Chapter 1: The Awakening and Departure

The Vision of the Wilderness

As I walked through the wilderness of this world, I lighted on a certain place where was a den, and I laid me down in that place to sleep: and, as I slept, I dreamed a dream. I dreamed, and behold, I saw a man clothed with rags, standing in a certain place, with his face from his own house, a book in his hand, and a great burden upon his back.

I looked, and saw him open the book, and read therein; and, as he read, he wept, and trembled; and, not being able longer to contain, he brake out with a lamentable cry, saying: “What shall I do?”

Author’s Note: The burden on his back represents the weight of sin and the conviction of guilt before the Law of God.

In this plight, therefore, he went home and refrained himself as long as he could, that his wife and children should not perceive his distress; but he could not be silent long, because that his trouble increased. Wherefore at length he brake his mind to them, saying:

— Oh, my dear wife, and you the children of my bowels! I, for the evil that is in me, am undone by reason of a burden that lieth hard upon me. Moreover, I am for certain informed that this our city will be burned with fire from heaven, and we all shall come to ruin, except some way of escape can be found.

At this his relations were sore amazed; not for that they believed that what he had said to them was true, but because they thought that some frenzy distemper had got into his head. Therefore, it drawing towards night, and they hoping that sleep might settle his brains, with all haste they got him to bed. But the night was as troublesome to him as the day; wherefore, instead of sleeping, he spent it in sighs and tears.

The Encounter with Evangelist

Now, as he was walking in the fields, reading in his book, and greatly distressed in his mind, I looked and saw a man named Evangelist coming to him, and he asked:

— Wherefore dost thou cry?

He answered:

— Sir, I perceive by the book in my hand, that I am condemned to die, and after that to come to judgment; and I find that I am not willing to do the first, nor able to bear the second.

Then said Evangelist:

— Why not willing to die, since this life is attended with so many evils?

The man answered:

— Because I fear that this burden that is upon my back will sink me lower than the grave, and I shall fall into Tophet. And, Sir, if I be not fit to go to prison, I am not fit to go to judgment, and from thence to execution; and the thoughts of these things make me cry.

Then said Evangelist, delivering him a parchment roll, in which was written: “Flee from the wrath to come!”

The man therefore read it, and looking upon Evangelist very carefully, said:

— Whither must I fly?

Then said Evangelist, pointing with his finger over a very wide field:

— Do you see yonder Wicket-Gate?

The man said:

— No.

Then said the other:

— Do you see yonder Shining Light?

He said:

— I think I do.

— Then — said Evangelist —, keep that Light in your eye, and go up directly thereto: so shalt thou see the Gate; at which, when thou knockest, it shall be told thee what thou shalt do.