I am an enemy to this Prince; I hate his person, his laws, and people: I am come out on purpose to withstand thee.

Chr. Apollyon, beware what you do; for I am in the King's highway, the way of holiness; therefore take heed to yourself.

Then Apollyon straddled quite over the whole breadth of the way, and said, I am void of fear in this matter; prepare thyself to die; for I swear by my infernal den, that thou shalt go no farther; here will I spill thy soul.

And with that he threw a flaming dart at his breast; but Christian had a shield in his hand, with which he caught it, and so prevented the danger of that.

Then did Christian draw; for he saw it was time to bestir him; and Apollyon as fast made at him, throwing darts as thick as hail; by the which, notwithstanding all that Christian could do to avoid it, Apollyon wounded him in his head, his hand, and foot. This made Christian give a little back: Apollyon, therefore, followed his work amain, and Christian again took courage and resisted as manfully as he could. This sore combat lasted for above half a day, even till Christian was almost quite spent ; for you must know that Christian, by reason of his wounds, must needs grow weaker and weaker.

Then Apollyon, espying his opportunity, began to gather up close to Christian, and wrestling with him, gave him a dreadful fall; and with that Christian's sword flew out of his hand. Then said Apollyon, I am sure of thee now: and with that he had almost prest him to death; so that Christian began to despair of life. But, as God would have it, while Apollyon was fetching his last blow, thereby to make a full end of this good man, Christian nimbly reached out his hand for his sword, and caught it, saying,

"Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy! when I fall, I shall arise," and with that he gave a deadly thrust, which made him give back as one that had received his mortal wound. Christian, perceiving that, made at him again, saying, "Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors, through Him that loved us." And, with that, Apollyon, spread forth his dragon's wings and sped him away that Christian saw him no more.

In this combat no man can imagine, unless he had seen and heard, as I did, what yelling and hideous roaring Apollyon made all the time of the fight; he spake like a dragon: and on the other side, what sighs and groans burst from Christian's heart. I never saw him all the while give so much as one pleasant look, till he perceived that he had wounded Apollyon with his two-edged sword; then indeed he did smile and look upward! But it was the dreadfulest fight that ever I saw.

So when the battle was over, Christian said, I will here give thanks to Him that hath delivered me out of the mouth of the lion, to Him that did help me against Apollyon. And so he did, saying,

"Great Beelzebub, the captain of this fiend,
Design'd my ruin: therefore to this end
He sent him harness'd out, and he with rage
That hellish was, did fiercely me engage.
But blessed Michael helped me and I,
By dint of sword, did quickly make him fly:
Therefore to Him let me give lasting praise
And thanks, and bless His holy name always."

Then there came to him a hand with some of the leaves of the tree of life; the which Christian took, and applied to the wounds that he had received in the battle,

and was healed immediately. He also sat down in that place to eat bread, and to drink of the bottle that was given to him a little before: so, being refreshened, he addrest himself to his journey, with his sword drawn in his hand; for, he said, I know not but some other enemy may be at hand. But he met with no other affront from Apollyon quite through this valley.

THE FREEDOM OF A FLY

BY JOHN RUSKIN

I believe we can nowhere find a better type of a perfectly free creature than in the common house-fly. Nor free only, but brave: and irreverent to a degree which I think no human republican could by any philosophy exalt himself to do. There is no courtesy in him; he does not care whether it is a king or a clown whom he teases; and in every step of his swift mechanical march, and in every pause of his resolute observation, there is one and the same expression of perfect egotism, perfect independence and self-confidence, and conviction of the world's having been made for flies.

Strike at him with your hand; and to him the mechanical fact and external aspect of the matter is, what to you it would be if an acre of red clay, ten feet thick, tore itself up from the ground in one massive field, hovered over you in the air for a second, and came crashing down with an aim. That is the external aspect of it; the inner aspect, to his fly's mind, is of quite natural and unimportant occurrence one of the momentary conditions of

his active life. He steps out of the way of your hand, and alights on the back of it. You can not terrify him nor govern him nor persuade him nor convince him. He has his own positive opinion on all matters; not an unwise one, usually, for his own ends; and will ask no advice of yours.

He has no work to do-no tyrannical instinct to obey. The earthworm has his digging; the bee, her gathering and building; the spider, her cunning network; the ant, her treasury and accounts. All these are comparative slaves, or people of vulgar business. But your fly, free in the air, free in the chamber-a black incarnation of capricewandering, investigating, flitting, flirting, feasting at his will, with rich variety of choice in feast, from the heaped sweets in the grocer's window to those of the butcher's back-yard, and from the galled place on your cab-horse's back to the brown spot on the road, from which, as the hoof disturbs him, he rises with angry, republican buzzwhat freedom is like his?

DOCTOR MARIGOLD

BY CHARLES DICKENS

I am a Cheap Jack, and my own father's name was Willum Marigold. It was in his lifetime supposed by some that his name was William, but my own father always consistently said, No, it was Willum. On which point I content myself with looking at the argument this way: If a man is not allowed to know his own name in a free country, how much is he allowed to know in a land of slavery?

I was born on the Queen's highway, but it was the King's at that time. A doctor was fetched to my own mother by my own father, when it took place on a common; and in consequence of his being a very kind gentleman, and accepting no fee but a tea-tray, I was named Doctor, out of gratitude and compliment to him. There you have Doctor Marigold.

me.

The doctor having accepted a tea-tray, you'll guess that my father was a Cheap Jack before me. You are right. He was. And my father was a lovely one in his time at the Cheap Jack work. Now I'll tell you what. I mean to go down into my grave declaring that, of all the callings ill-used in Great Britain, the Cheap Jack calling is the worst used. Why ain't we a profession? Why ain't we endowed with privileges? Why are we forced to take out a hawker's license, when no such thing is expected of the political hawkers? Where's the difference betwixt us? Except that we are Cheap Jacks and they are Dear Jacks, I don't see any difference but what's in our favor.

For look here! Say it's election-time. I am on the footboard of my cart in the market-place on a Saturday night. I put up a general miscellaneous lot. I say: "Now here, my free and independent voters, I'm going to give you such a chance as you never had in all your born days, nor yet the days preceding. Now I'll show you what I am a going to do with you. Here's a pair of razors that'll shave you closer than the Board of Guardians; here's a flat-iron worth its weight in gold; here's a frying-pan artificially flavored with essence of beefsteaks to that degree that you've only got for the rest of your lives to fry bread and dripping in it, and there you are complete with animal food; here's a genuine chronometer watch in such a solid