(click image to enlarge)
The inscription is taken from Psalm 91, verse xi
‘Now I further saw that between them and the gate was a river; but there was no bridge to go over and the river was very deep. At the sight, therefore, of this river, the Pilgrims were much stunned, but the men that went with them said ‘you must go through or you cannot come to the gate’’
(Bunyan’s Pilgrims Progress) [quoted in the exhibition catalogue at Wolverhampton Art Gallery and Museum, December 1925]