads,
step besides, and then they are bemired to purpose, notwithstanding
the steps be there; but the ground is good, when they are once
got in at the gate[17] (1 Sam. 12:23).