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seated on the east, whereon sat one in brightness like the morning star, upon which he, thinking it was the end of the world, fell upon his knees, and with uplifted hands towards heaven, cried, O Lord God, have mercy upon me! What shall I do? the day of judgment is come, and I am not prepared! Then he immediately heard a voice behind him, exceeding loud, saying, REPENT. Whereupon he awoke, and found it was a dream. Another time he dreamed that he was in a pleasant place, jovial and rioting, banqueting and feasting his senses, when immediately a mighty earthquake rent the earth, and made a wide gape, out of which came bloody flames, and the figures of men tossed up in globes of fire, and falling down again with horrible cries, shrieks, and execrations, while some devils that were mingled with them laughed aloud at their torments; and whilst he stood trembling at this sight, he thought the earth sank under him, and a circle of flame enclosed him; but when he fancied he was just at the point to perish, one in white shining raiment descended, and plucked him out of that dreadful place, while the devils cried after him to be left with them, to take the just punishment his sins had deserved; yet he escaped the danger, and leaped for joy, when he awoke and found it was a dream.

Now in these dreams of Bunyan's own soul you may see clearly the materials, afterwards put more visibly into the symmetrical mould of Scripture imagery, of that grand and awful Dream of the Judgment, which the Man related to Christian in the House of the Interpreter. Almost all men have at times passed through something of the same experience; for conscience is often busy in the night-time, when the external business of the day prevented her work and claims from being attended to. We go about the world. in the day-time, we see pleasant companions, we are absorbed in earthly schemes, the things of sense are around us, the world is as bright as a rainbow, and it bears for us no marks or predictions of the judgment, or of our sins, and it holds no conversation with us on those subjects, and conscience is retired, as it were, within a far inner circle of the soul But when it comes night, and the streets are empty, and the lights are out, and the business and dancing and gayety are over, and the pall of sleep is drawn over the senses, and reason and the will are no longer on the watch, then conscience comes out solemnly, and walks about in the silent chambers of the soul, and makes her survey and her comments, and sometimes sits down and sternly reads the record of a life that the waking man would never look into, and the catalogue of crimes that are gathering for the judgment. And as conscience reads, and reads aloud, and soliloquizes, you may hear the still deep echo of her voice reverberated through the soul's most secret unveiled recesses. Imagination walks tremblingly behind her, and now they two alone pass through the open gate of the Scriptures into the future and eternal world; for thither all things in man's being naturally and irresistibly tend; and there, as conscience is still dwelling upon sin, imagination draws the judgment, and the soul is presented at the bar of God, and the eye of the Judge is on it, and a hand of fire writes, as on the wall of the universe, Thou art weighed in the balances, and found wanting! Then, whatever sinful thoughts or passions, words or deeds, the conscience enumerates and dwells upon, the imagination with prophetic truth fills eternity with corresponding shapes of evil. Our dreams sometimes reveal our character, our sins, our destinies, far more clearly than our waking thoughts; for whereas by day the energies of our being are turned into artificial channels, by night our thoughts follow the bent that is most natural to them; and as man is both an immortal and a sinful being, the consequences both of his immortality and his sinfulness will sometimes be made to stand out in overpowering light, when the busy pursuits of day and of the world are not able to turn the soul from wandering towards eternity.

A morning is coming, when we shall all awake out of the sleep of this world, but the Dream of the Judgment will then be no longer a dream. The friendly warning of the dream will have passed for ever, to give place to the reality. The thrones will be set, the dead will be raised, and we shall be judged; the Great White Throne, and Him that sitteth thereon, and all nations gathered before him!

Oh to be ready, ready for that day!

Who would not give earth's fairest toys away!

So thought Christian, when, in mingled hope and fear on account of what he had seen, he began to gird up his loins, and to address himself to his journey. The Comforter be always with thee, said the Interpreter, to guide thee in the way that leads to the city! So he went musing on his way, grateful to the good Interpreter, meditating on what he

had seen, drawing out the lessons, and soliloquizing over them, and praying for Divine grace to make them profitable. In truth, the things which he had seen were some of the most precious fruits of Bunyan's sanctified genius and deep religious experience. Whoever has read Bunyan's Divine Emblems for Youth, will see at once the same hand that placed these varieties for his Pilgrim's instruction in the House of the Interpreter. Bunyan might have added to them in verses wrought with the art of a true poet, had it pleased him so to exercise his skill.

It is difficult to overstate the importance for the mind in childhood of a book that contains such pictures at once so alluring, so solemn, and instructive. We speak from experience, and from what we have heard others describe of its effect upon their minds in early youth, when we suggest the importance of children early reading the Pilgrim's Progress. It never seems so beautiful, so fascinating a book, to those who read it first in later life, as to those who, having read it in childhood, when its power over the imagination is unbounded, read it afterwards with a grave perception and understanding of its meaning. It becomes a series of holy pictures engraven on the soul in its early, simple, childlike state; and though these pictures may be afterwards covered with sin, yet some time or other their covering may be swept off, and then out shine the pictures, in all their freshness and beauty. And what is true of the Pilgrim's Progress is much more true of the Bible. Where such early impressions are made upon the mind, it would seem as if Satan works hard to destroy them; he takes the tablet, and rubs out the inscription, just as the monks of old used to erase the classics, and write over them on the same parchment their own absurd legends; but God can restore the original inscriptions, and can utterly efface the writing of the Wicked One. And sometimes the original Builder of the mind is pleased to write his own name so deep there, that though it may be covered with depravity, in which Satan afterwards engraves his, and thinks it is written in the solid rock, yet God has a previous writing, and the Holy Spirit, in a season of trouble and conviction upon the sinner, can break away that covering of depravity, and Satan's name along with it, and there shall be God's name shining, and the whole temple of the mind shall be God's living temple. See that you write God's name upon your children's minds; and in order to do this, you must use the graving tools, which God himself has given you, the diamond pen of the Word of God, sharper to write with, and to cut with, than any two-edged sword, and always successful, when used with faith and prayer.

Refreshed and instructed in the House of the Interpreter, Christian sets forward on his journey. His burden is still wearisome, and some of the sights which he has seen tend to make him feel it more sensibly, and to long for deliverance. Though the highway was fenced in on either side with the wall of Salvation, yet, as the way was ascending, Christian ran with great difficulty, because of the load on his back. But now he was near his deliverance, which indeed the instructions of the Holy Spirit had prepared him to experience and receive as a reality, a lasting, commanding reality, and not a mistaken, transitory, superficial joy. There is not a more important lesson taught in this book, than that growth in grace is not to be measured by sensible comfort, that joy is not to be sought as a test or proof of grace, and that a person may be in Christ, and yet a deep sense of the burden of sin may long remain upon the soul. The teachings of the Holy Spirit are needed, and new discoveries of the plan of salvation through Christ, and only in proportion as the soul sees clearly Christ and his Cross, and is filled and absorbed with the Saviour, does the burden of sin disappear, and the happiness of the soul become deep and lasting. All the direct efforts of Christian to get rid of his burden were of no avail, nor was it till he had the fullest view of the Cross, not till that salvation completely filled his soul, that the burden fell from him. He was not seeking to be rid of it when he lost sight of it; no, he was coming up to the cross and the sepulchre, his attention was occupied with Christ, his sufferings, his death, his atoning sacrifice for sinners, and as he ran and gazed, and saw these things more clearly, and came at length quite to the foot of the cross, then his burden fell from him while he was gazing, admiring and loving, and rolled quite into the mouth of the sepulchre, so that he saw it no more. And very much surprised was he that the sight of the cross should thus ease him of his burden. It made him glad and lightsome, and he exclaimed with a merry heart, He hath given me rest by his sorrow, and life by his death. And so, as he stood and wondered, he wept, and wept again for gratitude, sorrow, and joy. And now came to him the Three Shining Ones, as he stood looking and weeping, and they all together

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saluted him, Peace be to thee. The first said to him, Thy sins be forgiven thee. The second stripped him of his rags, and clothed him with change of raiment. The third also set a mark on his forehead and gave him a roll with a seal upon it, which he bid him look to as he ran, and that he should give it in at the Celestial Gate; so they went their way. Then Christian gave three leaps for joy, and went on singing.

LECTURE VIII.

CHRISTIAN ON THE

HILL DIFFICULTY.

Happiness of Christian with his roll.-His efforts to save others. Simple, Sloth, and Presumption.-Christian's knowledge of character.—Formalist and Hypocrisy.-Christian climbing the Hill.—The sleep in the arbour, and the loss of his roll.-Christian weeping and searching for it.-His thankfulness at finding it.

We left Christian light of heart, and singing for joy of his deliverance from his burden. How lightly did he now step forward, with what pleasant thoughts in his soul, with what precious views of the cross and of the way of salvation! Now it seemed to him that he should never tire. He thought of that sweet Psalm, When the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream. Sometimes he could scarcely persuade himself that it was a reality; he was almost afraid it was a dream. But then, there was his roll that had been given him, and the new dress in which the Shining Ones had arrayed him, and his heart was full of gratitude and love. He thought "he could have spoken to the very crows that sat upon the ploughed land by the way-side," to have told them of his joy, and of the preciousness of his Saviour, if they could have understood it. His heart was like the blind man's restored to sight, and just as simple and unaffected.

Now methinks I hear him praising,
Publishing to all around,
Friends, is not my case amazing?
What a Saviour I have found!

Yes, and now Christian desires to save others. The joy in his soul was no transitory sympathy or selfish hope, that would subside into indolence. It led him to set himself to work at once to win others to Christ. This is very striking. Now he would neglect no opportunity of doing good, and he did not say, when he saw some ready to perish, I am but a young Christian, but just now converted, and must wait till I have more experience, before I try to persuade others. Not at all. But the very first opportunity Christian had after his release from his burden, he faithfully employed it. As he went on, singing and making melody in his heart unto the Lord, he came to a wide level place, where he saw, a little out of the way, three men fast asleep, with fetters on their heels. Their names were Simple, Sloth, and Presumption. The first thing Christian did was to go to them and endeavour to awake them, which he thought certainly he might easily do, for their danger was clear to him, though they themselves did not seem to see it. So he cried out to them to awake, telling them that they might as well sleep on the top of a mast, for that the Dead Sea was under them, a gulf without a bottom. Awake, said he, and come away, or you will perish for ever. He furthermore told them that if they were but willing, he would help them off with their irons, but they manifested no anxiety. He told them that if he that goeth about as a roaring lion came by, they would certainly become a prey to his teeth. In fine, he used all proper and likely means to wake them up; and they were at length so far roused as to listen to him, and answer him. Simple said, I see no danger. That was the voice of one-third part of the world in their sins.

Tell them they are sleeping on the brink of perdition, and they say, We see

no danger. Sloth said, Yet a little more sleep. That was the voice of another third
part of the world. A little longer indulgence in sin is pleaded for, a little more quiet,
ease, and indifference; wait till we have a more convenient season; a little more folding
of the hands to sleep! Presumption said, Every vat must stand on its own bottom.
There outspoke at least another third part of the world in their sins.
Take care of your
interests, and I will take care of mine. You need not trouble yourself about my salvation,
I am not at all concerned but that all will go well, and I am ready to take my chance.
All these classes of men Christians have to encounter in their efforts to awaken the
sinner and bring him to repentance; so Christian was earnest and faithful, but all his
efforts were of no avail. These persons laid themselves down to sleep again, and Christian
went sorrowfully on his way, being sad to think of the danger they were in, and their
insensibility to it, and their utter indifference as to the help proffered them to get them
out of it.

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But now there met him persons of a different sort; for behold two men came tumbling over the wall, on the left hand of the narrow way; and they made up apace to him. The name of the one was Formalist, and the name of the other Hypocrisy. It looked very suspicious to see them tumbling over the wall; so Christian asked at once where they came from, and whither they were going. Their answer was very curious. were born in the land of Vainglory, and are going for praise to Mount Zion. Christian asked them why they did not come in at the gate, for that they who came not in by the door, but did climb up some other way, were thieves and robbers. They told him that in their country of Vainglory, that gate was considered too far round about, so that it was their custom to make a short cut, and get over the wall. Now you will remark that Bunyan had met these characters himself, and was well acquainted with them. He is here painting from real life; indeed in every part of the Pilgrim's Progress he had but to look back through the perspective of the way he had himself been travelling, and its characters started into life, thronging the path with such number and vividness, that the difficulty was not to find portraits, but to make choice of his materials. He had also only to look into his own soul, with the wonderful clearness and accuracy with which he remembered every part of his experience, and there he found within his own past self, before he became a Christian, the portraiture of many a character introduced in his pages; the portraitures of just such characters as he would himself have become, had he stopped where they did; had he stopped at the points where he sketched and painted. these developments of classes.

This is, in truth, an illustration of the meaning of that passage, "Evil men understand not judgment, but they that seek the Lord understand all things." And also of that in 1 Cor. ii. 15. We see plainly that, as a clear-sighted Christian looks back upon his own experience, he sees himself in many aspects, and through the prism of his own nature he sees a thousand others; he sees, through and through, the motives, thoughts, feelings, veils, and hiding-places of every possible variety of the children of this world, because he has been one of them. He sees some stopping with their characters in perfection at one stage of his own experience, and some at other stages; some more advanced towards the point where he himself really set out to be a Christian, and some less; but many he sees, through the perfect knowledge he has of his own past refuges of lies, evidently trusting in the same refuges; refuges where he himself would have stopped and died as a pretended Christian, had not God had mercy on him.

On the other hand, a man of the world, a wicked man, an unconverted man, cannot see beyond the line of his own experience; the things of the Christian are hidden from him, for he has never gone into them; it is a world unknown, a world hidden by a veil that he has never lifted, a region of blessedness, knowledge, and glory, where his feet have never wandered; a region of sweet fields, and living streams, and vast prospects, of which he knows nothing, and can conceive nothing. It is all like the unseen future to him. But the Christian, you will perceive, is looking back; experience illumines the path that has been passed over, and the Christian sees that path clearly, and that path embraces all the world in it, just so far as it is the broad way, in which all characters in the world are travelling. So he which is spiritual judgeth all things, but he himself is judged of no man. So, in looking back, as Bunyan did, he says, Do you see such and such an one, travelling at such a pace, with such professions and conversations? A few years ago, I was just such a person; I know him perfectly. Do you see that thief going to prison, that murderer going to execution? Now but for the grace of God I was

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