hear the chimes of bells wafted across the sea; and sometimes the gales are laden with such fragrant spicy airs, that a single breath of them makes the soul recognize its immortal Paradise, and almost transports it thither.

When shall the day break, and the shadows flee away! It is night here, but there the sun shall never go down. Light is sown for the righteous, and in the harvest time it shall come up; but as Goodwin beautifully remarks in his "Child of Light Walking in Darkness," we must be content to let it lie under ground; and the longer it doth so, the greater crop and harvest will spring up in the end.

In the Pilgrim's Progress there is a charming passage descriptive of the Pilgrim's entertainment in the House Beautiful, which was thus :-"The Pilgrim they laid in a large upper chamber, whose windows opened towards the sunrising; the name of the chamber was Peace; where he slept till break of day, and then he awoke and sang." A great and thoughtful poet has written a poem with this description as its motto, which he has entitled "Day-break," and which closes with the following

stanza :

How suddenly that strait and glittering shaft
Shot 'thwart the earth! In crown of living fire
Up comes the day! As if they, conscious, quaffed
The sunny flood, hill, forest, city, spire,
Laugh in the wakening light. Go, vain Desire!
The dusky lights have gone; go thou thy way!

And pining Discontent, like them expire!

Be called my chamber PEACE, when ends the day,
And let me, with the dawn, like PILGRIM, sing and pray

ΘΕΩ ΜΟΝΩ ΔΟΞΑ.

CITY OF

THE

OF DESTRUCTION

AND

SLOUGH OF DESPOND.

Locality of the City of Destruction.-Character of Christian.-The awakened sinner. The sinner convinced of sin, and fleeing from the wrath to come.-Character of Pliable.-Difference between a burden and no burden.-Pliable and Christian in the Slough of Despond.-Mr. Worldly Wiseman and his instructions.-Mr. Legality and the town of Carnal Policy.-The terrors of the Law of God to an awakened conscience.-Christian's entrance at the Wicket Gate.

We are all inha

THE CITY OF DESTRUCTION! bitants of it; no man needs ask, Where is it? What is it? Who are its people? Alas! our world of sin is the City of Destruction, and we know of a certainty from God's Word that it is to be burned up, and that if we do not escape from it, though we may die at peace in it before its conflagration, yet to be found with its spirit in our souls when we die, is to be forever miserable. There is a blessed pilgrimage from the City of Destruction to the City of Immanuel. It is full of dangers, trials, difficulties; but the perils are not worthy to be named in comparison with the glory at its close. And indeed the pilgrimage itself, with all its roughnesses and trials, is romantic and de

lightful. As the author of this book has delineated it, he makes many a man wish that he were set out in it. And yet this delineation is not in the coloring of imagination, but of sober reality; there is nothing overdrawn, nothing exaggerated in it; the scenery along the way is not painted too beautiful, there are no ecstacies, or rapturous frames, or revelations in it; the coloring is sober, with all its richness, the experience is human with all its variety; the very angels are more like gentle sympathising friends, than glittering supernatural intelligences.

It is this charm of common sense and reality that constitutes in a great measure the power of this book. Its characters are not removed from our own experience; the piety of Christian, though very rich and mellow, is progressive, and for every day's use, and for every saint's attainment. It is neither mystical, nor visionary, nor in extremes; it is not perfection, nor ascetic sublimation from the world, nor contemplation, nor penance, nor the luxury of mere spiritual frames and exercises. It is deep, sincere, gentle, practical, full of the fruits of the Spirit, full of intelligence and kindness, of love, joy, peace, long-suffering, goodness and truth. They are every day virtues which shine in Christian; and his character is an example of what ours ought to be in our daily pilgrimage. His conflicts are such as every Christian may pass through, his consolations and enjoyments such as every Chris tian may experience, his knowledge of the Word of God, and indeed all his attainments, within reach of every pilgrim. He is indeed a model of excellence for all.

I think we shall observe, as we study the book through, that from first to last Bunyan has composed this character out of the most general and universally recognized traits belonging to the experience of a child of God. This, it is clear, was necessary, in order to its highest success and usefulness. And yet the individuality and originality of the character is as perfect, as striking, as graphic, as if it were the delineation from life of some person well known to Bunyan with all his peculiarities. Now we do not suppose that Bunyan intended this in so definite a form of art and philosophy; we do not suppose that he said within himself, I must make this Christian, in the absence of all peculiarities, a suitable model for all, and yet, in the translucence through his particular characteristics, of the general qualities belonging to our conception of a Christian, a character recognisable by, and the counterpart of, every individual. This would involve a greater degree of art and criticism than Bunyan ever exercised; and yet his genius, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, did spontaneously work according to these rules. Just so, Bunyan's own incomparable freedom from all sectarianism, even in a sectarian age, has prevented the character of Christian and of the whole Progress of the Pilgrim, from being narrowed or disfigured by any thing which could even be tortured to restrict its application, or its preferences, to any religious party. Accordingly, the more bigoted, exclusive and sectarian a man is, the less he will like this book; to a violent Churchman it wants a bishop and the apostolical succession: to a rigid

Baptist it wants immersion as the Wicket Gate. But Bunyan was wonderfully preserved from affixing to any part of this book the seal of any such local or party distinctions. Though he was himself a Baptist, yet he was an open communion Baptist, and experienced the wrath of his more exclusive Baptist brethren, because he laid no stress whatever on their peculiarities. They had bitter controversies against him as a deserter from the faith, because he would not pronounce their Shibboleths, and was completely free from the unchurching spirit of his age.

Now here was a characteristic of the presence of the Holy Spirit in him very remarkable; and his work accordingly has come from that school of heaven in which no man is of Apollos, or Cephas, or Paul, but all of Christ. Ah, this is delightful; and accordingly, in such a controversial world as this, this work is like oil upon the waters; it is as the very voice of the Saviour in the tempest, Peace, be still; it is like the dove with her olive leaf, a prophet of the garden of the Lord; it is like a white-robed herald with his sacred flag, privileged to go every where, and admitted every where, even amidst contending armies. This book will remain, when there shall be nothing to hurt nor destroy in all God's holy mountain, when Judah shall no more vex Ephraim, nor Ephraim envy Judah; for it has come forth from the mint of celestial universal love; it has no leaf in it, which the Spirit of God may not sweetly mingle with those leaves of the Tree of Life for the healing of the nations. We doubt whether