Excerpt from John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress with 525 Illustrations Spanning 250 Years, Part One

Atheist

So the man drew nearer and nearer, and at last came up to them. His name was Atheist, and he asked them where they were going.

CHRISTIAN: “We are going to the Celestial City.”

Then Atheist burst into laughter.

CHRISTIAN: “What is the meaning of your laughter?”

ATHEIST: “I laugh because I see what ignorant people you are, to take so tedious a journey, and yet are likely to gain nothing for your travel but pains.”

CHRISTIAN: “Why do you think we shall not be received?”

ATHEIST: “Received! There is no such place as you dream of in all this world!”

CHRISTIAN: “That is true, but there is in the world to come.”

ATHEIST: “When I was at home in my own country, I heard of that place which you speak of. So I went out to find it, and have been seeking this City for these past twenty years; but I have not found it in all this time!”

CHRISTIAN: “We have both heard and believe that there is such a place to be found!”

ATHEIST: “Had not I, when at home, also believed I would not have come thus far to seek it. If there had been such a place, I would have surely found it by now, for I have gone much further than you. So not finding it, I am going back home again, and will seek the pleasures which I had then cast away, for the vain hope of a world to come.”

You can purchase John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress with 525 Illustrations Spanning 250 Years, Part One here.