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him, through the instrumentality of his own enemies, in the prison of Bedford to accomplish it.

Bunyan's imagination was powerful enough, in connection with his belief in God's superintending providence, to array his inward trials with a sensible shape, and external events with a light reflected from his own experience; hopes and fears were friends and enemies, acting in concert with them; all things he met with in the world were friends or enemies likewise, according as they aided or opposed his spiritual life. He acted always under one character, the Christian soldier, realizing in his own conflicts and conquests the progress of his own Pilgrim. Therefore his book is a perfect reality in oneness as a whole, and in every page a book not of imagination and shadows, but of realities experienced. To those who have never set out on this pilgrimage, nor encountered its dangers, it is interesting, as would be a book powerfully written of travels in an unknown romantic land. Regarded as a work of original genius simply, without taking into view its spiritual meaning, it is a wonder to all, and cannot cease to be. Though a book of personification and allegory, it enchants the simplest child, as powerfully, almost, as the story of Aladdin and his lamp, or the adventures of Sindbad the Sailor, or the history of Robinson Crusoe himself. It is interesting to all who have any taste for poetical beauty, in the same manner as Spenser's Fairy Queen, or we might mention, especially for the similar absorbing interest we take in all that happens to the hero, the Odyssey of Homer.

And yet its interest for the imagination is in reality the smallest portion of its power; and it will be pleasing to the imagination just in proportion as the mind of the reader has been accustomed to interpret the things of this life by their connection with another, and by the light that comes from that world to this. A reader who has not formed this habit, nor ever felt that he is a stranger and pilgrim in a world of temptations and snares, can see but half the beauty of such poetry as fills this work, because it cannot make its appeal to his own experience; for him there is nothing within, that tells more certainly than any process of judgment or criticism the truth and sweetness of the picture; there is no reflection of its images, nor interpretation of its meaning in his own soul. The Christian, the actual pilgrim, reads it with another eye. It comes to his heart. It is like a painting meant to be exhibited by fire-light; the common reader sees it by day. To the Christian it is a glorious transparency; and the light that shines through it, and gives its incidents such life, its colours such depth, and the whole scene such a surpassing glory, is light from eternity, the meaning of heaven.

I repeat it, therefore, as truth very evident, that the true beauty of the allegory in the Pilgrim's Progress can be felt only by a religious mind. No one, indeed, can avoid admiring it. The honest nature in the characters, their homely truth, the simplicity and good sense of the conversations, the beauty of the incidents, the sweetness of the scenery through which the reader is conducted, the purity of the language,

"The humorous vein, strong sense, and simple style,

To teach the gayest, make the gravest smile,"

all these things to the eye of the severest critic are beautiful, and he who loves to read Shakspeare will admire them, and on common ground. But such a reader, in respect to the veiled beauty of the allegory, is like a deaf man, to whom you speak of the sweetness of musical sounds. Of the faithfulness with which Bunyan has depicted the inward trials of the Christian conflict, of the depth and power of the appeal which that book makes to the Christian's heart, of the accuracy and beauty of the map therein drawn of the dealings of the Spirit of God in leading the sinner from the City of Destruction to Mount Zion above, he knows and can conceive nothing. It is like Milton's daughters reading aloud from his Hebrew Bible to the blind poet, while they could only pronounce the words, but were ignorant of the sacred meaning, nor could divine the nature of the inspiration it excited in his soul. Little can such a reader see

"Of all that power of prospect,
Whereof many thousands tell."

And I might go on to express, in Wordsworth's delightful poetry, what is the utmost of the admiration excited by a common and not a Christian perusal of the Pilgrim's Progress.

"The western sky did recompence us well
With Grecian Temple, minaret and bower;
And in one part a minster with its tower
Substantially expressed.

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Yes! it is perfectly true that no critical admiration of this work, overlooking its immortal meaning, sees any thing of its enduring beauty; to look at it aright, we need a portion of the same spiritual faith by which it was inspired, by which only it can be explained. "Who scoffs these sympathies

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Makes mock of the Divinity within."

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In the light of eternity this book is as far superior to a common poem of this world, or of man's temporal being and affections, as the soul of man is superior to the clod it inhabits. Whatever connects itself with man's spiritual being, turns his attention to spiritual interest and realities, and rouses his imagination to take hold on eternity, possesses, the mere philosopher would say, a dignity and power, with which nothing else can be invested. Religion does this. In her range of contemplation there is truer and deeper poetry, than in the whole world, and all man's being else. Dr. Johnson, in his life of Waller, advances the strange opinion that devotion is not a fit subject for poetry, and in his dogmatical way dedicates some space to an inquiry why it is so. Contemplative poetry," he says, or the intercourse between God and the human soul, cannot be poetical. Man, admitted to implore the mercy of his Creator, is already in a higher state than poetry can confer. The essence of poetry is invention; such invention as, by producing something unexpected, surprises and delights. The topics of devotion are few, and being few, are universally known, but few as they are, they can be made no more; they can receive no grace from novelty of sentiment, and very little from novelty of expression. In this sweeping style Johnson proceeds with criticism that, notwithstanding our deference for his great intellect, might be shown, on philosophical grounds, to be as poor, as the assertions are authoritative. The very definition of poetry is a most degrading one; and it is the only one to which the reasoning will at all apply; the whole passage shows what a low estimate and false views the "wits" of the " Augustan Age" of English literature possessed of the greatest of all intellectual subjects. It would not have been thought that a being who could admire the Pilgrim's Progress as Johnson did, would have reasoned in this manner. That book itself is a refutation of the sentiment quoted; so is Cowper's Task; so is Blair's Grave; so is even George Herbert's little volume of Devotional poetry.

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And how can it be otherwise? If man is not a mere creature of this world, if his vision is not restricted to the shadows that have closed around him, if he is connected with another, an eternal world, a world of higher intelligences, of angels, and archangels, and beings free from sin;—a world, where the Creator of this and of all worlds manifests his immediate presence, where the veil of flesh will no longer be held before the eye of the soul;—and if, by the revelation which God has made, and by communion with his Maker through Him who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, man becomes acquainted by inward experience, and by that faith which is the soul's spiritual vision, with the powers of that world to come,-then will those far seen visions, and all the objects of this world on which light from that world falls, and all man's thoughts, affections, and movements in regard to that world, possess an interest, and wear a glory, that makes them more appropriately the province of the poetical imagination than any other subjects in the universe. And the poetry of this world will rise in magnificence, in proportion as it borrows or reflects the light from that.

"From worlds not quickened by the sun

A portion of the gift is won;

An intermingling of Heaven's pomp is spread
On ground which British shepherds tread!"

We long to

All truth to the humble mind, is poetry: spiritual truth is eminently so. witness a better understanding of its sublime laws, an acknowledgment of its great fountain, and a more worthy appreciation of its nature; to have it felt and acknowledged that there is poetry in this world, only because light from heaven shines upon it, because

it is full of hieroglyphics, whose meaning points to the eternal world, because man is immortal, and this world is only the habitation of his infancy, and possesses power to rouse his imagination only in proportion as it is invested with moral grandeur by his own wonderful destiny, and by the light reflected down upon it from the habitation of angels. All on earth is shadow, and all in heaven is substance. Truly as well as feelingly did Burke exclaim, "What shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue!" We are encompassed by shadows and flitting apparitions and semi-transparencies, that wear the similitude of greatness, only because they are near us, and interposed between our vision and the world of eternal reality and light. Man of the world! you know not what poetry is, till you know God, and can hail in every created thing the manifestation of omnipresent Deity! Look at the highest creations of the art, and behold how they owe their power over the human soul to the presence of the idea of that Being, the thought of whom transfigures the movements of the imagination with glory, and makes language itself almost divine! What is it that gives to Coleridge's Hymn before Sunrise in the Vale of Chamouney, the deep, unutterable sublimity, that awes the soul into worship, and suffuses the eye with swelling tears? What, but the thought of Him, to whose praise that stupendous mountain, with its sky-pointing peaks and robe of silent cataracts, rises like a cloud of incense from the earth?

"Motionless torrents! silent cataracts!

Who made you glorious as the gates of heaven
Beneath the keen, full moon? Who bade the sun
Clothe you with rainbows? Who, with living flowers,
Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet?
God! let the torrents, like a shout of nations,
Answer! and let the ice-plains echo, God!
And they too have a voice, yon piles of snow,
And in their perilous fall shall thunder, God!"

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There is a spiritual world, and it is a world of light and grandeur! Man's relation to it is the greatest theme that poet or philosopher ever yet exercised his powers upon. broods over him like the day, a master o'er a slave,

"A presence, which is not to be put by!"

The truths that man is fallen, exposed because of sin to the just indignation of God, in peril of his soul for ever, the object of all the stupendous histories and scenes of revelation recorded in the Bible, surrounded by dangers, and directed how to avoid them, pointed to Heaven, and told what to do that he may enter there, and watched in all his course with anxiety by heavenly spirits, do, rightly considered, throw round every spiritual movement a thrilling, absorbing interest! an interest, for the individual who knows and feels it personally, too deep and awful, till he is in a place of safety, to be the subject of poetry. He can no more command attention to the sublimity of his situation, than Lot, hurried by the hand of the angel to Zoar, with the storm of fire rushing after him, could have stood to admire burning Sodom and Gomorrah. It was not amidst his distressing conflicts with the enemy, when it seemed as if his soul would be wrested from his body, that a thought of the Pilgrim's Progress came in upon the Author's mind. It was when the Fiend had spread his dragon wings and fled for ever, and the hand came to him with leaves from the Tree of Life, and the presence of God gladdened him, and on the mountain summit, light shone around him, and a blessed prospect stretched before him, with the Celestial City at its close, that that sweet vision rose upon his view. To the Pilgrim, looking back from a safe resting-place, all the way is fraught with poetical recollections and associations. His imagination now sees a spiritual life full of beauty. In the new light that shines upon him, he loves to retrace it again and again, and to lift his hands in grateful, speechless wonder at the unutterable goodness of the Lord of the Way. He is like Jacob, sleeping in the open air of Padan-aram, and dreaming of heaven. Angels of God are ascending and descending continually before his sight. His are no longer the

"Blank misgivings of a creature

Moving about in worlds not realized,'

but the rejoicings of a weary Pilgrim, on whose forehead the mark of Heaven has been placed, and who sees close at hand his everlasting rest. Once within the strait gate, and in the holy confidence of being a Pilgrim bound from the City of Destruction to the City of Immanuel, and all past circumstances of trial or danger, or of unexpected relief and security, wears a charmed aspect. Light from a better world shines upon them.

Distance softens and lends enchantment to the view. Proof from experience, as well as warnings from above, show how many dangerous places he has passed, how many concealed and malignant enemies were here and there lying in ambush around him, and in how many instances there were hair-breadth escapes from ruin. There were the Slough of Despond, the fiery darts at the entrance to the Wicket Gate, the hill Difficulty, that pleasant arbour where he lost his roll of assurance, the lions that so terrified him, when in the darkness of evening he could not see that they were chained; there was that dark valley of the Shadow of Death, and that dread conflict with Apollyon before it. There were those fearful days and nights passed in the Dungeon of the Castle of Giant Despair, and the joyful escape from his territories. There were the Land Beulah, and the Delectable Mountains, and the Enchanted Ground, and all the glimpses of the Holy City, not dream-like, but distinct and full of glory, breaking in upon the vision, to last in the savour of them, for many days and nights of the blessed pilgrimage! Ingenious Dreamer, who could invest a life of such realities with a colouring so full of Heaven! Who can wonder at the affectionate sympathy, with which a heart like Cowper's was wont to turn to thee!

"And e'en in transitory life's late day

That mingled all his brown with sober gray,
Revere the man, whose PILGRIM marks the road,
And guides the PROGRESS of the soul to God."

LECTURE II.

BUNYAN'S TEMPTATIONS.

The Valley of the Shadow of Death in Bunyan's experience.-Blasphemous suggestions of Satan.. Bunyan's meeting with Luther.-Conflict of scripture with scripture in his mind. The fiery darts of the Wicked One. Power of conscience by the aid of memory.-Bunyan's intense study of the Bible.— Secret of his power in preaching.—Of the purity and simplicity of his style.-Bunyan's call to the ministry. Existence and agency of Satan as the Tempter and Adversary of Mankind.

We come now to a great and important subject, Bunyan's temptations. In the midst of deep and terrible convictions of sin he received great comfort and joy on hearing a sermon preached on the love of Christ. He was so taken with the love and mercy of God, as he says, that he could scarcely contain himself till he got home. To use his own graphic language, "I thought I could have spoken of his love, and have told of his mercy to me, even to the crows that sat upon the ploughed lands before me, had they been capable to have understood me; wherefore I said to my soul with much gladness, Well, I would I had a pen and ink here; I would write this down before I go any farther; for surely I will not forget this forty years hence." But now very speedily began to be renewed the great power of inward temptation upon him. I must tell the warning he had of it, and the beginning of it, in his own words. "Now about a week or fortnight after this, I was much followed by this scripture-Simon, Simon, behold Satan hath desired to have you; and sometimes it would sound so loud within me, yea, and as it were call so strongly after me, that once above all the rest, I turned my head over my shoulder, thinking verily that some man behind me had called me; being at a great distance, methought he called so loud; it came, as I have thought since, to have stirred me up to watchfulness; it came to acquaint me that a cloud and a storm was coming down upon me. But so foolish was I and ignorant, that I knew not the reason of this sound, only I mused and wondered in my mind that at this rate, so often and so loud, it should still be sounding and rattling in mine ears. But I soon perceived the end of God therein.

"For about the space of a month after, a very great storm came down upon me, which handled me twenty times worse than all I had met with before; it came stealing upon me, now by one piece, then by another; first, all my comfort was taken from me; then darkness seized upon me; after which whole floods of blasphemies, both against God, Christ, and the Scriptures, were poured upon my spirit, to my great confusion and astonishment." He was tempted to question the very being of God and of Christ, and, in burning language, he continues the description of these fearful suggestions, many of which he says he dare not utter, neither by word nor pen, which nevertheless for the space of a whole year did, with their number, continuance, and fiery force, seize upon and overweigh his heart. "Now I thought, surely I am possessed of the devil; again I thought I should be bereft of my wits; for instead of lauding and magnifying God the Lord with others, if I have heard him spoken of, presently some most horrible blasphemous thought or other would bolt out of my heart against him; which things did sink me into very deep despair, for I concluded that such things could not possibly be found amongst them that loved God."

The provocations by which he was beset, are indeed almost too terrible to be spoken of. It is a wonder that he was kept from absolute despair. He was especially distressed

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