Thus they went on till they came to about the middle of the Valley, and then Christiana said, "Methinks I see something yonder upon the road before us, a thing of such a shape such as I have not seen." Then said Joseph, "Mother, what is it?" "An ugly thing, child; an ugly thing," said she. "But, mother, what is it like?" said he. "It is like I cannot tell what," said she. And now it was but a little way off; then said she, "It is nigh."
"Well, well," said Mr. Great-heart. "Let them that are most afraid keep close to me." So the fiend came on, and the conductor met it; but when it was just come to him, it vanished to all their sights. (John Bunyan, The Pilgrim's Progress, Second Part.)
The surest way of overcoming trouble is to face it, squarely and without evasion, is to appreciate what it involves, to recognize it as it is. The worse the predicament, the more perplexing and disturbing, and the more one dreads it, the more important is it that one should reduce it to its elements, that one should analyze and evaluate it. It is the uncertainties, the unknown, the things we do not comprehend, that cause the greatest anxieties. The first step in extricating one's self from difficulty is to determine precisely what the nature of the difficulty is.
Not everybody succeeds always in doing this. As we draw closer to an understanding of the in-
