The Hill Difficulty

The following quote is taken from John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress, a 2007 edition published by Moody Publishers in Chicago, the General Editor being Rosalie De Rosset. Enjoy drinking from the deep waters of our brother's work, written almost 300 years ago. This is our journey...

"...they [the characters Christian, Formalist, and Hypocrisy] all went on till they came to the foot of the hill Difficulty, at the bottom of which was a spring. There were also in the same place two other ways, besides that which came straight from the gate: one turned to the left hand, and the other to the right, at the bottom of the hill; but the narrow way lay right up the hill, and the name of the going up the side of the hill is called Difficulty. Christian now went to the spring (Isaiah 49:10), and drank thereof to refresh himself, and then began to go up the hill, saying:

The hill, though high, I covet to ascend,
The difficulty will not me offend;
For I perceive the way to life lies here:
Come, pluck up, heart, let's neither faint nor fear.
Better, though difficult, the right way to go,
Than wrong, though easy, where the end is woe.

...I looked then after Christian, to see him go up the hill, where I perceived he fell from running to going, and from going to clambering upon his hands and knees, because of the steepness of the place."


"Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed" (1 Peter 4:12-13).