Chapter XX: Part II: The Spirit of German Policy

CHRISTIAN: Met you with nothing else in that Valley?

FAITHFUL: Yes, I met with _Shame_. But of all the Men I met with in my Pilgrimage, he I think bears the wrong name: ... this boldfaced _Shame_, would never have done.

CHRISTIAN: Why, what did he say to you?

FAITHFUL: What! Why he objected against Religion itself; he said it was a pitiful low sneaking business for a Man to mind Religion; he said that a tender conscience was an unmanly thing, and that for a Man to watch over his words and ways, so as to tye up himself from that hectoring liberty that the brave spirits of the times accustom themselves unto, would make me the Ridicule of the times.

He objected also, that but few of the Mighty, Rich, or Wise, were ever of my opinion; nor any of them, neither, before they were perswaded to be Fools, and to be of a voluntary fondness to venture the loss of all, _for no body else knows what_.

Yea, he did hold me to it at that rate also about a great many more things than here I relate; as, that it was a _shame_ ... to ask my neighbour forgiveness for petty faults, or to make restitution where I had taken from any. He said also that Religion made a man grow strange to the great because of a few vices (which he called by finer names)....

_The Pilgrim's Progress_.

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