Previously, Christian warns Formalist and Hypocrisy that shortcuts are not the ways to get to Celestial City. As the three carry on toward the City, they reach Difficulty Hill. At the bottom center of the hill is a narrow and steep path while on the left and right sides, there are simpler ones called Danger and Destruction. Christian gladly takes the arduous path in the center while Formalist and Hypocrisy take the easier ones. Eventually, one easier paths leads one of the two men to a vast forest where he loses himself. The other easy path takes the other man to a mountain range where he soon falls and dies.
from The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan:
(103)
(He comes to the Hill Difficulty)
BUNYAN. I beheld, then, that they all went on till they came to the foot of the Hill Difficulty; at the bottom of which was a spring. There were also in the same place two other ways besides that which came straight from the gate; one turned to the left hand, and the other to the right, at the bottom of the hill; but the narrow way lay right up the hill, and the name of the going up the side of the hill is called Difficulty. Christian now went to the spring, and drank thereof, to refresh himself Isa. 49:10, and then began to go up the hill, saying--
"The hill, though high, I covet to ascend,
The difficulty will not me offend;
For I perceive the way to life lies here.
Come, pluck up heart, let's neither faint nor fear;
Better, though difficult, the right way to go,
Than wrong, though easy, where the end is woe."
(104)
(The danger of turning out of the way)
The other two (Formalist and Hypocrisy) also came to the foot of the hill; but when they saw that the hill was steep and high, and that there were two other ways to go, and supposing also that these two ways might meet again, with that up which Christian went, on the other side of the hill, therefore they were resolved to go in those ways. Now the name of one of these ways was Danger, and the name of the other Destruction. So the one took the way which is called Danger, which led him into a great wood, and the other took directly up the way to Destruction, which led him into a wide field, full of dark mountains, where he stumbled and fell, and rose no more.
"Shall they who wrong begin yet rightly end?
Shall they at all have safety for their friend?
No, no; in headstrong manner they set out,
And headlong will they fall at last no doubt."
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