this place is on the way from The City of Destruction to The
Wicket Gate, how is it that no one mends this patch of ground, so
that those who come by may not fall in the slough?

Help.--This slough is such a place as no one can mend. It is the
spot to which doth run the scum and filth that wait on sin, and
that is why men call it the Slough of Despond. When the man of
sin wakes up to a sense of his own lost state, doubts and fears
rise up in his soul, and all of them drain down and sink in this
place: and it is this that makes the ground so bad. True there
are good and sound steps in the midst of the slough, but at times
it is hard to see them; or if they be seen, men's heads are so
dull that they step on one side, and fall in the mire. But the
ground is good when they have once got in at the gate.

Now I saw in my dream that by this time Pliable had gone back to
his house once more, and that his friends came to see him: some
said how wise it was to come home, and some that he was a fool to
have gone. Some, too, were found to mock him, who said--Well, had
I set out, I would not have been so base as to come back for a
slough in the road. So Pliable was left to sneak off; but at last
he got more heart, and then all were heard to turn their taunts,
and laugh at poor Christian. Thus much for Pliable.

Now as Christian went on his way he saw a man come through the
field to meet him, whose name was Mr. Worldly Wiseman, and he
dwelt in the town of Carnal Policy, which was near that whence
Christian came. He had heard some news of Christian; for his
flight from The City of Destruction had made much noise, and was
now the talk far and near. So he said, How now, good Sir, where