If the ‘Holy War’ is an
unfit subject for allegorical treatment, the ‘Pilgrim’s
Progress’ is no less perfectly adapted for it.
The ’Holy War’ is a representation of
the struggle of human nature with evil, and the struggle
is left undecided. The ‘Pilgrim’s
Progress’ is a representation of the efforts
of a single soul after holiness, which has its natural
termination when the soul quits its mortal home and
crosses the dark river. Each one of us has his
own life battle to fight out, his own sorrows and
trials, his own failures or successes, and his own
end. He wins the game, or he loses it. The
account is wound up, and the curtain falls upon him.
Here Bunyan had a material as excellent in itself
as it was exactly suited to his peculiar genius; and
his treatment of the subject from his own point of
view that of English Protestant Christianity is
unequalled and never will be equalled. I may
say never, for in this world of change the point of
view alters fast, and never continues in one stay.
As we are swept along the stream of time, lights and
shadows shift their places, mountain plateaus turn
to sharp peaks, mountain ranges dissolve into vapour.
The river which has been gliding deep and slow along
the plain, leaps suddenly over a precipice and plunges
foaming down a sunless gorge. In the midst of
changing circumstances the central question remains
the same What am I? what is this world in
which I appear and disappear like a bubble? who made
me? and what am I to do? Some answer or other
the mind of man demands and insists on receiving.
Theologian or poet offers at long intervals explanations
which are accepted as credible for a time. They
wear out, and another follows, and then another.
Bunyan’s answer has served average English men
and women for two hundred years, but no human being
with Bunyan’s intellect and Bunyan’s sincerity
can again use similar language; and the ‘Pilgrim’s
Progress’ is and will remain unique of its kind an
imperishable monument of the form in which the problem
presented itself to a person of singular truthfulness,
simplicity, and piety, who after many struggles accepted
the Puritan creed as the adequate solution of it.
It was composed exactly at the time when it was possible
for such a book to come into being; the close of the
period when the Puritan formula was a real belief,
and was about to change from a living principle into
an intellectual opinion. So long as a religion
is fully alive, men do not talk about it or make allegories
about it. They assume its truth as out of reach
of question, and they simply obey its precepts as
they obey the law of the land. It becomes a subject
of art and discourse only when men are unconsciously
ceasing to believe, and therefore the more vehemently
think that they believe, and repudiate with indignation
the suggestion that doubt has found its way into them.
After this religion no longer governs their lives.
It governs only the language in which they express
themselves, and they preserve it eagerly, in the shape
of elaborate observances or in the agreeable forms
of art and literature.
The ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’
was written before the ‘Holy War,’ while
Bunyan was still in prison at Bedford, and was but
half conscious of the gifts which he possessed.
It was written for his own entertainment, and therefore
without the thought so fatal in its effects
and so hard to be resisted of what the world
would say about it. It was written in compulsory
quiet, when he was comparatively unexcited by the
effort of perpetual preaching, and the shapes of things
could present themselves to him as they really were,
undistorted by theological narrowness. It is the
same story which he has told of himself in ‘Grace
Abounding,’ thrown out into an objective form.
He tells us himself, in a metrical
introduction, the circumstances under which it was
composed:
When at the first I took my
pen in hand,
Thus for to write, I did not
understand
That I at all should make
a little book
In such a mode. Nay,
I had undertook
To make another, which when
almost done,
Before I was aware I this
begun.
And thus it was. I
writing of the way
And race of saints in this
our Gospel day,
Fell suddenly into an Allegory
About the journey and the
way to glory
In more than twenty things
which I set down.
This done, I twenty more had
in my crown,
And these again began to multiply,
Like sparks that from the
coals of fire do fly.
Nay then, thought I, if that
you breed so fast
I’ll put you by yourselves,
lest you at last
Should prove ad Infinitum,
and eat out
The book that I already am
about.
Well, so I did; but yet I
did not think
To show to all the world my
pen and ink
In such a mode. I only
thought to make,
I knew not what. Nor
did I undertake
Merely to please my neighbours;
no, not I.
I did it mine own self to
gratify.
Neither did I but vacant seasons
spend
In this my scribble; nor did
I intend
But to divert myself in doing
this
From worser thoughts which
make me do amiss.
Thus I set pen to paper with
delight,
And quickly had my thoughts
in black and white;
For having now my method by
the end,
Still as I pulled it came;
and so I penned
It down: until at last
it came to be
For length and breadth the
bigness which you see.
Well, when I had thus put
my ends together,
I showed them others, that
I might see whether
They would condemn them or
them justify.
And some said, Let them live;
some, Let them die;
Some said, John, print it;
others said, Not so;
Some said it might do good;
others said, No.
Now was I in a strait, and
did not see
Which was the best thing to
be done by me.
At last I thought, since you
are thus divided,
I print it will; and so the
case decided.
The difference of opinion among Bunyan’s
friends is easily explicable. The allegoric representation
of religion to men profoundly convinced of the truth
of it might naturally seem light and fantastic, and
the breadth of the conception could not please the
narrow sectarians who knew no salvation beyond the
lines of their peculiar formulas. The Pilgrim
though in a Puritan dress is a genuine man. His
experience is so truly human experience, that Christians
of every persuasion can identify themselves with him;
and even those who regard Christianity itself as but
a natural outgrowth of the conscience and intellect,
and yet desire to live nobly and make the best of themselves,
can recognise familiar foot-prints in every step of
Christian’s journey. Thus the ‘Pilgrim’s
Progress’ is a book, which, when once read, can
never be forgotten. We too, every one of us, are
pilgrims on the same road, and images and illustrations
come back upon us from so faithful an itinerary, as
we encounter similar trials, and learn for ourselves
the accuracy with which Bunyan has described them.
There is no occasion to follow a story minutely which
memory can so universally supply. I need pause
only at a few spots which are too charming to pass
by.
How picturesque and vivid are the opening lines:
’As I walked through the wilderness
of this world I lighted on a certain place where there
was a den, and I laid me down in that place to
sleep, and as I slept I dreamed a dream. I dreamed,
and behold I saw a man, a man clothed in rags, standing
with his face from his own home with a book in his
hand, and a great burden upon his back.’
The man is Bunyan himself as we see
him in ‘Grace Abounding.’ His sins
are the burden upon his back. He reads his book
and weeps and trembles. He speaks of his fears
to his friends and kindred. They think ‘some
frenzy distemper has got into his head.’
He meets a man in the fields whose name is Evangelist.
Evangelist tells him to flee from the City of Destruction.
He shows him the way by which he must go, and points
to the far-off light which will guide him to the wicket-gate.
He sets off, and his neighbours of course think him
mad. The world always thinks men mad who turn
their backs upon it. Obstinate and Pliable (how
well we know them both!) follow to persuade him to
return. Obstinate talks practical common sense
to him, and as it has no effect, gives him up as a
fantastical fellow. Pliable thinks that there
may be something in what he says, and offers to go
with him.
Before they can reach the wicket-gate,
they fall into a ‘miry slough.’ Who
does not know the miry slough too? When a man
begins for the first time to think seriously about
himself, the first thing that rises before him is
a consciousness of his miserable past life. Amendment
seems to be desperate. He thinks it is too late
to change for any useful purpose, and he sinks into
despondency.
Pliable finding the road disagreeable
has soon had enough of it. He scrambles out of
the slough ’on the side which was nearest to
his own house’ and goes home. Christian
struggling manfully is lifted out ’by a man
whose name was Help,’ and goes on upon his journey,
but the burden on his back weighs him down. He
falls in with Mr. Worldly Wiseman who lives in the
town of Carnal Policy. Mr. Worldly Wiseman, who
looks like a gentleman, advises him not to think about
his sins. If he has done wrong he must alter
his life and do better for the future. He directs
him to a village called Morality, where he will find
a gentleman well known in those parts, who will take
his burden off Mr. Legality. Either
Mr. Legality will do it himself, or it can be done
equally well by his pretty young son, Mr. Civility.
The way to a better life does not
lie in a change of outward action, but in a changed
heart. Legality soon passes into civility, according
to the saying that vice loses half its evil when it
loses its grossness. Bunyan would have said that
the poison was the more deadly from being concealed.
Christian after a near escape is set straight again.
He is admitted into the wicket-gate and is directed
how he is to go forward. He asks if he may not
lose his way. He is answered Yes, ’There
are many ways (that) butt down on this and they are
crooked and wide. But thus thou mayest know the
right from the wrong, that only being straight and
narrow.’
Good people often suppose that when
a man is once ‘converted,’ as they call
it, and has entered on a religious life, he will find
everything made easy. He has turned to Christ,
and in Christ he will find rest and pleasantness.
The path of duty is unfortunately not strewed with
flowers at all. The primrose road leads to the
other place. As on all other journeys, to persevere
is the difficulty. The pilgrim’s feet grow
sorer the longer he walks. His lower nature follows
him like a shadow watching opportunities to trip him
up, and ever appearing in some new disguise.
In the way of comfort he is allowed only certain resting
places, quiet intervals of peace when temptation is
absent, and the mind can gather strength and encouragement
from a sense of the progress which it has made.
The first of these resting places
at which Christian arrives is the ‘Interpréter’s
House.’ This means, I conceive, that he
arrives at a right understanding of the objects of
human desire as they really are. He learns to
distinguish there between passion and patience, passion
which demands immediate gratification, and patience
which can wait and hope. He sees the action of
grace on the heart, and sees the Devil labouring to
put it out. He sees the man in the iron cage who
was once a flourishing professor, but had been tempted
away by pleasure and had sinned against light.
He hears a dream too one of Bunyan’s
own early dreams, but related as by another person.
The Pilgrim himself was beyond the reach of such uneasy
visions. But it shows how profoundly the terrible
side of Christianity had seized on Bunyan’s imagination
and how little he was able to forget it.
’This night as I was in my sleep
I dreamed, and behold the heavens grew exceeding black:
also it thundered and lightened in most fearful wise,
that it put me into an agony; so I looked up in my
dream and saw the clouds rack at an unusual rate,
upon which I heard a great sound of a trumpet, and
saw also a man sit upon a cloud attended with the
thousands of heaven. They were all in a flaming
fire, and the heaven also was in a burning flame.
I heard then a voice, saying, Arise ye dead and come
to judgment; and with that the rocks rent, the graves
opened, and the dead that were therein came forth.
Some of them were exceeding glad and looked upward,
some sought to hide themselves under the mountains.
Then I saw the man that sate upon the cloud open the
book and bid the world draw near. Yet there was,
by reason of a fierce flame that issued out and came
from before him, a convenient distance betwixt him
and them, as betwixt the judge and the prisoners at
the bar. I heard it also proclaimed to them that
attended on the man that sate on the cloud, Gather
together the tares, the chaff, and the stubble,
and cast them into the burning lake. And with
that the bottomless pit opened just whereabouts I
stood, out of the mouth of which there came in an
abundant manner smoke and coals of fire with hideous
noises. It was also said to the same persons,
Gather the wheat into my garner. And with that
I saw many catched up and carried away into the clouds,
but I was left behind. I also sought to hide myself,
but I could not, for the man that sate upon the cloud
still kept his eye upon me. My sins also came
into my mind, and my conscience did accuse me on every
side. I thought the day of judgment was come and
I was not ready for it.’
The resting time comes to an end.
The Pilgrim gathers himself together, and proceeds
upon his way. He is not to be burdened for ever
with the sense of his sins. It fell from off his
back at the sight of the cross. Three shining
ones appear and tell him that his sins are forgiven;
they take off his rags and provide him with a new suit.
He now encounters fellow-travellers;
and the seriousness of the story is relieved by adventures
and humorous conversations. At the bottom of a
hill he finds three gentlemen asleep, ‘a little
out of the way.’ These were Simple, Sloth,
and Presumption. He tries to rouse them, but does
not succeed. Presently two others are seen tumbling
over the wall into the Narrow Way. They are come
from the land of Vain Glory, and are called Formalist
and Hypocrisy. Like the Pilgrim, they are bound
for Mount Zion; but the wicket-gate was ‘too
far about,’ and they had come by a short cut.
’They had custom for it a thousand years and
more; and custom being of so long standing would be
admitted legal by any impartial judge.’
Whether right or wrong they insist that they are in
the way, and no more is to be said. But they
are soon out of it again. The hill is the hill
Difficulty, and the road parts into three. Two
go round the bottom, as modern engineers would make
them. The other rises straight over the top.
Formalist and Hypocrisy choose the easy ways, and
are heard of no more. Pilgrim climbs up, and
after various accidents comes to the second resting-place,
the Palace Beautiful, built by the Lord of the Hill
to entertain strangers in. The recollections
of Sir Bevis of Southampton furnished Bunyan with his
framework. Lions guard the court. Fair ladies
entertain him as if he had been a knight-errant in
quest of the Holy Grail. The ladies, of course,
are all that they ought to be: the Christian
graces Discretion, Prudence, Piety, and
Charity. He tells them his history. They
ask him if he has brought none of his old belongings
with him. He answers yes; but greatly against
his will: his inward and carnal cogitations,
with which his countrymen, as well as himself, were
so much delighted. Only in golden hours they
seemed to leave him. Who cannot recognise the
truth of this? Who has not groaned over the follies
and idiocies that cling to us like the doggerel verses
that hang about our memories? The room in which
he sleeps is called Peace. In the morning he
is shown the curiosities, chiefly Scripture relics,
in the palace. He is taken to the roof, from which
he sees far off the outlines of the Delectable Mountains.
Next, the ladies carry him to the armoury, and equip
him for the dangers which lie next before him.
He is to go down into the Valley of Humiliation, and
pass thence through the Valley of the Shadow of Death.
Bunyan here shows the finest insight.
To some pilgrims the Valley of Humiliation was the
pleasantest part of the journey. Mr. Feeblemind,
in the second part of the story, was happier there
than anywhere. But Christian is Bunyan himself;
and Bunyan had a stiff self-willed nature, and had
found his spirit the most stubborn part of him.
Down here he encounters Apollyon himself, ’straddling
quite over the whole breadth of the way’ a
more effective devil than the Diabolus of the
‘Holy War.’ He fights him for half-a-day,
is sorely wounded in head, hand, and foot, and has
a near escape of being pressed to death. Apollyon
spreads his bat wings at last, and flies away; but
there remains the Valley of the Shadow of Death, the
dark scene of lonely horrors. Two men meet him
on the borders of it. They tell him the valley
is full of spectres; and they warn him, if he values
his life, to go back. Well Bunyan knew these
spectres, those dreary misgivings that he was toiling
after an illusion; that ‘good’ and ‘evil’
had no meaning except on earth, and for man’s
convenience; and that he himself was but a creature
of a day, allowed a brief season of what is called
existence, and then to pass away and be as if he had
never been. It speaks well for Bunyan’s
honesty that this state of mind which religious people
generally call wicked is placed directly in his Pilgrim’s
path, and he is compelled to pass through it.
In the valley, close at the road-side, there is a
pit, which is one of the mouths of hell. A wicked
spirit whispers to him as he goes by. He imagines
that the thought had proceeded out of his own heart.
The sky clears when he is beyond the
gorge. Outside it are the caves where the two
giants, Pope and Pagan, had lived in old times.
Pagan had been dead many a day. Pope was still
living, ’but he had grown so crazy and stiff
in his joints that he could now do little more than
sit in his cave’s mouth, grinning at pilgrims
as they went by, and biting his nails because he could
not come at them.’
Here he overtakes ‘Faithful,’
a true pilgrim like himself. Faithful had met
with trials; but his trials have not resembled Christian’s.
Christian’s difficulties, like Bunyan’s
own, had been all spiritual. ‘The lusts
of the flesh’ seem to have had no attraction
for him. Faithful had been assailed by ‘Wanton,’
and had been obliged to fly from her. He had
not fallen into the slough; but he had been beguiled
by the Old Adam, who offered him one of his daughters
for a wife. In the Valley of the Shadow of Death
he had found sunshine all the way. Doubts about
the truth of religion had never troubled the simpler
nature of the good Faithful.
Mr. Talkative is the next character
introduced, and is one of the best figures which Bunyan
has drawn; Mr. Talkative, with Scripture at his fingers’
ends, and perfect master of all doctrinal subtleties,
ready ’to talk of things heavenly or things
earthly, things moral or things evangelical, things
sacred or things profane, things past or things to
come, things foreign or things at home, things essential
or things circumstantial, provided that all be done
to our profit.’
This gentleman would have taken in
Faithful, who was awed by such a rush of volubility.
Christian has seen him before, knows him well, and
can describe him. ’He is the son of one
Saywell. He dwelt in Prating Row. He is
for any company and for any talk. As he talks
now with you so will he talk when on the ale-bench.
The more drink he hath in his crown, the more of these
things he hath in his mouth. Religion hath no
place in his heart, or home, or conversation; all that
he hath lieth in his tongue, and his religion is to
make a noise therewith.’
The elect, though they have ceased
to be of the world, are still in the world. They
are still part of the general community of mankind,
and share, whether they like it or not, in the ordinary
activities of life. Faithful and Christian have
left the City of Destruction. They have shaken
off from themselves all liking for idle pleasures.
They nevertheless find themselves in their journey
at Vanity Fair, ’a fair set up by Beelzebub
5000 years ago.’ Trade of all sorts went
on at Vanity Fair, and people of all sorts were collected
there: cheats, fools, asses, knaves, and rogues.
Some were honest, many were dishonest; some lived
peaceably and uprightly, others robbed, murdered,
seduced their neighbours’ wives, or lied and
perjured themselves. Vanity Fair was European
society as it existed in the days of Charles II.
Each nation was represented. There was British
Row, French Row, and Spanish Row. ’The
wares of Rome and her merchandise were greatly promoted
at the fair, only the English nation with some others
had taken a dislike to them.’ The pilgrims
appear on the scene as the Apostles appeared at Antioch
and Rome, to tell the people that there were things
in the world of more consequence than money and pleasure.
The better sort listen. Public opinion in general
calls them fools and Bedlamites. The fair becomes
excited, disturbances are feared, and the authorities
send to make inquiries. Authorities naturally
disapprove of novelties; and Christian and Faithful
are arrested, beaten, and put in the cage. Their
friends insist that they have done no harm, that they
are innocent strangers teaching only what will make
men better instead of worse. A riot follows.
The authorities determine to make an example of them,
and the result is the ever-memorable trial of the
two pilgrims. They are brought in irons before
my Lord Hategood, charged with ’disturbing the
trade of the town, creating divisions, and making
converts to their opinions in contempt of the law
of the Prince.’
Faithful begins with an admission
which would have made it difficult for Hategood to
let him off, for he says that the Prince they talked
of, being Beelzebub, the enemy of the Lord, he defied
him and all his angels. Three witnesses were
then called: Envy, Superstition, and Pickthank.
Envy says that Faithful regards neither
prince nor people, but does all he can to possess
men with disloyal notions, which he call principles
of faith and holiness.
Superstition says that he knows little
of him, but has heard him say that ’our religion
is naught, and such by which no man can please God,
from which saying his Lordship well knows will follow
that we are yet in our sins, and finally shall be
damned.’
Pickthank deposes that he has heard
Faithful rail on Beelzebub, and speak contemptuously
of his honourable friends my Lord Old Man, my Lord
Carnal Delight, my Lord Luxurious, my Lord Desire of
Vain Glory, my Lord Lechery, Sir Having Greedy, and
the rest of the nobility, besides which he has railed
against his lordship on the bench himself, calling
him an ungodly villain.
The evidence was perfectly true, and
the prisoner, when called on for his defence, confirmed
it. He says (avoiding the terms in which he was
said to rail and the like) that ’the Prince of
the town, with all the rabblement of his attendants
by this gentleman named, are more fit for a being
in hell than in this town or country.’
Lord Hategood has been supposed to
have been drawn from one or other of Charles II.’s
judges, perhaps from either Twisden or Chester, who
had the conversation with Bunyan’s wife.
But it is difficult to see how either one or the other
could have acted otherwise than they did. Faithful
might be quite right. Hell might be and probably
was the proper place for Beelzebub, and for all persons
holding authority under him. But as a matter
of fact, a form of society did for some purpose or
other exist, and had been permitted to exist for 5000
years, owning Beelzebub’s sovereignty. It
must defend itself, or must cease to be, and it could
not be expected to make no effort at self-preservation.
Faithful had come to Vanity Fair to make a revolution a
revolution extremely desirable, but one which it was
unreasonable to expect the constituted authorities
to allow to go forward. It was not a case of
false witness. A prisoner who admits that he
has taught the people that their Prince ought to be
in hell, and has called the judge an ungodly villain,
cannot complain if he is accused of preaching rebellion.
Lord Hategood charges the jury, and
explains the law. ’There was an Act made,’
he says, ’in the days of Pharaoh the Great, servant
to our Prince, that lest those of a contrary religion
should multiply and grow too strong for him, their
males should be thrown into the river. There
was also an Act made in the days of Nebuchadnezzar
the Great, that whoever would not fall down and worship
his golden image should be thrown into a fiery furnace.
There was also an Act made in the days of Darius that
whoso for some time called upon any God but him should
be cast into the lion’s den. Now the substance
of these laws this rebel hath broken, not only in
thought (which is not to be borne), but also in word
and deed, which must, therefore, be intolerable.
For that of Pharaoh, his law was made upon a supposition
to prevent mischief, no crime being yet apparent.
For the second and third you see his disputations
against our religion, and for the treason he hath
confessed he deserveth to die the death.’
’Then went the jury out, whose
names were Mr. Blindman, Mr. Nogood, Mr. Malice, Mr.
Lovelust, Mr. Liveloose, Mr. Heady, Mr. Highmind, Mr.
Enmity, Mr. Liar, Mr. Cruelty, Mr. Hatelight, and Mr.
Implacable, who every one gave in his private verdict
against him among themselves, and afterwards unanimously
concluded to bring him in guilty before the judge.
And first, Mr. Blindman, the foreman, said: I
see clearly that this man is a heretic. Then
said Mr. No Good, Away with such a fellow from the
earth. Aye, said Mr. Malice, I hate the very looks
of him. Then said Mr. Lovelust, I could never
endure him. Nor I, said Mr. Liveloose, for he
would always be condemning my way. Hang him, hang
him, said Mr. Heady. A sorry scrub, said Mr. Highmind.
My heart riseth against him, said Mr. Enmity.
He is a rogue, said Mr. Liar. Hanging is too
good for him, said Mr. Cruelty. Let us despatch
him out of the way, said Mr. Hatelight. Then,
said Mr. Implacable, might I have all the world given
me, I could not be reconciled to him; therefore, let
us forthwith bring him in guilty of death.’
Abstract qualities of character were
never clothed in more substantial flesh and blood
than these jurymen. Spenser’s knights in
the ’Fairy Queen’ are mere shadows to
them. Faithful was, of course, condemned, scourged,
buffeted, lanced in his feet with knives, stoned, stabbed,
at last burned, and spared the pain of travelling further
on the narrow road. A chariot and horses were
waiting to bear him through the clouds, the nearest
way to the Celestial Gate. Christian, who it seems
had been remanded, contrives to escape. He is
joined by Hopeful, a convert whom he has made in the
town, and they pursue their journey in company.
A second person is useful dramatically, and Hopeful
takes Faithful’s place. Leaving Vanity
Fair, they are again on the Pilgrim’s road.
There they encounter Mr. Bye-ends. Bye-ends comes
from the town of Plain-Speech, where he has a large
kindred, My Lord Turnabout, my Lord Timeserver, Mr.
Facing-both-ways, Mr. Two Tongues, the parson of the
parish. Bye-ends himself was married to a daughter
of Lady Feignings. Bunyan’s invention in
such things was inexhaustible.
They have more trials of the old kind
with which Bunyan himself was so familiar. They
cross the River of Life and even drink at it, yet for
all this and directly after, they stray into Bye Path
Meadow. They lose themselves in the grounds of
Doubting Castle, and are seized upon by Giant Despair still
a prey to doubt still uncertain whether
religion be not a dream, even after they have fought
with wild beasts in Vanity Fair and have drunk of
the water of life. Nowhere does Bunyan show better
how well he knew the heart of man. Christian even
thinks of killing himself in the dungeons of Doubting
Castle. Hopeful cheers him up, they break their
prison, recover the road again, and arrive at the
Delectable Mountains in Emmanuel’s own land.
There it might be thought the danger would be over,
but it is not so. Even in Emmanuel’s Land
there is a door in the side of a hill which is a byeway
to hell, and beyond Emmanuel’s Land is the country
of conceit, a new and special temptation for those
who think that they are near salvation. Here
they encounter ‘a brisk lad of the neighbourhood,’
needed soon after for a particular purpose, who is
a good liver, prays devoutly, fasts regularly, pays
tithes punctually, and hopes that everyone will get
to heaven by the religion which he professes, provided
he fears God and tries to do his duty. The name
of this brisk lad is Ignorance. Leaving him,
they are caught in a net by Flatterer, and are smartly
whipped by ‘a shining one,’ who lets them
out of it. False ideas and vanity lay them open
once more to their most dangerous enemy. They
meet a man coming towards them from the direction in
which they are going. They tell him that they
are on the way to Mount Zion. He laughs scornfully
and answers:
’There is no such place as you
dream of in all the world. When I was at home
in my own country, I heard as you now affirm, and from
hearing I went out to see; and have been seeking this
city these twenty years, but I find no more of it
than I did the first day I went out. I am going
back again and will seek to refresh myself with things
which I then cast away for hopes of that which I now
see is not.’
Still uncertainty even
on the verge of eternity strange, doubtless,
and reprehensible to Right Reverend persons, who never
‘cast away’ anything; to whom a religious
profession has been a highway to pleasure and preferment,
who live in the comfortable assurance that as it has
been in this life so it will be in the next. Only
moral obliquity of the worst kind could admit a doubt
about so excellent a religion as this. But Bunyan
was not a Right Reverend. Christianity had brought
him no palaces and large revenues, and a place among
the great of the land. If Christianity was not
true his whole life was folly and illusion, and the
dread that it might be so clung to his belief like
its shadow.
The way was still long. The pilgrims
reach the Enchanted Ground and are drowsy and tired.
Ignorance comes up with them again. He talks
much about himself. He tells them of the good
motives that come into his mind and comfort him as
he walks. His heart tells him that he has left
all for God and Heaven. His belief and his life
agree together, and he is humbly confident that his
hopes are well-founded. When they speak to him
of Salvation by Faith and Conviction by Sin, he cannot
understand what they mean. As he leaves them they
are reminded of one Temporary, ‘once a forward
man in religion.’ Temporary dwelt in Graceless,
‘a town two miles from Honesty, next door to
one Turnback.’ He ’was going on pilgrimage,
but became acquainted with one Save Self, and was
never more heard of.’
These figures all mean something.
They correspond in part to Bunyan’s own recollection
of his own trials. Partly he is indulging his
humour by describing others who were more astray than
he was. It was over at last: the pilgrims
arrive at the land of Beulah, the beautiful sunset
after the storms were all past. Doubting Castle
can be seen no more, and between them and their last
rest there remains only the deep river over which
there is no bridge, the river of Death. On the
hill beyond the waters glitter the towers and domes
of the Celestial City; but through the river they
must first pass, and they find it deeper or shallower
according to the strength of their faith. They
go through, Hopeful feeling the bottom all along;
Christian still in character, not without some horror,
and frightened by hobgoblins. On the other side
they are received by angels, and are carried to their
final home, to live for ever in the Prince’s
presence. Then follows the only passage which
the present writer reads with regret in this admirable
book. It is given to the self-righteous Ignorance
who, doubtless, had been provoking with ’his
good motives that comforted him as he walked;’
but Bunyan’s zeal might have been satisfied by
inflicting a lighter chastisement upon him. He
comes up to the river. He crosses without the
difficulties which attended Christian and Hopeful.
’It happened that there was then at the place
one Vain Hope, a Ferryman, that with his boat’
(some viaticum or priestly absolution) ’helped
him over.’ He ascends the hill, and approaches
the city, but no angels are in attendance, ’neither
did any man meet him with the least encouragement.’
Above the gate there was the verse written ’Blessed
are they that do His commandments that they may have
right to the Tree of Life, and may enter in through
the gate into the city.’ Bunyan, who believed
that no man could keep the commandments, and had no
right to anything but damnation, must have introduced
the words as if to mock the unhappy wretch who, after
all, had tried to keep the commandments as well as
most people, and was seeking admittance, with a conscience
moderately at ease. ’He was asked by the
men that looked over the gate Whence come
you and what would you have?’ He answered, ’I
have eaten and drunk in the presence of the King,
and he has taught in our street.’ Then
they asked him for his certificate, that they might
go in and show it to the king. So he fumbled
in his bosom for one and found none. Then said
they, ‘Have you none?’ But the man answered
never a word. So they told the king but he would
not come down to see him, but commanded the two shining
ones that conducted Christian and Hopeful to the city
to go out and take Ignorance and bind him hand and
foot, and have him away. Then they took him up
and carried him through the air to the door in the
side of the hill, and put him in there. ‘Then,’
so Bunyan ends, ’I saw that there was a way to
Hell even from the gates of Heaven, as well as from
the City of Destruction; so I awoke, and behold it
was a dream!’
Poor Ignorance! Hell such
a place as Bunyan imagined Hell to be was
a hard fate for a miserable mortal who had failed to
comprehend the true conditions of justification.
We are not told that he was a vain boaster. He
could not have advanced so near to the door of Heaven
if he had not been really a decent man, though vain
and silly. Behold, it was a dream! The dreams
which come to us when sleep is deep on the soul may
be sent direct from some revealing power. When
we are near waking, the supernatural insight may be
refracted through human theory.
Charity will hope that the vision
of Ignorance cast bound into the mouth of Hell, when
he was knocking at the gate of Heaven, came through
Homer’s ivory gate, and that Bunyan here was
a mistaken interpreter of the spiritual tradition.
The fierce inferences of Puritan theology are no longer
credible to us; yet nobler men than the Puritans are
not to be found in all English history. It will
be well if the clearer sight which enables us to detect
their errors, enables us also to recognise their excellence.
The second part of the ‘Pilgrim’s
Progress,’ like most second parts, is but a
feeble reverberation of the first. It is comforting,
no doubt, to know that Christian’s wife and
children were not left to their fate in the City of
Destruction. But Bunyan had given us all that
he had to tell about the journey, and we do not need
a repetition of it. Of course there, are touches
of genius. No writing of Bunyan’s could
be wholly without it. But the rough simplicity
is gone, and instead of it there is a tone of sentiment
which is almost mawkish. Giants, dragons, and
angelic champions carry us into a spurious fairy land,
where the knight-errant is a preacher in disguise.
Fair ladies and love matches, however decorously chastened,
suit ill with the sternness of the mortal conflict
between the soul and sin. Christiana and her
children are tolerated for the pilgrim’s sake
to whom they belong. Had they appealed to our
interest on their own merits, we would have been contented
to wish them well through their difficulties, and
to trouble ourselves no further about them.