{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_1885/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_1885","id":"gutenberg_1885","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1885","summary":null,"tags":["Bunyan, John, 1628-1688 -- Criticism and interpretation","Bunyan, John, 1628-1688. Pilgrim's progress","Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality"],"text":"Transcribed from the 1893 Oliphant Anderson and Ferrier edition by David\nPrice, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk\n\n\n\n\n\nBUNYAN CHARACTERS: FIRST SERIES\nBEING LECTURES DELIVERED IN ST. GEORGE'S FREE CHURCH EDINBURGH\nBY ALEXANDER WHYTE, D.D.\n\n\nINTRODUCTORY\n\n\n   'The express image' [Gr. 'the character'].--Heb. 1. 3.\n\nThe word 'character' occurs only once in the New Testament, and that is\nin the passage in the prologue of the Epistle to the Hebrews, where the\noriginal word is translated 'express image' in our version.  Our Lord is\nthe Express Image of the Invisible Father.  No man hath seen God at any\ntime.  The only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath\ndeclared Him.  The Father hath sealed His divine image upon His Son, so\nthat he that hath seen the Son hath seen the Father.  The Son is thus the\nFather's character stamped upon and set forth in human nature.  The Word\nwas made flesh.  This is the highest and best use to which our so\nexpressive word 'character' has ever been put, and the use to which it is\nput when we speak of Bunyan's Characters partakes of the same high sense\nand usage.  For it is of the outstanding good or evil in a man that we\nthink when we speak of his character.  It is really either of his\nlikeness or unlikeness to Jesus Christ we speak, and then, through Him,\nhis likeness or unlikeness to God Himself.  And thus it is that the\nadjective 'moral' usually accompanies our word 'character'--moral or\nimmoral.  A man's character does not have its seat or source in his body;\ncharacter is not a physical thing: not even in his mind; it is not an\nintellectual thing.  Character comes up out of the will and out of the\nheart.  There are more good minds, as we say, in the world than there are\ngood hearts.  There are more clever people than good people;\ncharacter,--high, spotless, saintly character,--is a far rarer thing in\nthis world than talent or even genius.  Character is an infinitely better\nthing than either of these, and it is of corresponding rarity.  And yet\nso true is it that the world loves its own, that all men worship talent,\nand even bodily strength and bodily beauty, while only one here and one\nthere either understands or values or pursues moral character, though it\nis the strength and the beauty and the sweetness of the soul.\n\nWe naturally turn to Bishop Butler when we think of moral character.\nButler is an author who has drawn no characters of his own.  Butler's\ngenius was not creative like Shakespeare's or Bunyan's.  Butler had not\nthat splendid imagination which those two masters in character-painting\npossessed, but he had very great gifts of his own, and he has done us\nvery great service by means of his gifts.  Bishop Butler has helped many\nmen in the intelligent formation of their character, and what higher\npraise could be given to any author?  Butler will lie on our table all\nwinter beside Bunyan; the bishop beside the tinker, the philosopher\nbeside the poet, the moralist beside the evangelical minister.\n\nIn seeking a solid bottom for our subject, then, we naturally turn to\nButler.  Bunyan will people the house for us once it is built, but Butler\nlays bare for us the naked rock on which men like Bunyan build and\nbeautify and people the dwelling-place of God and man.  What exactly is\nthis thing, character, we hear so much about? we ask the sagacious\nbishop.  And how shall we understand our own character so as to form it\nwell till it stands firm and endures?  'Character,' answers Butler, in\nhis bald, dry, deep way, 'by character is meant that temper, taste,\ndisposition, whole frame of mind from whence we act in one way rather\nthan another . . . those principles from which a man acts, when they\nbecome fixed and habitual in him we call his character . . . And\nconsequently there is a far greater variety in men's characters than\nthere is in the features of their faces.'  Open Bunyan now, with Butler's\nkeywords in your mind, and see the various tempers, tastes, dispositions,\nframes of mind from which his various characters act, and which, at\nbottom, really make them the characters, good or bad, which they are.  See\nthe principles which Bunyan has with such inimitable felicity embodied\nand exhibited in their names, the principles within them from which they\nhave acted till they have become a habit and then a character, that\ncharacter which they themselves are and will remain.  See the variety of\nJohn Bunyan's characters, a richer and a more endless variety than are\nthe features of their faces.  Christian and Christiana, Obstinate and\nPliable, Mr. Fearing and Mr. Feeblemind, Temporary and Talkative, Mr. By-\nends and Mr. Facing-both-ways, Simple, Sloth, Presumption, that brisk lad\nIgnorance, and the genuine Mr. Brisk himself.  And then Captain Boasting,\nMr. High-mind, Mr. Wet-Eyes, and so on, through a less known (but equally\nwell worth knowing) company of municipal and military characters in the\n_Holy War_.\n\nWe shall see, as we proceed, how this and that character in Bunyan was\nformed and deformed.  But let us ask in this introductory lecture if we\ncan find out any law or principle upon which all our own characters, good\nor bad, are formed.  Do our characters come to be what they are by\nchance, or have we anything to do in the formation of our own characters,\nand if so, in what way?  And here, again, Butler steps forward at our\ncall with his key to our own and to all Bunyan's characters in his hand,\nand in three familiar and fruitful words he answers our question and\ngives us food for thought and solemn reflection for a lifetime.  There\nare but three steps, says Butler, from earth to heaven, or, if you will,\nfrom earth to hell--acts, habits, character.  All Butler's prophetic\nburden is bound up in these three great words--acts, habits, character.\nRemember and ponder these three words, and you will in due time become a\nmoral philosopher.  Ponder and practise them, and you will become what is\ninfinitely better--a moral man.  For acts, often repeated, gradually\nbecome habits, and habits, long enough continued, settle and harden and\nsolidify into character.  And thus it is that the severe and laconic\nbishop has so often made us shudder as he demonstrated it to us that we\nare all with our own hands shaping our character not only for this world,\nbut much more for the world to come, by every act we perform, by every\nword we speak, almost by every breath we draw.  Butler is one of the most\nterrible authors in the world.  He stands on our nearest shelf with Dante\non one side of him and Pascal on the other.  He is indeed terrible, but\nit is with a terror that purifies the heart and keeps the life in the\nhour of temptation.  Paul sometimes arms himself with the same terror;\nonly he composes in another style than that of Butler, and, with all his\nvivid intensity, he calls it the terror of the Lord.  Paul and Bunyan are\nof the same school of moralists and stylists; Butler went to school to\nthe Stoics, to Aristotle, and to Plato.\n\nOur Lord Himself came to be the express image He was and is by living and\nacting under this same universal law of human life--acts, habits,\ncharacter.  He was made perfect on this same principle.  He learned\nobedience both by the things that He did, and the things that He\nsuffered.  Butler says in one deep place, that benevolence and justice\nand veracity are the basis of all good character in God and in man, and\nthus also in the God-man.  And those three foundation stones of our\nLord's character settled deeper and grew stronger to bear and to suffer\nas He went on practising acts and speaking words of justice, goodness,\nand truth.  And so of all the other elements of His moral character.  Our\nLord left Gethsemane a much more submissive and a much more surrendered\nman than He entered it.  His forgiveness of injuries, and thus His\nsplendid benevolence, had not yet come to its climax and crown till He\nsaid on the cross, 'Father, forgive them'.  And, as He was, so are we in\nthis world.  This world's evil and ill-desert made it but the better\narena and theatre for the development and the display of His moral\ncharacter; and the same instruments that fashioned Him into the perfect\nand express image He was and is, are still, happily, in full operation.\nTake that divinest and noblest of all instruments for the carving out and\nrefining of moral character, the will of God.  How our Lord made His own\nunselfish and unsinful will to bow to silence and to praise before the\nholy will of His Father, till that gave the finishing touch to His always\nsanctified will and heart!  And, happily, that awful and blessed\ninstrument for the formation of moral character is still active and\navailable to those whose ambition rises to moral character, and who are\naiming at heaven in all they do and all they suffer upon the earth.\nGethsemane has gone out till it has covered all the earth.  Its cup, if\nnot in all the depth and strength of its first mixture, still in quite\nsufficient bitterness, is put many times in life into every man's hand.\nThere is not a day, there is not an hour of the day, that the disciple of\nthe submissive and all-surrendered Son has not the opportunity to say\nwith his Master, If it be possible, let this cup pass: nevertheless, not\nas I will, but as Thou wilt.\n\nIt is not in the great tragedies of life only that character is tested\nand strengthened and consolidated.  No man who is not himself under God's\nmoral and spiritual instruments could believe how often in the quietest,\nclearest, and least tempestuous day he has the chance and the call to\nsay, Yea, Lord, Thy will be done.  And, then, when the confessedly tragic\ndays and nights come, when all men admit that this is Gethsemane indeed,\nthe practised soul is able, with a calmness and a peace that confound and\noffend the bystanders, to say, to act so that he does not need to say,\nNot my will, but Thine.  And so of all the other forms and features of\nmoral character; so of humility and meekness, so of purity and\ntemperance, so of magnanimity and munificence, so of all self-suppression\nand self-extinction, and all corresponding exalting and magnifying and\nbenefiting of other men.  Whatever other passing uses this present world,\nso full of trial and temptation and suffering, may have, this surely is\nthe supreme and final use of it--to be a furnace, a graving-house, a\nrefining place for human character.  Literally all things in this life\nand in this world--I challenge you to point out a single exception--work\ntogether for this supreme and only good, the purification, the refining,\nthe testing, and the approval of human character.  Not only so, but we\nare all in the very heat of the furnace, and under the very graving iron\nand in the very refining fire that our prefigured and predestinated\ncharacter needs.  Your life and its trials would not suit the necessities\nof my moral character, and you would lose your soul beyond redemption if\nyou exchanged lots with me.  You do not put a pearl under the potter's\nwheel; you do not cast clay into a refining fire.  Abraham's character\nwas not like David's, nor David's like Christ's, nor Christ's like\nPaul's.  As Butler says, there is 'a providential disposition of things'\naround every one of us, and it is as exactly suited to the flaws and\nexcrescences, the faults and corruptions of our character as if\nProvidence had had no other life to make a disposition of things for but\none, and that one our own.  Have you discovered that in your life, or any\nmeasure of that?  Have you acknowledged to God that you have at last\ndiscovered the true key of your life?  Have you given Him the\nsatisfaction to know that He is not making His providential dispositions\naround a stock or a stone, but that He has one under His hand who\nunderstands His hand, and responds to it, and rises up to meet and salute\nit?\n\nAnd we cease to wonder so much at the care God takes of human character,\nand the cost He lays out upon it, when we think that it is the only work\nof His hands that shall last for ever.  It is fit, surely, that the\nephemeral should minister to the eternal, and time to eternity, and all\nelse in this world to the only thing in this world that shall endure and\nsurvive this world.  All else we possess and pursue shall fade and\nperish, our moral character shall alone survive.  Riches, honours,\npossessions, pleasures of all kinds: death, with one stroke of his\ndesolating hand, shall one day strip us bare to a winding-sheet and a\ncoffin of all the things we are so mad to possess.  But the last enemy,\nwith all his malice and all his resistless power, cannot touch our moral\ncharacter--unless it be in some way utterly mysterious to us that he is\nmade under God to refine and perfect it.  The Express Image carried up to\nHis Father's House, not only the divine life He had brought hither with\nHim when He came to obey and submit and suffer among us; He carried back\nmore than He brought, for He carried back a human heart, a human life, a\nhuman character, which was and is a new wonder in heaven.  He carried up\nto heaven all the love to God and angels and men He had learned and\npractised on earth, with all the earthly fruits of it.  He carried back\nHis humility, His meekness, His humanity, His approachableness, and His\nsympathy.  And we see to our salvation some of the uses to which those\nparts of His moral character are at this moment being put in His Father's\nHouse; and what we see not now of all the ends and uses and employments\nof our Lord's glorified humanity we shall, mayhap, see hereafter.  And we\nalso shall carry our moral character to heaven; it is the only thing we\nhave worth carrying so far.  But, then, moral character is well worth\nachieving here and then carrying there, for it is nothing else and\nnothing less than the divine nature itself; it is the divine nature\nincarnate, incorporate, and made manifest in man.  And it is, therefore,\nimmortal with the immortality of God, and blessed for ever with the\nblessedness of God.\n\n\n\n\nEVANGELIST\n\n\n   'Do the work of an evangelist.'--Paul to Timothy.\n\nOn the 1st of June 1648 a very bitter fight was fought at Maidstone, in\nKent, between the Parliamentary forces under Fairfax and the Royalists.\nTill Cromwell rose to all his military and administrative greatness,\nFairfax was generalissimo of the Puritan army, and that able soldier\nnever executed a more brilliant exploit than he did that memorable night\nat Maidstone.  In one night the Royalist insurrection was stamped out and\nextinguished in its own blood.  Hundreds of dead bodies filled the\nstreets of the town, hundreds of the enemy were taken prisoners, while\nhundreds more, who were hiding in the hop-fields and forests around the\ntown, fell into Fairfax's hands next morning.\n\nAmong the prisoners so taken was a Royalist major who had had a deep hand\nin the Maidstone insurrection, named John Gifford, a man who was destined\nin the time to come to run a remarkable career.  Only, to-day, the day\nafter the battle, he has no prospect before him but the gallows.  On the\nnight before his execution, by the courtesy of Fairfax, Gifford's sister\nwas permitted to visit her brother in his prison.  The soldiers were\novercome with weariness and sleep after the engagement, and Gifford's\nsister so managed it that her brother got past the sentries and escaped\nout of the town.  He lay hid for some days in the ditches and thickets\naround the town till he was able to escape to London, and thence to the\nshelter of some friends of his at Bedford.  Gifford had studied medicine\nbefore he entered the army, and as soon as he thought it safe he began to\npractise his old art in the town of Bedford.  Gifford had been a\ndissolute man as a soldier, and he became, if possible, a still more\nscandalously dissolute man as a civilian.  Gifford's life in Bedford was\na public disgrace, and his hatred and persecution of the Puritans in that\ntown made his very name an infamy and a fear.  He reduced himself to\nbeggary with gambling and drink, but, when near suicide, he came under\nthe power of the truth, till we see him clothed with rags and with a\ngreat burden on his back, crying out, 'What must I do to be saved?'  'But\nat last'--I quote from the session records of his future church at\nBedford--'God did so plentifully discover to him the forgiveness of sins\nfor the sake of Christ, that all his life after he lost not the light of\nGod's countenance, no, not for an hour, save only about two days before\nhe died.'  Gifford's conversion had been so conspicuous and notorious\nthat both town and country soon heard of it: and instead of being ashamed\nof it, and seeking to hide it, Gifford at once, and openly, threw in his\nlot with the extremest Puritans in the Puritan town of Bedford.  Nor\ncould Gifford's talents be hid; till from one thing to another, we find\nthe former Royalist and dissolute Cavalier actually the parish minister\nof Bedford in Cromwell's so evangelical but otherwise so elastic\nestablishment.\n\nAt this point we open John Bunyan's _Grace Abounding to the Chief of\nSinners_, and we read this classical passage:--'Upon a day the good\nprovidence of God did cast me to Bedford to work in my calling: and in\none of the streets of that town I came where there were three or four\npoor women sitting at the door in the sun and talking about the things of\nGod.  But I may say I heard, but I understood not, for they were far\nabove and out of my reach . . . About this time I began to break my mind\nto those poor people in Bedford, and to tell them of my condition, which,\nwhen they had heard, they told Mr. Gifford of me, who himself also took\noccasion to talk with me, and was willing to be well persuaded of me\nthough I think on too little grounds.  But he invited me to his house,\nwhere I should hear him confer with others about the dealings of God with\ntheir souls, from all which I still received more conviction, and from\nthat time began to see something of the vanity and inner wretchedness of\nmy own heart, for as yet I knew no great matter therein . . . At that\ntime also I sat under the ministry of holy Mr. Gifford, whose doctrine,\nby the grace of God, was much for my stability.'  And so on in that\ninimitable narrative.\n\nThe first minister whose words were truly blessed of God for our\nawakening and conversion has always a place of his own in our hearts.  We\nall have some minister, some revivalist, some faithful friend, or some\ngood book in a warm place in our heart.  It may be a great city preacher;\nit may be a humble American or Irish revivalist; it may be _The Pilgrim's\nProgress_, or _The Cardiphonia_, or the _Serious Call_--whoever or\nwhatever it was that first arrested and awakened and turned us into the\nway of life, they all our days stand in a place by themselves in our\ngrateful heart.  And John Gifford has been immortalised by John Bunyan,\nboth in his _Grace Abounding_ and in his _Pilgrim's Progress_.  In his\n_Grace Abounding_, as we have just seen, and in _The Pilgrim_, Gifford\nhas his portrait painted in holy oil on the wall of the Interpreter's\nhouse, and again in eloquent pen and ink in the person of Evangelist.\n\nJohn Gifford had himself made a narrow escape out of the City of\nDestruction, and John Bunyan had, by Gifford's assistance, made the same\nescape also.  The scene, therefore, both within that city and outside the\ngate of it, was so fixed in Bunyan's mind and memory that no part of his\nmemorable book is more memorably put than just its opening page.  Bunyan\nhimself is the man in rags, and Gifford is the evangelist who comes to\nconsole and to conduct him.  Bunyan's portraits are all taken from the\nlife.  Brilliant and well-furnished as Bunyan's imagination was, Bedford\nwas still better furnished with all kinds of men and women, and with all\nkinds of saints and sinners.  And thus, instead of drawing upon his\nimagination in writing his books, Bunyan drew from life.  And thus it is\nthat we see first John Gifford, and then John Bunyan himself at the gate\nof the city; and then, over the page, Gifford becomes the evangelist who\nis sent by the four poor women to speak to the awakened tinker.\n\n'Wherefore dost thou so cry?' asks Evangelist.  'Because,' replied the\nman, 'I am condemned to die.'  'But why are you so unwilling to die,\nsince this life is so full of evils?'  And I suppose we must all hear\nEvangelist putting the same pungent question to ourselves every day, at\nwhatever point of the celestial journey we at present are.  Yes; why are\nwe all so unwilling to die?  Why do we number our days to put off our\ndeath to the last possible period?  Why do we so refuse to think of the\nonly thing we are sure soon to come to?  We are absolutely sure of\nnothing else in the future but death.  We may not see to-morrow, but we\nshall certainly see the day of our death.  And yet we have all our plans\nlaid for to-morrow, and only one here and one there has any plan laid for\nthe day of his death.  And can it be for the same reason that made the\nman in rags unwilling to die?  Is it because of the burden on our back?\nIs it because we are not fit to go to judgment?  And yet the trumpet may\nsound summoning us hence before the midnight clock strikes.  If this be\nthy condition, why standest thou still?  Dost thou see yonder shining\nlight?  Keep that light in thine eye.  Go up straight to it, knock at the\ngate, and it shall be told thee there what thou shalt do next.  Burdened\nsinner, son of man in rags and terror: What has burdened thee so?  What\nhas torn thy garments into such shameful rags?  What is it in thy burden\nthat makes it so heavy?  And how long has it lain so heavy upon thee?  'I\ncannot run,' said the man, 'because of the burden on my back.'  And it\nhas been noticed of you that you do not laugh, or run, or dress, or\ndance, or walk, or eat, or drink as once you did.  All men see that there\nis some burden on your back; some sore burden on your heart and your\nmind.  Do you see yonder wicket gate?  Do you see yonder shining light?\nThere is no light in all the horizon for you but yonder light over the\ngate.  Keep it in your eye; make straight, and make at once for it, and\nHe who keeps the gate and keeps the light burning over it, He will tell\nyou what to do with your burden.  He told John Gifford, and He told John\nBunyan, till both their burdens rolled off their backs, and they saw them\nno more.  What would you not give to-night to be released like them?  Do\nyou not see yonder shining light?\n\nHaving set Christian fairly on the way to the wicket gate, Evangelist\nleaves him in order to seek out and assist some other seeker.  But\nyesterday he had set Faithful's face to the celestial city, and he is off\nnow to look for another pilgrim.  We know some of Christian's adventures\nand episodes after Evangelist left him, but we do not take up these at\npresent.  We pass on to the next time that Evangelist finds Christian,\nand he finds him in a sorry plight.  He has listened to bad advice.  He\nhas gone off the right road, he has lost sight of the gate, and all the\nthunders and lightnings of Sinai are rolling and flashing out against\nhim.  What doest thou here of all men in the world? asked Evangelist,\nwith a severe and dreadful countenance.  Did I not direct thee to His\ngate, and why art thou here?  Christian told him that a fair-spoken man\nhad met him, and had persuaded him to take an easier and shorter way of\ngetting rid of his burden.  Read the whole place for yourselves.  The end\nof it was that Evangelist set Christian right again, and gave him two\ncounsels which would be his salvation if he attended to them: Strive to\nenter in at the strait gate, and, Take up thy cross daily.  He would need\nmore counsel afterwards than that; but, meantime, that was enough.  Let\nChristian follow that, and he would before long be rid of his burden.\n\nIn the introductory lecture Bishop Butler has been commended and praised\nas a moralist, and certainly not one word beyond his deserts; but an\nevangelical preacher cannot send any man with the burden of a bad past\nupon him to Butler for advice and direction about that.  While lecturing\non and praising the sound philosophical and ethical spirit of the great\nbishop, Dr. Chalmers complains that he so much lacks the _sal\nevangelicum_, the strength and the health and the sweetness of the\ndoctrines of grace.  Legality and Civility and Morality are all good and\nnecessary in their own places; but he is a cheat who would send a guilt-\nburdened and sick-at-heart sinner to any or all of them.  The wicket gate\nfirst, and then He who keeps that gate will tell us what to do, and where\nnext to go; but any other way out of the City of Destruction but by the\nwicket gate is sure to land us where it landed Evangelist's quaking and\nsweating charge.  When Bishop Butler lay on his deathbed he called for\nhis chaplain, and said, 'Though I have endeavoured to avoid sin, and to\nplease God to the utmost of my power, yet from the consciousness of my\nperpetual infirmities I am still afraid to die.'  'My lord,' said his\nhappily evangelical chaplain, 'have you forgotten that Jesus Christ is a\nSaviour?'  'True,' said the dying philosopher, 'but how shall I know that\nHe is a Saviour for me?'  'My lord, it is written, \"Him that cometh to\nMe, I will in no wise cast out.\"'  'True,' said Butler, 'and I am\nsurprised that though I have read that Scripture a thousand times, I\nnever felt its virtue till this moment, and now I die in peace.'\n\nThe third and the last time on which the pilgrims meet with their old\nfriend and helper, Evangelist, is when they are just at the gates of the\ntown of Vanity.  They have come through many wonderful experiences since\nlast they saw and spoke with him.  They have had the gate opened to them\nby Goodwill.  They have been received and entertained in the\nInterpreter's House, and in the House Beautiful.  The burden has fallen\noff their backs at the cross, and they have had their rags removed and\nhave received change of raiment.  They have climbed the Hill Difficulty,\nand they have fought their way through the Valley of the Shadow of Death.\nMore than the half of their adventures and sufferings are past; but they\nare not yet out of gunshot of the devil, and the bones of many a\npromising pilgrim lie whitening the way between this and the city.  Many\nof our young communicants have made a fair and a promising start for\nsalvation.  They have got over the initial difficulties that lay in their\nway to the Lord's table, and we have entered their names with honest\npride in our communion roll.  But a year or two passes over, and the\ncritical season arrives when our young communicant 'comes out,' as the\nword is.  Up till now she has been a child, a little maid, a Bible-class\nstudent, a young communicant, a Sabbath-school teacher.  But she is now a\nyoung lady, and she comes out into the world.  We soon see that she has\nso come out, as we begin to miss her from places and from employments her\npresence used to brighten; and, very unwillingly, we overhear men and\nwomen with her name on their lips in a way that makes us fear for her\nsoul, till many, oh, in a single ministry, how many, who promised well at\nthe gate and ran safely past many snares, at last sell all--body and soul\nand Saviour--in Vanity Fair.\n\nWell, Evangelist remains Evangelist still.  Only, without losing any of\nhis sweetness and freeness and fulness of promise, he adds to that some\nsolemn warnings and counsels suitable now, as never before, to these two\npilgrims.  If one may say so, he would add now such moral treatises as\nButler's _Sermons_ and _Serious Call_ to such evangelical books as _Grace\nAbounding_ and _A Jerusalem Sinner Saved_.\n\nTo-morrow the two pilgrims will come out of the wilderness and will be\nplunged into a city where they will be offered all kinds of\nmerchandise,--houses, lands, places, honours, preferments, titles,\npleasures, delights, wives, children, bodies, souls, and what not.  An\naltogether new world from anything they have yet come through, and a\nworld where many who once began well have gone no further.  Such counsels\nas these, then, Evangelist gave Christian and Faithful as they left the\nlonely wilderness behind them and came out towards the gate of the\nseductive city--'Let the Kingdom of Heaven be always before your eyes,\nand believe steadfastly concerning things that are invisible.'  Visible,\ntangible, sweet, and desirable things will immediately be offered to\nthem, and unless they have a faith in their hearts that is the substance\nof things hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen, it will soon be\nall over with them and their pilgrimage.  'Let no man take your crown,'\nhe said also, as he foresaw at how many booths and counters, houses,\nlands, places, preferments, wives, husbands, and what not, would be\noffered them and pressed upon them in exchange for their heavenly crown.\n'Above all, look well to your own hearts,' he said.  Canon Venables\nlaments over the teaching that Bunyan received from John Gifford.  'Its\nprinciple,' he says, 'was constant introspection and scrupulous weighing\nof every word and deed, and even of every thought, instead of leading the\nmind off from self to the Saviour.'  The canon seems to think that it was\nspecially unfortunate for Bunyan to be told to keep his heart and to\nweigh well every thought of it; but I must point out to you that\nEvangelist puts as above all other things the most important for the\npilgrims the looking well to their own hearts; and our plain-spoken\nauthor has used a very severe word about any minister who should whisper\nanything to any pilgrim that could be construed or misunderstood into\nputting Christ in the place of thought and word and deed, and the\nscrupulous weighing of every one of them.  'Let nothing that is on this\nside the other world get within you; and above all, look well to your own\nhearts, and to the lusts thereof.'\n\n'Set your faces like a flint,' Evangelist proceeds.  How little like all\nthat you hear in the counsels of the pulpit to young women coming out and\nto young men entering into business life.  I am convinced that if we\nministers were more direct and plain-spoken to such persons at such\ntimes; if we, like Bunyan, told them plainly what kind of a world it is\nthey are coming out to buy and sell in, and what its merchandise and its\nprices are; if our people would let us so preach to their sons and\ndaughters, I feel sure far fewer young communicants would make shipwreck,\nand far fewer grey heads would go down with sorrow to the grave.  'Be not\nafraid,' said Robert Hall in his charge to a young minister, 'of devoting\nwhole sermons to particular parts of moral conduct and religious duty.  It\nis impossible to give right views of them unless you dissect characters\nand describe particular virtues and vices.  The works of the flesh and\nthe fruits of the Spirit must be distinctly pointed out.  To preach\nagainst sin in general without descending to particulars may lead many to\ncomplain of the evil of their hearts, while at the same time they are\nawfully inattentive to the evil of their conduct.'  Take Evangelist's\nnoble counsels at the gate of Vanity Fair, and then take John Bunyan's\nmasterly description of the Fair itself, with all that is bought and sold\nin it, and you will have a lesson in evangelical preaching that the\nevangelical pulpit needed in Bunyan's day, in Robert Hall's day, and not\nless in our own.\n\n'My sons, you have heard the truth of the gospel, that you must through\nmany tribulations enter the Kingdom of God.  When, therefore, you are\ncome to the Fair and shall find fulfilled what I have here related, then\nremember your friend; quit yourselves like men, and commit the keeping of\nyour souls to your God in well-doing as unto a faithful Creator.'\n\n\n\n\nOBSTINATE\n\n\n   'Be ye not as the mule.'--David.\n\nLittle Obstinate was born and brought up in the City of Destruction.  His\nfather was old Spare-the-Rod, and his mother's name was Spoil-the-Child.\nLittle Obstinate was the only child of his parents; he was born when they\nwere no longer young, and they doted on their only child, and gave him\nhis own way in everything.  Everything he asked for he got, and if he did\nnot immediately get it you would have heard his screams and his kicks\nthree doors off.  His parents were not in themselves bad people, but, if\nSolomon speaks true, they hated their child, for they gave him all his\nown way in everything, and nothing would ever make them say no to him, or\nlift up the rod when he said no to them.  When the Scriptures, in their\npedagogical parts, speak so often about the rod, they do not necessarily\nmean a rod of iron or even of wood.  There are other ways of teaching an\nobstinate child than the way that Gideon took with the men of Succoth\nwhen he taught them with the thorns of the wilderness and with the briars\nthereof.  George Offor, John Bunyan's somewhat quaint editor, gives the\nreaders of his edition this personal testimony:--'After bringing up a\nvery large family, who are a blessing to their parents, I have yet to\nlearn what part of the human body was created to be beaten.'  At the same\ntime the rod must mean something in the word of God; it certainly means\nsomething in God's hand when His obstinate children are under it, and it\nought to mean something in a godly parent's hand also.  Little\nObstinate's two parents were far from ungodly people, though they lived\nin such a city; but they were daily destroying their only son by letting\nhim always have his own way, and by never saying no to his greed, and his\nlies, and his anger, and his noisy and disorderly ways.  Eli in the Old\nTestament was not a bad man, but he destroyed both the ark of the Lord\nand himself and his sons also, because his sons made themselves vile, and\nhe restrained them not.  God's children are never so soft, and sweet, and\ngood, and happy as just after He restrains them, and has again laid the\nrod of correction upon them.  They then kiss both the rod and Him who\nappointed it.  And earthly fathers learn their craft from God.  The\nmeekness, the sweetness, the docility, and the love of a chastised child\nhas gone to all our hearts in a way we can never forget.  There is\nsomething sometimes almost past description or belief in the way a\nchastised child clings to and kisses the hand that chastised it.  But\npoor old Spare-the-Rod never had experiences like that.  And young\nObstinate, having been born like Job's wild ass's colt, grew up to be a\nman like David's unbitted and unbridled mule, till in after life he\nbecame the author of all the evil and mischief that is associated in our\nminds with his evil name.\n\nIn old Spare-the-Rod's child also this true proverb was fulfilled, that\nthe child is the father of the man.  For all that little Obstinate had\nbeen in the nursery, in the schoolroom, and in the playground--all that,\nonly in an aggravated way--he was as a youth and as a grown-up man.  For\none thing, Obstinate all his days was a densely ignorant man.  He had not\ngot into the way of learning his lessons when he was a child; he had not\nbeen made to learn his lessons when he was a child; and the dislike and\ncontempt he had for his books as a boy accompanied him through an\nignorant and a narrow-minded life.  It was reason enough to this so\nunreasonable man not to buy and read a book that you had asked him to buy\nand read it.  And so many of the books about him were either written, or\nprinted, or published, or sold, or read, or praised by people he did not\nlike, that there was little left for this unhappy man to read, even if\notherwise he would have read it.  And thus, as his mulish obstinacy kept\nhim so ignorant, so his ignorance in turn increased his obstinacy.  And\nthen when he came, as life went on, to have anything to do with other\nmen's affairs, either in public or in private life, either in the church,\nor in the nation, or in the city, or in the family, this unhappy man\ncould only be a drag on all kinds of progress, and in obstacle to every\ngood work.  Use and wont, a very good rule on occasion, was a rigid and a\nuniversal rule with Obstinate.  And to be told that the wont in this case\nand in that had ceased to be the useful, only made him rail at you as\nonly an ignorant and an obstinate man can rail.  He could only rail; he\nhad not knowledge enough, or good temper enough, or good manners enough\nto reason out a matter; he was too hot-tempered for an argument, and he\nhated those who had an acquaintance with the subject in hand, and a self-\ncommand in connection with it that he had not.  'The obstinate man's\nunderstanding is like Pharaoh's heart, and it is proof against all sorts\nof arguments whatsoever.'  Like the demented king of Egypt, the obstinate\nman has glimpses sometimes both of his bounden duty and of his true\ninterest, but the sinew of iron that is in his neck will not let him\nperform the one or pursue the other.  'Nothing,' says a penetrating\nwriter, 'is more like firm conviction than simple obstinacy.  Plots and\nparties in the state, and heresies and divisions in the church alike\nproceed from it.'  Let any honest man take that sentence and carry it\nlike a candle down into his own heart and back into his own life, and\nthen with the insight and honesty there learned carry the same candle\nback through some of the plots and parties, the heresies and schisms of\nthe past as well as of the present day, and he will have learned a lesson\nthat will surely help to cure himself, at any rate, of his own remaining\nobstinacy.  All our firm convictions, as we too easily and too fondly\ncall them, must continually be examined and searched out in the light of\nmore reading of the best authors, in the light of more experience of\nourselves and of the world we live in, and in that best of all light,\nthat increasing purity, simplicity, and sincerity of heart alone can\nkindle.  And in not a few instances we shall to a certainty find that\nwhat has hitherto been clothing itself with the honourable name and\ncharacter of a conviction was all the time only an ignorant prejudice, a\ndistaste or a dislike, a too great fondness for ourselves and for our own\nopinion and our own interest.  Many of our firmest convictions, as we now\ncall them, when we shall have let light enough fall upon them, we shall\nbe compelled and enabled to confess to be at bottom mere mulishness and\npride of heart.  The mulish, obstinate, and proud man never says, I don't\nknow.  He never asks anything to be explained to him.  He never admits\nthat he has got any new light.  He never admits having spoken or acted\nwrongly.  He never takes back what he has said.  He was never heard to\nsay, You are right in that line of action, and I have all along been\nwrong.  Had he ever said that, the day he said it would have been a white-\nstone day both for his mind and his heart.  Only, the spoiled son of\nSpare-the-Rod never said that, or anything like that.\n\nBut, most unfortunately, it is in the very best things of life that the\ntrue mulishness of the obstinate man most comes out.  He shows worst in\nhis home life and in the matters of religion.  When our Obstinate was in\nlove he was as sweet as honey and as soft as butter.  His old friends\nthat he used so to trample upon scarcely recognised him.  They had\nsometimes seen men converted, but they had never seen such an immediate\nand such a complete conversion as this.  He actually invited correction,\nand reproof, and advice, and assistance, who had often struck at you with\nhis hands and his feet when you even hinted at such a thing to him.  The\nbest upbringing, the best books, the best preaching, the best and most\nobedient life, taken all together, had not done for other men what a\nwoman's smile and the touch of her hand had in a moment done for this\nonce so obstinate man.  He would read anything now, and especially the\nbest books.  He would hear and enjoy any preacher now, and especially the\nbest and most earnest in preaching.  His old likes and dislikes,\nprejudices and prepossessions, self-opinionativeness and\nself-assertiveness all miraculously melted off him, and he became in a\nday an open-minded, intelligent, good-mannered, devout-minded gentleman.\nHe who was once such a mule to everybody was now led about by a child in\na silken bridle.  All old things had passed away, and all things had\nbecome new.  For a time; for a time.  But time passes, and there passes\naway with it all the humility, meekness, pliability, softness, and\nsweetness of the obstinate man.  Till when long enough time has elapsed\nyou find him all the obstinate and mulish man he ever was.  It is not\nthat he has ceased to love his wife and his children.  It is not that.\nBut there is this in all genuine and inbred obstinacy, that after a time\nit often comes out worst beside those we love best.  A man will be\naffable, accessible, entertaining, the best of company, and the soul of\nit abroad, and, then, instantly he turns the latch-key in his own door he\nwill relapse into silence, and sink back into utter boorishness and\nbearishness, mulishness and doggedness.  He swallows his evening meal at\nthe foot of the table in silence, and then he sits all night at the\nfireside with a cloud out of nothing on his brow.  His sunshine, his\nsmile, and his universal urbanity is all gone now; he is discourteous to\nnobody but to his own wife.  Nothing pleases him; he finds nothing at\nhome to his mind.  The furniture, the hours, the habits of the house are\nall disposed so as to please him; but he was never yet heard to say to\nwife, or child, or servant that he was pleased.  He never says that a\nmeal is to his taste or a seat set so as to shelter and repose him.  The\nobstinate man makes his house a very prison and treadmill to himself and\nto all those who are condemned to suffer with him.  And all the time it\nis not that he does not love and honour his household; but by an evil law\nof the obstinate heart its worst obstinacy and mulishness comes out among\nthose it loves best.\n\nBut, my brethren, worse than all that, we have all what good Bishop Hall\ncalls 'a stone of obstination' in our hearts against God.  With all his\nown depth and clearness and plain-spokenness, Paul tells us that our\nhearts are by nature enmity against God.  Were we proud and obstinate and\nmalicious against men only it would be bad enough, and it would be\ndifficult enough to cure, but our case is dreadful beyond all description\nor belief when our obstinacy strikes out against God.  We know as well as\nwe know anything, that in doing this and in not doing that we are going\nevery day right in the teeth both of God's law and God's grace; and yet\nin the sheer obstinacy and perversity of our heart we still go on in what\nwe know quite well to be the suicide of our souls.  We are told by our\nminister to do this and not to do that; to begin to do this at this new\nyear and to break off from doing that; but, partly through obstinacy\ntowards him, reinforced by a deeper and subtler and deadlier obstinacy\nagainst God, and against all the deepest and most godly of the things of\nGod, we neither do the one nor cease from doing the other.  There is a\nsullenness in some men's minds, a gloom and a bitter air that rises up\nfrom the unploughed, undrained, unweeded, uncultivated fens of their\nhearts that chills and blasts all the feeble beginnings of a better life.\nThe natural and constitutional obstinacy of the obstinate heart is\nexasperated when it comes to deal with the things of God.  For it is then\nreinforced with all the guilt and all the fear, all the suspicion and all\nthe aversion of the corrupt and self-condemned heart.  There is an\nobdurateness of obstinacy against all the men, and the books, and the\ndoctrines, and the precepts, and the practices that are in any way\nconnected with spiritual religion that does not come out even in the\nobstinate man's family life.\n\nJohn Bunyan's Obstinate, both by his conduct as well as by the etymology\nof his name, not only stands in the way of his own salvation, but he does\nall he can to stand in the way of other men setting out to salvation\nalso.  Obstinate set out after Christian to fetch him back by force, and\nif it had not been that he met his match in Christian, _The Pilgrim's\nProgress_ would never have been written.  'That can by no means be,' said\nChristian to his pursuer, and he is first called Christian when he shows\nthat one man can be as obstinate in good as another man can be in evil.\n'I never now can go back to my former life.'  And then the two obstinate\nmen parted company for ever, Christian in holy obstinacy being determined\nto have eternal life at any cost, and Obstinate as determined against it.\nThe opening pages of _The Pilgrim's Progress_ set the two men very\ngraphically and very impressively before us.\n\nAs to the cure of obstinacy, the rod in a firm, watchful, wise, and\nloving hand will cure it.  And in later life a long enough and close\nenough succession of humble, yielding, docile, submissive,\nself-chastening and thanksgiving acts will cure it.  Reading and obeying\nthe best books on the subjugation and the regulation of the heart will\ncure it.  Descending with Dante to where the obstinate, and the\nembittered, and the gloomy, and the sullen have made their beds in hell\nwill cure it.  And much and most agonising prayer will above all cure it.\n\n   'O Lord, if thus so obstinate I,\n   Choose Thou, before my spirit die,\n   A piercing pain, a killing sin,\n   And to my proud heart run them in.\n\n\n\n\nPLIABLE\n\n\n   'He hath not root in himself.'--Our Lord.\n\nWith one stroke of His pencil our Lord gives us this Flaxman-like outline\nof one of his well-known hearers.  And then John Bunyan takes up that so\nexpressive profile, and puts flesh and blood into it, till it becomes the\nwell-known Pliable of _The Pilgrim's Progress_.  We call the text a\nparable, but our Lord's parables are all portraits--portraits and groups\nof portraits, rather than ordinary parables.  Our Lord knew this man\nquite well who had no root in himself.  Our Lord had crowds of such men\nalways running after Him, and He threw off this rapid portrait from\nhundreds of men and women who caused discredit to fall on His name and\nHis work, and burdened His heart continually.  And John Bunyan, with all\nhis genius, could never have given us such speaking likenesses as that of\nPliable and Temporary and Talkative, unless he had had scores of them in\nhis own congregation.\n\nOur Lord's short preliminary description of Pliable goes, like all His\ndescriptions, to the very bottom of the whole matter.  Our Lord in this\npassage is like one of those masterly artists who begin their portrait-\npainting with the study of anatomy.  All the great artists in this walk\nbuild up their best portraits from the inside of their subjects.  He hath\nnot root in himself, says our Lord, and we need no more than that to be\ntold us to foresee how all his outside religion will end.  'Without self-\nknowledge,' says one of the greatest students of the human heart that\never lived, 'you have no real root in yourselves.  Real self-knowledge is\nthe root of all real religious knowledge.  It is a deceit and a mischief\nto think that the Christian doctrines can either be understood or aright\naccepted by any outward means.  It is just in proportion as we search our\nown hearts and understand our own nature that we shall ever feel what a\nblessing the removal of sin will be; redemption, pardon, sanctification,\nare all otherwise mere words without meaning or power to us.  God speaks\nto us first in our own hearts.'  Happily for us our Lord has annotated\nHis own text and has told us that an honest heart is the alone root of\nall true religion.  Honest, that is, with itself, and with God and man\nabout itself.  As David says in his so honest psalm, 'Behold, Thou\ndesirest truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden part Thou shalt\nmake me to know wisdom.'  And, indeed, all the preachers and writers in\nScripture, and all Scriptural preachers and writers outside of Scripture,\nare at one in this: that all true wisdom begins at home, and that it all\nbegins at the heart.  And they all teach us that he is the wisest of men\nwho has the worst opinion of his own heart, as he is the foolishest of\nmen who does not know his own heart to be the worst heart that ever any\nman was cursed with in this world.  'Here is wisdom': not to know the\nnumber of the beast, but to know his mark, and to read it written so\nindelibly in our own heart.\n\nAnd where this first and best of all wisdom is not, there, in our Lord's\nwords, there is no deepness of earth, no root, and no fruit.  And any\nreligion that most men have is of this outside, shallow, rootless\ndescription.  This was all the religion that poor Pliable ever had.  This\npoor creature had a certain slight root of something that looked like\nreligion for a short season, but even that slight root was all outside of\nhimself.  His root, what he had of a root, was all in Christian's\ncompanionship and impassioned appeals, and then in those impressive\npassages of Scripture that Christian read to him.  At your first\nattention to these things you would think that no possible root could be\nbetter planted than in the Bible and in earnest preaching.  But even the\nBible, and, much more, the best preaching, is all really outside of a man\ntill true religion once gets its piercing roots down into himself.  We\nhave perhaps all heard of men, and men of no small eminence, who were\nbrought up to believe the teaching of the Bible and the pulpit, but who,\nwhen some of their inherited and external ideas about some things\nconnected with the Bible began to be shaken, straightway felt as if all\nthe grounds of their faith were shaken, and all the roots of their faith\npulled up.  But where that happened, all that was because such men's\nreligion was all rooted outside of themselves; in the best things outside\nof themselves, indeed, but because, in our Lord's words, their religion\nwas rooted in something outside of themselves and not inside, they were\nby and by offended, and threw off their faith.  There is another well-\nknown class of men all whose religion is rooted in their church, and in\ntheir church not as a member of the body of Christ, but as a social\ninstitution set up in this world.  They believe in their church.  They\nworship their church.  They suffer and make sacrifices for their church.\nThey are proud of the size and the income of their church; her past\ncontendings and sufferings, and present dangers, all endear their church\nto their heart.  But if tribulation and persecution arise, that is to\nsay, if anything arises to vex or thwart or disappoint them with their\nchurch, they incontinently pull up their roots and their religion with\nit, and transplant both to any other church that for the time better\npleases them, or to no church at all.  Others, again, have all their\nreligiosity rooted in their family life.  Their religion is all made up\nof domestic sentiment.  They love their earthly home with that supreme\nsatisfaction and that all-absorbing affection that truly religious men\nentertain for their heavenly home.  And thus it is that when anything\nhappens to disturb or break up their earthly home their rootless\nreligiosity goes with it.  Other men's religion, again, and all their\ninterest in it, is rooted in their shop; you can make them anything or\nnothing in religion, according as you do or do not do business in their\nshop.  Companionship, also, accounts for the fluctuations of many men's,\nand almost all women's, religious lives.  If they happen to fall in with\ngodly lovers and friends, they are sincerely godly with them; but if\ntheir companions are indifferent or hostile to true religion, they\ngradually fall into the same temper and attitude.  We sometimes see\nstudents destined for the Christian ministry also with all their religion\nso without root in themselves that a session in an unsympathetic class, a\nsceptical book, sometimes just a sneer or a scoff, will wither all the\npromise of their coming service.  And so on through the whole of human\nlife.  He that hath not the root of the matter in himself dureth for a\nwhile, but by and by, for one reason or another, he is sure to be\noffended.\n\nSo much, then,--not enough, nor good enough--for our Lord's swift stroke\nat the heart of His hearers.  But let us now pass on to Pliable, as he so\nsoon and so completely discovers himself to us under John Bunyan's so\nskilful hand.  Look well at our author's speaking portrait of a\nwell-known man in Bedford who had no root in himself, and who, as a\nconsequence, was pliable to any influence, good or bad, that happened to\ncome across him.  'Don't revile,' are the first words that come from\nPliable's lips, and they are not unpromising words.  Pliable is hurt with\nObstinate's coarse abuse of the Christian life, till he is downright\nashamed to be seen in his company.  Pliable, at least, is a gentleman\ncompared with Obstinate, and his gentlemanly feelings and his good\nmanners make him at once take sides with Christian.  Obstinate's foul\ntongue has almost made Pliable a Christian.  And this finely-conceived\nscene on the plain outside the city gate is enacted over again every day\namong ourselves.  Where men are in dead earnest about religion it always\narouses the bad passions of bad men; and where earnest preachers and\ndevoted workers are assailed with violence or with bad language, there is\nalways enough love of fair play in the bystanders to compel them to take\nsides, for the time at least, with those who suffer for the truth.  And\nwe are sometimes too apt to count all that love of common fairness, and\nthat hatred of foul play, as a sure sign of some sympathy with the hated\ntruth itself.  When an onlooker says 'Don't revile,' we are too ready to\nset down that expression of civility as at least the first beginning of\ntrue religion.  But the religion of Jesus Christ cuts far deeper into the\nheart of man than to the dividing asunder of justice and injustice,\ncivility and incivility, ribaldry and good manners.  And it is always\nfound in the long-run that the cross of Christ and its crucifixion of the\nhuman heart goes quite as hard with the gentlemanly-mannered man, the\ncivil and urbane man, as it does with the man of bad behaviour and of\nbrutish manners.  'Civil men,' says Thomas Goodwin, 'are this world's\nsaints.'  And poor Pliable was one of them.  'My heart really inclines to\ngo with my neighbour,' said Pliable next.  'Yes,' he said, 'I begin to\ncome to a point.  I really think I will go along with this good man.  Yes,\nI will cast in my lot with him.  Come, good neighbour, let us be going.'\n\nThe apocalyptic side of some men's imaginations is very easily worked\nupon.  No kind of book sells better among those of our people who have no\nroot in themselves than just picture-books about heaven.  Our\nmissionaries make use of lantern-slides to bring home the scenes in the\nGospels to the dull minds of their village hearers, and with good\nsuccess.  And at home a magic-lantern filled with the splendours of the\nNew Jerusalem would carry multitudes of rootless hearts quite captive for\na time.  'Well said; and what else?  This is excellent; and what else?'\nChristian could not tell Pliable fast enough about the glories of heaven.\n'There we shall be with seraphim and cherubim, creatures that will dazzle\nyour eyes to look on them.  There also you shall meet with thousands and\nten thousands who have gone before us to that place.  Elders with golden\ncrowns, and holy virgins with golden harps, and all clothed with\nimmortality as with a garment.'  'The hearing of all this,' cried\nPliable, 'is enough to ravish one's heart.'  'An overly faith,' says old\nThomas Shepard, 'is easily wrought.'\n\nAs if the text itself was not graphic enough, Bunyan's racy, humorous,\npathetic style overflows the text and enriches the very margins of his\npages, as every possessor of a good edition of _The Pilgrim_ knows.\n'Christian and Obstinate pull for Pliable's soul' is the eloquent summary\nset down on the side of the sufficiently eloquent page.  As the picture\nof a man's soul being pulled for rises before my mind, I can think of no\nbetter companion picture to that of Pliable than that of poor, hard-beset\nBrodie of Brodie, as he lets us see the pull for his soul in the honest\npages of his inward diary.  Under the head of 'Pliable' in my Bunyan note-\nbook I find a crowd of references to Brodie; and if only to illustrate\nour author's marginal note, I shall transcribe one or two of them.  'The\nwriter of this diary desires to be cast down under the facileness and\nplausibleness of his nature, by which he labours to please men more than\nGod, and whence it comes that the wicked speak good of him . . . The Lord\npity the proneness of his heart to comply with the men who have the power\n. . . Lord, he is unsound and double in his heart, politically crafty,\nselfish, not savouring nor discerning the things of God . . . Let not\nself-love, wit, craft, and timorousness corrupt his mind, but indue him\nwith fortitude, patience, steadfastness, tenderness, mortification . . .\nShall I expose myself and my family to danger at this time?  A grain of\nsound faith would solve all my questions.'  'Die Dom.  I stayed at home,\npartly to decline the ill-will and rage of men and to decline\nobservation.'  Or, take another Sabbath-day entry: 'Die Dom.  I stayed at\nhome, because of the time, and the observation, and the Earl of Moray . .\n. Came to Cuttiehillock.  I am neither cold nor hot.  I am not rightly\nprincipled as to the time.  I suspect that it is not all conscience that\nmakes me conform, but wit, and to avoid suffering; Lord, deliver me from\nall this unsoundness of heart.'  And after this miserable fashion do\nheaven and earth, duty and self-interest, the covenant and the crown pull\nfor Lord Brodie's soul through 422 quarto pages.  Brodie's diary is one\nof the most humiliating, heart-searching, and heart-instructing books I\never read.  Let all public men tempted and afflicted with a facile,\npliable, time-serving heart have honest Brodie at their elbow.\n\n'Glad I am, my good companion,' said Pliable, after the passage about the\ncherubim and the seraphim, and the golden crowns and the golden harps,\n'it ravishes my very heart to hear all this.  Come on, let us mend our\npace.'  This is delightful, this is perfect.  How often have we ourselves\nheard these very words of challenge and reproof from the pliable\nfrequenters of emotional meetings, and from the emotional members of an\nemotional but rootless ministry.  Come on, let us mend our pace!  'I am\nsorry to say,' replied the man with the burden on his back, 'that I\ncannot go so fast as I would.'  'Christian,' says Mr. Kerr Bain, 'has\nmore to carry than Pliable has, as, indeed, he would still have if he\nwere carrying nothing but himself; and he does have about him, besides, a\nfew sobering thoughts as to the length and labour and some of the\nunforeseen chances of the way.'  And as Dean Paget says in his profound\nand powerful sermon on 'The Disasters of Shallowness': 'Yes, but there is\nsomething else first; something else without which that inexpensive\nbrightness, that easy hopefulness, is apt to be a frail resourceless\ngrowth, withering away when the sun is up and the hot winds of trial are\nsweeping over it.  We must open our hearts to our religion; we must have\nthe inward soil broken up, freely and deeply its roots must penetrate our\ninner being.  We must take to ourselves in silence and in sincerity its\nwords of judgment with its words of hope, its sternness with its\nencouragement, its denunciations with its promises, its requirements,\nwith its offers, its absolute intolerance of sin with its inconceivable\nand divine long-suffering towards sinners.'  But preaching like this\nwould have frightened away poor Pliable.  He would not have understood\nit, and what he did understand of it he would have hated with all his\nshallow heart.\n\n'Where are we now?' called Pliable to his companion, as they both went\nover head and ears into the Slough of Despond.  'Truly,' said Christian,\n'I do not know.'--No work of man is perfect, not even the all-but-perfect\n_Pilgrim's Progress_.  Christian was bound to fall sooner or later into a\nslough filled with his own despondency about himself, his past guilt, his\npresent sinfulness, and his anxious future.  But Pliable had not\nknowledge enough of himself to make him ever despond.  He was always\nready and able to mend his pace.  He had no burden on his back, and\ntherefore no doubt in his heart.  But Christian had enough of both for\nany ten men, and it was Christian's overflowing despondency and doubt at\nthis point of the road that suddenly filled his own slough, and, I\nsuppose, overflowed into a slough for Pliable also.  Had Pliable only had\na genuine and original slough of his own to so sink and be bedaubed in,\nhe would have got out of it at the right side of it, and been a tender-\nstepping pilgrim all his days.--'Is this the happiness you have told me\nall this while of?  May I get out of this with my life, you may possess\nthe brave country alone for me.'  And with that he gave a desperate\nstruggle or two, and got out of the mire on that side of the slough which\nwas next his own house; so he went away, and Christian saw him no more.\n'The side of the slough which was next his own house.'  Let us close with\nthat.  Let us go home thinking about that.  And in this trial of faith\nand patience, and in that, in this temptation to sin, and in that, in\nthis actual transgression, and in that, let us always ask ourselves which\nis the side of the slough that is farthest away from our own house, and\nlet us still struggle to that side of the slough, and it will all be well\nwith us at the last.\n\n\n\n\nHELP\n\n\n   'I was brought low, and He helped me.'--David.\n\nThe Slough of Despond is one of John Bunyan's masterpieces.  In his\ndescription of the slough, Bunyan touches his highest water-mark for\nhumour, and pathos, and power, and beauty of language.  If we did not\nhave the English Bible in our own hands we would have to ask, as Lord\nJeffrey asked Lord Macaulay, where the brazier of Bedford got his\ninimitable style.  Bunyan confesses to us that he got all his Latin from\nthe prescription papers of his doctors, and we know that he got all his\nperfect English from his English Bible.  And then he got his humour and\nhis pathos out of his own deep and tender heart.  The God of all grace\ngave a great gift to the English-speaking world and to the Church of\nChrist in all lands when He created and converted John Bunyan, and put it\ninto his head and his heart to compose _The Pilgrim's Progress_.  His\nheart-affecting page on the slough has been wetted with the tears of\nthousands of its readers, and their tears have been mingled with smiles\nas they read their own sin and misery, and the never-to-be-forgotten time\nand place where their sin and misery first found them out, all told so\nrecognisably, so pathetically, and so amusingly almost to laughableness\nin the passage upon the slough.  We see the ocean of scum and filth\npouring down into the slough through the subterranean sewers of the City\nof Destruction and of the Town of Stupidity, which lies four degrees\nbeyond the City of Destruction, and from many other of the houses and\nhaunts of men.  We see His Majesty's sappers and miners at their wits'\nend how to cope with the deluges of pollution that pour into this slough\nthat they have been ordained to drain and dry up.  For ages and ages the\nroyal surveyors have been laying out all their skill on this slough.  More\ncartloads than you could count of the best material for filling up a\nslough have been shot into it, and yet you would never know that so much\nas a single labourer had emptied his barrow here.  True, excellent\nstepping-stones have been laid across the slough by skilful engineers,\nbut they are always so slippery with the scum and slime of the slough,\nthat it is only now and then that a traveller can keep his feet upon\nthem.  Altogether, our author's picture of the Slough of Despond is such\na picture that no one who has seen it can ever forget it.  But better\nthan reading the best description of the slough is to see certain well-\nknown pilgrims trying to cross it.  Mr. Fearing at the Slough of Despond\nwas a tale often told at the tavern suppers of that country.  Never\npilgrim attempted the perilous journey with such a chicken-heart in his\nbosom as this Mr. Fearing.  He lay above a month on the bank of the\nslough, and would not even attempt the steps.  Some kind Pilgrims, though\nthey had enough to do to keep the steps themselves, offered him a hand;\nbut no.  And after they were safely over it made them almost weep to hear\nthe man still roaring in his horror at the other side.  Some bade him go\nhome if he would not take the steps, but he said that he would rather\nmake his grave in the slough than go back one hairsbreadth.  Till, one\nsunshiny morning,--no one knew how, and he never knew how himself--the\nsteps were so high and dry, and the scum and slime were so low, that this\nhare-hearted man made a venture, and so got over.  But, then, as an\nunkind friend of his said, this pitiful pilgrim had a slough of despond\nin his own mind which he carried always and everywhere about with him,\nand made him the proverb of despondency that he was and is.  Only, that\nsunshiny morning he got over both the slough inside of him and outside of\nhim, and was heard by Help and his family singing this song on the hither\nside of the slough: 'He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of\nthe miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings.'\n\nOur pilgrim did not have such a good crossing as Mr. Fearing.  Whether it\nwas that the discharge from the city was deeper and fouler, or that the\nday was darker, or what, we are not told, but both Christian and Pliable\nwere in a moment out of sight in the slough.  They both wallowed, says\ntheir plain-spoken historian, in the slough, only the one of the two who\nhad the burden on his back at every wallow went deeper into the mire;\nwhen his neighbour, who had no such burden, instead of coming to his\nassistance, got out of the slough at the same side as he had entered it,\nand made with all his might for his own house.  But the man called\nChristian made what way he could, and still tumbled on to the side of the\nslough that was farthest from his own house, till a man called Help gave\nhim his hand and set him upon sound ground.  Christiana, again, and Mercy\nand the boys found the slough in a far worse condition than it had ever\nbeen found before.  And the reason was not that the country that drained\ninto the slough was worse, but that those who had the mending of the\nslough and the keeping in repair of the steps had so bungled their work\nthat they had marred the way instead of mending it.  At the same time, by\nthe tact and good sense of Mercy, the whole party got over, Mercy\nremarking to the mother of the boys, that if she had as good ground to\nhope for a loving reception at the gate as Christiana had, no slough of\ndespond would discourage her, she said.  To which the older woman made\nthe characteristic reply: 'You know your sore and I know mine, and we\nshall both have enough evil to face before we come to our journey's end.'\n\nNow, I do not for a moment suppose that there is any one here who can\nneed to be told what the Slough of Despond in reality is.  Indeed, its\nvery name sufficiently declares it.  But if any one should still be at a\nloss to understand this terrible experience of all the pilgrims, the\nexplanation offered by the good man who gave Christian his hand may here\nbe repeated.  'This miry slough,' he said, 'is such a place as cannot be\nmended.  This slough is the descent whither the scum and filth that\nattends conviction of sin doth continually run, and therefore it is\ncalled by the name of Despond, for still as the sinner is awakened about\nhis lost condition there ariseth in his soul many fears and doubts and\ndiscouraging apprehensions, which all of them get together, and settle in\nthis place, and this is the reason of the badness of the ground.'  That\nis the parable, with its interpretation; but there is a passage in _Grace\nAbounding_ which is no parable, and which may even better than this so\npictorial slough describe some men's condition here.  'My original and\ninward pollution,' says Bunyan himself in his autobiography, 'that, that\nwas my plague and my affliction; that, I say, at a dreadful rate was\nalways putting itself forth within me; that I had the guilt of to\namazement; by reason of that I was more loathsome in my own eyes than a\ntoad; and I thought I was so in God's eyes also.  Sin and corruption\nwould bubble up out of my heart as naturally as water bubbles up out of a\nfountain.  I thought now that every one had a better heart than I had.  I\ncould have changed heart with anybody.  I thought none but the devil\nhimself could equalise me for inward wickedness and pollution of mind.  I\nfell, therefore, at the sight of my own vileness, deeply into despair,\nfor I concluded that this condition in which I was in could not stand\nwith a life of grace.  Sure, thought I, I am forsaken of God; sure I am\ngiven up to the devil, and to a reprobate mind.'\n\n   'Let no man, then, count me a fable maker,\n   Nor made my name and credit a partaker\n   Of their derision: what is here in view,\n   Of mine own knowledge I dare say is true.'\n\nSometimes, as with Christian at the slough, a man's way in life is all\nslashed up into sudden ditches and pitfalls out of the sins of his youth.\nHis sins, by God's grace, find him out, and under their arrest and\noverthrow he begins to seek his way to a better life and a better world;\nand then both the burden and the slough have their explanation and\nfulfilment in his own life every day.  But it is even more dreadful than\na slough in a man's way to have a slough in his mind, as both Bunyan\nhimself and Mr. Fearing, his exquisite creation, had.  After the awful-\nenough slough, filled with the guilt and fear of actual sin, had been\nbridged and crossed and left behind, a still worse slough of inward\ncorruption and pollution rose up in John Bunyan's soul and threatened to\nengulf him altogether.  So terrible to Bunyan was this experience, that\nhe has not thought it possible to make a parable of it, and so put it\ninto the _Pilgrim_; he has kept it rather for the plain, direct,\nunpictured, personal testimony of the _Grace Abounding_.  I do not know\nanother passage anywhere to compare with the eighty-fourth paragraph of\n_Grace Abounding_ for hope and encouragement to a great inward sinner\nunder a great inward sanctification.  I commend that powerful passage to\nthe appropriation of any man here who may have stuck fast in the Slough\nof Despond to-day, and who could not on that account come to the Lord's\nTable.  Let him still struggle out at the side of the slough farthest\nfrom his own house, and to-night, who can tell, Help may come and give\nthat man his hand.  When the Slough of Despond is drained, and its bottom\nlaid bare, what a find of all kinds of precious treasures shall be laid\nbare!  Will you be able to lay claim to any of it when the long-lost\ntreasure-trove is distributed by command of the King to its rightful\nowners?\n\n'What are you doing there?' the man whose name was Help demanded of\nChristian, as he still wallowed and plunged to the hither side of the\nslough, 'and why did you not look for the steps?'  And so saying he set\nChristian's feet upon sound ground again, and showed him the nearest way\nto the gate.  Help is one of the King's officers who are planted all\nalong the way to the Celestial City, in order to assist and counsel all\npilgrims.  Evangelist was one of those officers; this Help is another;\nGoodwill will be another, unless, indeed, he is more than a mere officer;\nInterpreter will be another, and Greatheart, and so on.  All these are\npreachers and pastors and evangelists who correspond to all those names\nand all their offices.  Only some unhappy preachers are better at pushing\npoor pilgrims into the slough, and pushing them down to the bottom of it,\nthan they are at helping a sinking pilgrim out; while some other more\nhappy preachers and pastors have their manses built at the hither side of\nthe slough and do nothing else all their days but help pilgrims out of\ntheir slough and direct them to the gate.  And then there are multitudes\nof so-called ministers who eat the King's bread who can neither push a\nproud sinner into the slough nor help a prostrate sinner out of it; no,\nnor point him the way when he has himself wallowed out.  And then, there\nare men called ministers, too, who also eat the King's bread, whose voice\nyou never hear in connection with such matters, unless it be to revile\nboth the pilgrims and their helpers, and all who run with fear and\ntrembling up the heavenly road.  But our pilgrim was happy enough to meet\nwith a minister to whom he could look back all his remaining pilgrimage\nand say: 'He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry\nclay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings.  And he\nhath put a new song in my mouth, even praise to our God.'\n\nNow, as might have been expected, there is a great deal said about all\nkinds of help in the Bible.  After the help of God, of which the Bible\nand especially the more experimental Psalms are full, this fine name is\nthen applied to many Scriptural persons, and on many Scriptural\noccasions.  The first woman whom God Almighty made bore from her Maker to\nher husband this noble name.  Her Father, so to speak, gave her away\nunder this noble name.  And of all the sweet and noble names that a woman\nbears, there is none so rich, so sweet, so lasting, and so fruitful as\njust her first Divine name of a helpmeet.  And how favoured of God is\nthat man to be accounted whose life still continues to draw meet help out\nof his wife's fulness of help, till all her and his days together he is\nable to say, I have of God a helpmeet indeed!  For in how many sloughs do\nmany men lie till this daughter of Help gives them her hand, and out of\nhow many more sloughs are they all their days by her delivered and kept!\nSweet, maidenly, and most sensible Mercy was a great help to widow\nChristiana at the slough, and to her and her sons all the way up to the\nriver--a very present help in many a need to her future mother-in-law and\nher pilgrim sons.  Let every young man seek his future wife of God, and\nlet him seek her of her Divine Father under that fine, homely, divine\nname.  For God, who knoweth what we have need of before we ask Him, likes\nnothing better than to make a helpmeet for those who so ask Him, and\nstill to bring the woman to the man under that so spouse-like name.\n\n   'What next I bring shall please thee, be assured,\n   Thy likeness, thy fit help, thy other self,\n   Thy wish exactly to thy heart's desire.'\n\nAnd then when the apostle is making an enumeration of the various offices\nand agencies in the New Testament church of his day, after apostles and\nteachers and gifts of healing, he says, 'helps,'--assistants, that is,\nsuccourers, especially of the sick and the aged and the poor.  And we do\nnot read that either election or ordination was needed to make any given\nmember of the apostolic church a helper.  But we do read of helpers being\nfound by the apostle among all classes and conditions of that rich and\nliving church; both sexes, all ages, and all descriptions of church\nmembers bore this fine apostolic name.  'Salute Urbane, our helper in\nChrist . . . Greet Priscilla and Aquila, my helpers in Christ.'  And both\nPaul and John and all the apostles were forward to confess in their\nepistles how much they owed of their apostolic success, as well as of\ntheir personal comfort and joy, to the helpers, both men and women, their\nLord had blessed them with.\n\nNow, the most part of us here to-night have been at the Lord's Table to-\nday.  We kept our feet firm on the steps as we skirted or crossed the\nslough that self-examination always fills and defiles for us before every\nnew communion.  And before our Lord let us rise from His Table this\nmorning.  He again said to us: 'Ye call Me Master and Lord, and ye say\nwell, for so I am.  If I then have given you My hand, and have helped\nyou, ye ought also to help one another.'  Who, then, any more will\nwithhold such help as it is in his power to give to a sinking brother?\nAnd you do not need to go far afield seeking the slough of desponding,\ndespairing, drowning men.  This whole world is full of such sloughs.\nThere is scarce sound ground enough in this world on which to build a\nslough-watcher's tower.  And after it is built, the very tower itself is\nsoon stained and blinded with the scudding slime.  Where are your eyes,\nand full of what?  Do you not see sloughs full of sinking men at your\nvery door; ay, and inside of your best built and best kept house?  Your\nvery next neighbour; nay, your own flesh and blood, if they have nothing\nelse of Greatheart's most troublesome pilgrim about them, have at least\nthis, that they carry about a slough with them in their own mind and in\ntheir own heart.  Have you only henceforth a heart and a hand to help,\nand see if hundreds of sinking hearts do not cry out your name, and\nhundreds of slimy hands grasp at your stretched-out arm.  Sloughs of all\nkinds of vice, open and secret; sloughs of poverty, sloughs of youthful\nignorance, temptation, and transgression; sloughs of inward gloom, family\ndisquiet and dispute; lonely grief; all manner of sloughs, deep and miry,\nwhere no man would suspect them.  And how good, how like Christ Himself,\nand how well-pleasing to Him to lay down steps for such sliding feet, and\nto lift out another and another human soul upon sound and solid ground.\n'Know ye what I have done to you?  For I have given you an example, that\nye should do as I have done to you.  If ye know these things, happy are\nye if ye do them.'\n\n\n\n\nMR. WORLDLY-WISEMAN\n\n\n   'Wise in this world.'--Paul.\n\nMr. Worldly-Wiseman has a long history behind him on which we cannot now\nenter at any length.  As a child, the little worldling, it was observed,\ntook much after his secular father, but much more after his scheming\nmother.  He was already a self-seeking, self-satisfied youth; and when he\nbecame a man and began business for himself, no man's business flourished\nlike his.  'Nothing of news,' says his biographer in another place,\n'nothing of doctrine, nothing of alteration or talk of alteration could\nat any time be set on foot in the town but be sure Mr. Worldly-Wiseman\nwould be at the head or tail of it.  But, to be sure, he would always\ndecline those he deemed to be the weakest, and stood always with those,\nin his way of thinking, that he supposed were the strongest side.'  He\nwas a man, it was often remarked, of but one book also.  Sunday and\nSaturday he was to be found deep in _The Architect of Fortune_; _or_,\n_Advancement in Life_, a book written by its author so as to 'come home\nto all men's business and bosoms.'  He drove over scrupulously once a\nSunday to the State church, of which he was one of the most determined\npillars.  He had set his mind on being Lord Mayor of the town before\nlong, and he was determined that his eldest son should be called Sir\nWorldly-Wiseman after him, and he chose his church accordingly.  Another\nof his biographers in this connection wrote of him thus: 'Our Lord Mayor\nparted his religion betwixt his conscience and his purse, and he went to\nchurch not to serve God, but to please the king.  The face of the law\nmade him wear the mask of the Gospel, which he used not as a means to\nsave his soul, but his charges.'  Such, in a short word, was this\n'sottish man' who crossed over the field to meet with our pilgrim when he\nwas walking solitary by himself after his escape from the slough.\n\n'How now, good fellow?  Whither away after this burdened manner?'  What a\ncontrast those two men were to one another in the midst of that plain\nthat day!  Our pilgrim was full of the most laborious going; sighs and\ngroans rose out of his heart at every step; and then his burden on his\nback, and his filthy, slimy rags all made him a picture such that it was\nto any man's credit and praise that he should stop to speak to him.  And\nthen, when our pilgrim looked up, he saw a gentleman standing beside him\nto whom he was ashamed to speak.  For the gentleman had no burden on his\nback, and he did not go over the plain laboriously.  There was not a spot\nor a speck, a rent or a wrinkle on all his fine raiment.  He could not\nhave been better appointed if he had just stepped out of the gate at the\nhead of the way; they can wear no cleaner garments than his in the\nCelestial City itself.  'How now, good fellow?  Whither away after this\nburdened manner?'  'A burdened manner, indeed, as ever I think poor\ncreature had.  And whereas you ask me whither away, I tell you, sir, I am\ngoing to yonder wicket gate before me; for there, as I am informed, I\nshall be put into a way to be rid of my heavy burden.'  'Hast thou a wife\nand children?'  Yes; he is ashamed to say that he has.  But he confesses\nthat he cannot to-day take the pleasure in them that he used to do.  Since\nhis sin so came upon him, he is sometimes as if he had neither wife nor\nchild nor a house over his head.  John Bunyan was of Samuel Rutherford's\nterrible experience,--that our sins and our sinfulness poison all our\nbest enjoyments.  We do not hear much of Rutherford's wife and children,\nand that, no doubt, for the sufficient reason that he gives us in his so\nopen-minded letter.  But Bunyan laments over his blind child with a\nlament worthy to stand beside the lament of David over Absalom, and again\nover Saul and Jonathan at Mount Gilboa.  At the same time, John Bunyan\noften felt sore and sad at heart that he could not love and give all his\nheart to his wife and children as they deserved to be loved and to have\nall his heart.  He often felt guilty as he looked on them and knew in\nhimself that they did not have in him such a father as, God knew, he\nwished he was, or ever in this world could hope to be.  'Yes,' he said,\n'but I cannot take the pleasure in them that I would.  I am sometimes as\nif I had none.  My sin sometimes drives me like a man bereft of his\nreason and clean demented.'  'Who bid thee go this way to be rid of thy\nburden?  I beshrew him for his counsel.  There is not a more troublesome\nand dangerous way in the world than this is to which he hath directed\nthee.  And besides, though I used to have some of the same burden when I\nwas young, not since I settled in that town,' pointing to the town of\nCarnal-Policy over the plain, 'have I been at any time troubled in that\nway.'  And then he went on to describe and denounce the way to the\nCelestial City, and he did it like a man who had been all over it, and\nhad come back again.  His alarming description of the upward way reads to\nus like a page out of Job, or Jeremiah, or David, or Paul.  'Hear me,' he\nsays, 'for I am older than thou.  Thou art like to meet with in the way\nwhich thou goest wearisomeness, painfulness, hunger, perils, nakedness,\nsword, lions, dragons, darkness, and in a word, death, and what not.'  You\nwould think that you were reading the eighth of the Romans at the thirty-\nfifth verse; only Mr. Worldly-Wiseman does not go on to finish the\nchapter.  He does not go on to add, 'I am persuaded that neither death,\nnor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present,\nnor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall\nbe able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Jesus Christ our\nLord.'  No; Worldly-Wiseman never reads the Romans, and he never hears a\nsermon on that chapter when he goes to church.\n\nMr. Worldly-Wiseman became positively eloquent and impressive and all but\nconvincing as he went so graphically and cumulatively over all the\nsorrows that attended on the way to which this pilgrim was now setting\nhis face.  But, staggering as it all was, the man in rags and slime only\nsmiled a sad and sobbing smile in answer, and said: 'Why, sir, this\nburden upon my back is far more terrible to me than all the things which\nyou have mentioned; nay, methinks I care not what I meet with in the way,\nso be I can also meet with deliverance from my burden.'  This is what our\nLord calls a pilgrim having the root of the matter in himself.  This poor\nsoul had by this time so much wearisomeness, painfulness, hunger, perils,\nnakedness, sword, lions, dragons, darkness, death, and what not in\nhimself, that all these threatened things outside of himself were but so\nmany bugbears and hobgoblins wherewith to terrify children; they were but\nthings to be laughed at by every man who is in ernest in the way.  'I\ncare not what else I meet with if only I also meet with deliverance.'\nThere speaks the true pilgrim.  There speaks the man who drew down the\nSon of God to the cross for that man's deliverance.  There speaks the\nman, who, mire, and rags, and burdens and all, will yet be found in the\nheaven of heavens where the chief of sinners shall see their Deliverer\nface to face, and shall at last and for ever be like Him.  Peter examined\nDante in heaven on faith, James examined him on hope, and John took him\nthrough his catechism on love, and the seer came out of the tent with a\nlaurel crown on his brow.  I do not know who the examiner on sin will be,\nbut, speaking for myself on this matter, I would rather take my degree in\nthat subject than in all the other subjects set for a sinner's\nexamination on earth or in heaven.  For to know myself, and especially,\nas the wise man says, to know the plague of my own heart, is the true and\nthe only key to all other true knowledge: God and man; the Redeemer and\nthe devil; heaven and hell; faith, hope, and charity; unbelief, despair,\nand malignity, and all things of that kind else, all knowledge will come\nto that man who knows himself, and to that man alone, and to that man in\nthe exact measure in which he does really know himself.  Listen again to\nthis slough-stained, sin-burdened, sighing and sobbing pilgrim, who, in\nspite of all these things--nay, in virtue of all these things--is as sure\nof heaven and of the far end of heaven as if he were already enthroned\nthere.  'Wearisomeness,' he protests, 'painfulness, hunger, perils,\nnakedness, sword, lions, dragons, darkness, death, and what not--why,\nsir, this burden on my back is far more terrible to me than all these\nthings which you have mentioned; nay, methinks I care not what I meet\nwith in the way, so be I can also meet with deliverance from my burden.'\nO God! let this same mind be found in me and in all the men and women for\nwhose souls I shall have to answer at the day of judgment, and I shall be\ncontent and safe before Thee.\n\nThat strong outburst from this so forfoughten man for a moment quite\noverawed Worldly-Wiseman.  He could not reply to an earnestness like\nthis.  He did not understand it, and could not account for it.  The only\nthing he ever was in such earnestness as that about was his success in\nbusiness and his title that he and his wife were scheming for.  But\nstill, though silenced by this unaccountable outburst of our pilgrim,\nWorldly-Wiseman's enmity against the upward way, and especially against\nall the men and all the books that made pilgrims take to that way, was\nnot silenced.  'How camest thou by thy burden at first?'  By reading this\nBook in my hand.'  Worldly-Wiseman did not fall foul of the Book indeed,\nbut he fell all the more foul of those who meddled with matters they had\nnot a head for.  'Leave these high and deep things for the ministers who\nare paid to understand and explain them, and attend to matters more\nwithin thy scope.'  And then he went on to tell of a far better way to\nget rid of the burden that meddlesome men brought on themselves by\nreading that book too much--a far better and swifter way than attempting\nthe wicket-gate.  'Thou wilt never be settled in thy mind till thou art\nrid of that burden, nor canst thou enjoy the blessings of wife and child\nas long as that burden lies so heavy upon thee.'  That was so true that\nit made the pilgrim look up.  A gentleman who can speak in that true\nstyle must know more than he says about such burdens as this of mine;\nand, after all, he may be able, who knows, to give me some good advice in\nmy great straits.  'Pray, sir, open this secret to me, for I sorely stand\nin need of good counsel.'  Let him here who has no such burden as this\npoor pilgrim had cast the first stone at Christian; I cannot.  If one who\nlooked like a gentleman came to me to-night and told me how I would on\nthe spot get to a peace of conscience never to be lost again, and how I\nwould get a heart to-night that would never any more plague and pollute\nme, I would be mightily tempted to forget what all my former teachers had\ntold me and try this new Gospel.  And especially if the gentleman said\nthat the remedy was just at hand.  'Pray, sir,' said the breathless and\nspiritless man, 'wilt thou, then, open this secret to me?'\n\nThe wit and the humour and the satire of the rest of the scene must be\nfully enjoyed over the great book itself.  The village named Morality,\nhard by the hill; that judicious man Legality, who dwells in the first\nhouse you come at after you have turned the hill; Civility, the pretty\nyoung man that Legality hath to his son; the hospitality of the village;\nthe low rents and the cheap provisions, and all the charities and\namenities of the place,--all together make up such a picture as you\ncannot get anywhere out of John Bunyan.  And then the pilgrim's stark\nfolly in entering into Worldly-Wiseman's secret; his horror as the hill\nbegan to thunder and lighten and threaten to fall upon him; the sudden\ndescent of Evangelist; and then the plain-spoken words that passed\nbetween the preacher and the pilgrim,--don't say again that the poorest\nof the Puritans were without letters, or that they had not their own\nesoteric writings full of fun and frolic; don't say that again till you\nare a pilgrim yourself, and have our John Bunyan for one of your classics\nby heart.\n\nWe are near an end, but before you depart, stand still a little, as\nEvangelist said to Christian, that I may show you the words of God.  And\nfirst, watch yourselves well, for you all have a large piece of this\nworldly-wise man in yourselves.  You all take something of some ancestor,\nremote or immediate, who was wise only for this world.  Yes, to be sure,\nfor you still decline as they did, and desert as they did, those you deem\nto be the weakest, and stand with those that you suppose to be the\nstrongest side.  _The Architect of Fortune_ is perhaps too strong meat\nfor your stomach; but still, if you ever light upon its powerful pages,\nyou will surely blush in secret to see yourself turned so completely\ninside out.  You may not have chosen your church wholly with an eye to\nyour shop; but you must admit that you see as good and better men than\nyou are doing that every day.  And it is a sure sign to you that you do\nnot yet know the plague of your own heart, unless you know yourself to be\na man more set upon the position and the praise that this world gives\nthan you yet are on the position and the praise that come from God only.\nSet a watch on your own worldly heart.  Watch and pray, lest you also\nenter into all Worldly-Wiseman's temptation.  This is one of the words of\nGod to you.\n\nAnother word of God is this.  The way of the cross, said severe\nEvangelist, is odious to every worldly-wise man; while, all the time, it\nis the only way there is, and there never will be any other way to\neternal life.  The only way to life is the way of the cross.  There are\ntwo crosses, indeed, on the way to the Celestial City; there is, first,\nthe Cross of Christ, once for you, and then there is your cross daily for\nChrist, and it takes both crosses to secure and to assure any man that he\nis on the right road, and that he will come at last to the right end.\n'The Christian's great conquest over the world,' says William Law, 'is\nall contained in the mystery of Christ upon the cross.  And true\nChristianity is nothing else but an entire and absolute conformity to\nthat spirit which Christ showed in the mysterious sacrifice of Himself\nupon the cross.  Every man is only so far a Christian as he partakes of\nthis same spirit of Christ--the same suffering spirit, the same sacrifice\nof himself, the same renunciation of the world, the same humility and\nmeekness, the same patient bearing of injuries, reproaches, and\ncontempts, the same dying to all the greatness, honours, and happiness of\nthis world that Christ showed on the cross.  We also are to suffer, to be\ncrucified, to die, to rise with Christ, or else His crucifixion, His\ndeath, and His resurrection will profit us nothing.  'This is the second\nword of God unto thee.  And the third thing to-night is this, that though\nthy sin be very great, though thou hast a past life round thy neck enough\nto sink thee for ever out of the sight of God and all good men; a youth\nof sensuality now long and closely cloaked over with an after life of\nworldly prosperity, worldly decency, and worldly religion, all which only\nmakes thee that whited sepulchre that Christ has in His eye when He\nspeaks of thee with such a severe and dreadful countenance; yet if thou\nconfess thyself to be all the whited sepulchre He sees thee to be, and\nyet knock at His gate in all thy rags and slime, He will immediately lay\naside that severe countenance and will show thee all His goodwill.\nNotwithstanding all that thou hast done, and all thou still art, He will\nnot deny His own words, or do otherwise than at once fulfil them all to\nthee.  Ask, then, and it shall be given thee; seek, and thou shalt find;\nknock, and it shall be opened unto thee.  And with a great goodwill, He\nwill say to those that stand by Him, Take away the filthy garments from\nhim.  And to thee He will say, Behold, I have caused all thine iniquity\nto pass from thee, and I will clothe thee with change of raiment.\n\n\n\n\nGOODWILL, THE GATEKEEPER\n\n\n   'Goodwill.'--Luke 2. 14.\n\n'So in process of time Christian got up to the gate.  Now there was\nwritten over the gate, _Knock_, _and it shall be opened unto you_.  He\nknocked, therefore, more than once or twice, saying, May I now enter\nhere? when at last there came a grave person to the gate, named Goodwill,\nwho asked him who was there?'  The gravity of the gatekeeper was the\nfirst thing that struck the pilgrim.  And it was the same thing that so\nstruck some of the men who saw most of our Lord that they handed down to\ntheir children the true tradition that He was often seen in tears, but\nthat no one had ever seen or heard Him laugh.  The prophecy in the\nprophet concerning our Lord was fulfilled to the letter.  He was indeed a\nman of sorrows, and He early and all His life long had a close\nacquaintance with grief.  Our Lord had come into this world on a very sad\nerrand.  We are so stupefied and besotted with sin, that we have no\nconception how sad an errand our Lord had been sent on, and how sad a\ntask He soon discovered it to be.  To be a man without sin, a man hating\nsin, and hating nothing else but sin, and yet to have to spend all His\ndays in a world lying in sin, and in the end to have all that world of\nsin laid upon Him till He was Himself made sin,--how sad a task was that!\nGreat, no doubt, as was the joy that was set before our Lord, and sure as\nHe was of one day entering on that joy, yet the daily sight of so much\nsin in all men around Him, and the cross and the shame that lay right\nbefore Him, made Him, in spite of the future joy, all the Man of Sorrow\nIsaiah had said He would be, and made light-mindedness and laughter\nimpossible to our Lord,--as it is, indeed, to all men among ourselves who\nhave anything of His mind about this present world and the sin of this\nworld, they also are men of sorrow, and of His sorrow.  They, too, are\nacquainted with grief.  Their tears, like His, will never be wiped off in\nthis world.  They will not laugh with all their heart till they laugh\nwhere He now laughs.  Then it will be said of them, too, that they began\nto be merry.  'What was the matter with you that you did laugh in your\nsleep last night? asked Christiana of Mercy in the morning.  I suppose\nyou were in a dream.  So I was, said Mercy, but are you sure that I\nlaughed?  Yes, you laughed heartily; but, prithee, Mercy, tell me thy\ndream.  Well, I dreamed that I was in a solitary place and all alone, and\nwas there bemoaning the hardness of my heart, when methought I saw one\ncoming with wings towards me.  So he came directly to me, and said,\nMercy, what aileth thee?  Now, when he heard my complaint, he said, Peace\nbe to thee.  He also wiped mine eyes with his handkerchief, and clad me\nin silver and gold; he put a chain about my neck also, and earrings in\nmine ears, and a beautiful crown upon my head.  So he went up.  I\nfollowed him till we came to a golden gate; and I thought I saw your\nhusband there.  But did I laugh?  Laugh! ay, and well you might, to see\nyourself so well.'\n\nBut to return and begin again.  Goodwill, who opened the gate, was, as we\nsaw, a person of a very grave and commanding aspect; so much so, that in\nhis sudden joy our pilgrim was a good deal overawed as he looked on the\ncountenance of the man who stood in the gate, and it was some time\nafterwards before he understood why he wore such a grave and almost sad\naspect.  But afterwards, as he went up the way, and sometimes returned in\nthought to the wicket-gate, he came to see very good reason why the\nkeeper of that gate looked as he did look.  The site and situation of the\ngate, for one thing, was of itself enough to banish all light-mindedness\nfrom the man who was stationed there.  For the gatehouse stood just above\nthe Slough of Despond, and that itself filled the air of the place with a\ndampness and a depression that could be felt.  And then out of the\ndownward windows of the gate, the watcher's eye always fell on the City\nof Destruction in the distance, and on her sister cities sitting like her\ndaughters round about her.  And that also made mirth and hilarity\nimpossible at that gate.  And then the kind of characters who came\nknocking all hours of the day and the night at that gate.  Goodwill never\nsaw a happy face or heard a cheerful voice from one year's end to the\nother.  And when any one so far forgot himself as to put on an untimely\nconfidence and self-satisfaction, the gatekeeper would soon put him\nthrough such questions as quickly sobered him if he had anything at all\nof the root of the matter in him.  Terror, horror, despair, remorse,\nchased men and women up to that gate.  They would often fall before his\nthreshold more dead than alive.  And then, after the gate was opened and\nthe pilgrims pulled in, the gate had only opened on a path of such\npainfulness, toil, and terrible risk, that at whatever window Goodwill\nlooked out, he always saw enough to make him and keep him a grave, if not\na sad, man.  It was, as he sometimes said, his meat and his drink to keep\nthe gate open for pilgrims; but the class of men who came calling\nthemselves pilgrims; the condition they came in; the past, that in spite\nof all both he and they could do, still came in through his gate after\nthem, and went up all the way with them; their ignorance of the way, on\nwhich he could only start them; the multitudes who started, and the\nhandfuls who held on; the many who for a time ran well, but afterwards\nleft their bones to bleach by the wayside; and all the impossible-to-be-\ntold troubles, dangers, sorrows, shipwrecks that certainly lay before the\nmost steadfast and single-hearted pilgrim--all that was more than enough\nto give the man at the gate his grave and anxious aspect.\n\nNot that his great gravity, with all the causes of it, ever made him a\nmelancholy, a morose, a despairing, or even a desponding man.  Far from\nthat.  The man of sorrows Himself sometimes rejoiced in spirit.  Not\nsometimes only, but often He lifted up His heart and thanked His Father\nfor the work His Father had given Him to do, and for the success that had\nbeen granted to Him in the doing of it.  And as often as He looked\nforward to the time when he should finish His work and receive His\ndischarge, and return to His Father's house, at the thought of that He\nstraightway forgot all His present sorrows.  And somewhat so was it with\nGoodwill at his gate.  No man could be but at bottom happy, and even\njoyful, who had a post like his to occupy, a gate like his to keep, and,\naltogether, a work like his to do.  No man with his name and his nature\ncan ever in any circumstances be really unhappy.  'Happiness is the bloom\nthat always lies on a life of true goodness,' and this gatehouse was full\nof the happiness that follows on and always dwells with true goodness.\nGoodwill cannot have more happiness till he shuts in his last pilgrim\ninto the Celestial City, and then himself enters in after him as a\nshepherd after a lost sheep.\n\nThe happy, heavenly, divine disposition of the gatekeeper was such, that\nit overflowed from the pilgrim who stood beside him and descended upon\nhis wife and children who remained behind him in the doomed city.  So\nfull of love was the gatekeeper's heart, that it ran out upon Obstinate\nand Pliable also.  His heart was so large and so hospitable, that he was\nnot satisfied with one pilgrim received and assisted that day.  How is\nit, he asked, that you have come here alone?  Did any of your neighbours\nknow of your coming?  And why did he who came so far not come through?\nAlas, poor man, said Goodwill, is the celestial glory of so little esteem\nwith him that he counteth it not worth running the hazards of a few\ndifficulties to obtain it?  Our pilgrim got a lifelong lesson in goodwill\nto all men at that gate that day.  The gatekeeper showed such deep and\npatient and genuine interest in all the pilgrim's past history, and in\nall his family and personal affairs, that Christian all his days could\nnever show impatience, or haste, or lack of interest in the most long-\nwinded and egotistical pilgrim he ever met.  He always remembered, when\nhe was becoming impatient, how much of his precious time and of his\nloving attention his old friend Goodwill had given to him.  Our pilgrim\ngot tired of talking about himself long before Goodwill had ceased to ask\nquestions and to listen to the answers.  So much was Christian taken with\nthe courtesy and the kindness of Goodwill, that had it not been for his\ncrushing burden, he would have offered to remain in Goodwill's house to\nrun his errands, to light his fires, and to sweep his floors.  So much\nwas he taken captive with Goodwill's extraordinary kindness and unwearied\nattention.  And since he could not remain at the gate, but must go on to\nthe city of all goodwill itself, our pilgrim set himself all his days to\ncopy this gatekeeper when he met with any fellow-pilgrim who had any\nstory that he wished to tell.  And many were the lonely and forgotten\nsouls that Christian cheered and helped on, not by his gold or his\nsilver, nor by anything else, but just by his open ear.  To listen with\npatience and with attention to a fellow-pilgrim's wrongs and sorrows, and\neven his smallest interests, said this Christian to himself, is just what\nGoodwill so winningly did to me.\n\nWith all his goodwill the grave gatekeeper could not say that the way to\nthe Celestial City was other than a narrow, a stringent, and a\nheart-searching way.  'Come,' he said, 'and I will tell thee the way thou\nmust go.'  There are many wide ways to hell, and many there be who crowd\nthem, but there is only one way to heaven, and you will sometimes think\nyou must have gone off it, there are so few companions; sometimes there\nwill be only one footprint, with here and there a stream of blood, and\nalways as you proceed, it becomes more and more narrow, till it strips a\nman bare, and sometimes threatens to close upon him and crush him to the\nearth altogether.  Our Lord in as many words tells us all that.  Strive,\nHe says, strive every day.  For many shall seek to enter into the way of\nsalvation, but because they do not early enough, and long enough, and\npainfully enough strive, they come short, and are shut out.  Have you,\nthen, anything in your religious life that Christ will at last accept as\nthe striving He intended and demanded?  Does your religion cause you any\nreal effort--Christ calls it _agony_?  Have you ever had, do you ever\nhave, anything that He would so describe?  What cross do you every day\ntake up?  In what thing do you every day deny yourself?  Name it.  Put\nyour finger on it.  Write it in cipher on the margin of your Bible.  Would\nthe most liberal judgment be able to say of you that you have any fear\nand trembling in the work of your salvation?  If not, I am afraid there\nmust be some mistake somewhere.  There must be great guilt somewhere.  At\nyour parents' door, or at your minister's, or, if their hands are clean,\nthen at your own.  Christ has made it plain to a proverb, and John Bunyan\nhas made it a nursery and a schoolboy story, that the way to heaven is\nsteep and narrow and lonely and perilous.  And that, remember, not a few\nof the first miles of the way, but all the way, and even through the dark\nvalley itself.  'Almost all that is said in the New Testament of men's\nwatching, giving earnest heed to themselves, running the race that is set\nbefore them, striving and agonising, fighting, putting on the whole\narmour of God, pressing forward, reaching forth, crying to God day and\nnight; I say, almost all that we have in the New Testament on these\nsubjects is spoken and directed to the saints.  Where those things are\napplied to sinners seeking salvation once, they are spoken of the saints'\nprosecution of their salvation ten times' (Jonathan Edwards).  If you\nhave a life at all like that, you will be sorely tempted to think that\nsuch suffering and struggle, increasing rather than diminishing as life\ngoes on, is a sign that you are so bad as not to be a true Christian at\nall.  You will be tempted to think and say so.  But all the time the\ntruth is, that he who has not that labouring, striving, agonising,\nfearing, and trembling in himself, knows nothing at all about the\nreligion of Christ and the way to heaven; and if he thinks he does, then\nthat but proves him a hypocrite, a self-deceived, self-satisfied\nhypocrite; there is not an ounce of a true Christian in him.  Says Samuel\nRutherford on this matter: 'Christ commandeth His hearers to a strict and\nnarrow way, in mortifying heart-lusts, in loving our enemy, in feeding\nhim when he is hungry, in suffering for Christ's sake and the gospel's,\nin bearing His cross, in denying ourselves, in becoming humble as\nchildren, in being to all men and at all times meek and lowly in heart.'\nLet any man lay all that intelligently and imaginatively alongside of his\nown daily life.  Let him name some such heart-lust.  Let him name also\nsome enemy, and ask himself what it is to love that man, and to feed him\nin his hunger; what it is in which he is called to suffer for Christ's\nsake and the gospel's, in his reputation, in his property, in his\nbusiness, in his feelings.  Let him put his finger on something in which\nhe is every day to deny himself, and to be humble and teachable, and to\nkeep himself out of sight like a little child; and if that man does not\nfind out how narrow and heart-searching the way to heaven is, he will be\nthe first who has so found his way thither.  No, no; be not deceived.\nDeceive not yourself, and let no man deceive you.  God is not mocked,\nneither are His true saints.  'Would to God I were back in my pulpit but\nfor one Sabbath,' said a dying minister in Aberdeen.  'What would you\ndo?' asked a brother minister at his bedside.  'I would preach to the\npeople the difficulty of salvation,' he said.  All which things are told,\nnot for purposes of debate or defiance, but to comfort and instruct God's\ntrue people who are finding salvation far more difficult than anybody had\never told them it would be.  Comfort My people, saith your God.  Speak\ncomfortably to My people.  Come, said Goodwill, and I will teach thee\nabout the way thou must go.  Look before thee, dost thou see that narrow\nway?  That is the way thou must go.  And then thou mayest always\ndistinguish the right way from the wrong.  The wrong is crooked and wide,\nand the right is straight as a rule can make it,--straight and narrow.\n\nGoodwill said all that in order to direct and to comfort the pilgrim; but\nthat was not all that this good man said with that end.  For, when\nChristian asked him if he could not help him off with his burden that was\nupon his back, he told him: 'As to thy burden, be content to bear it\nuntil thou comest to the place of deliverance, for there it will fall\nfrom thy back of itself.'  Get you into the straight and narrow way, says\nGoodwill, with his much experience of the ways and fortunes of true\npilgrims; get you sure into the right way, and leave your burden to God.\nHe appoints the place of deliverance, and it lies before thee.  The place\nof thy deliverance cannot be behind thee, and it is not in my house, else\nthy burden would have been already off.  But it is before thee.  Be\nearnest, therefore, in the way.  Look not behind thee.  Go not into any\ncrooked way; and one day, before you know, and when you are not pulling\nat it, your burden will fall off of itself.  Be content to bear it till\nthen, says bold and honest Goodwill, speaking so true to pilgrim\nexperience.  Yes; be content, O ye people of God, crying with this\npilgrim for release from your burden of guilt, and no less those of you\nwho are calling with Paul for release from the still more bitter and\ncrushing burden made up of combined guilt and corruption.  Be content\ntill the place and the time of deliverance; nay, even under your burden\nand your bonds be glad, as Paul was, and go up the narrow way, still\nchanting to yourself, I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.  It is\nonly becoming that a great sinner should tarry the Lord's leisure; all\nthe more that the greatest sinner may be sure the Lord will come, and\nwill not tarry.  The time is long, but the thing is sure.\n\nAnd now two lessons from Goodwill's gate:--\n\n1.  The gate was shut when Christian came up to it, and no one was\nvisible anywhere about it.  The only thing visible was the writing over\nthe gate which told all pilgrims to knock.  Now, when we come up to the\nsame gate we are disappointed and discouraged that the gatekeeper is not\nstanding already upon his doorstep and his arms round our neck.  We knelt\nto-day in secret prayer, and there was only our bed or our chair visible\nbefore us.  There was no human being, much less to all appearance any\nDivine Presence, in the place.  And we prayed a short, indeed, but a not\nunearnest prayer, and then we rose up and came away disappointed because\nno one appeared.  But look at him who is now inheriting the promises.  He\nknocked, says his history, more than once or twice.  That is to say, he\ndid not content himself with praying one or two seconds and then giving\nover, but he continued in prayer till the gatekeeper came.  And as he\nknocked, he said, so loud and so impatient that all those in the\ngatehouse could hear him,\n\n   'May I now enter here?  Will he within\n   Open to sorry me, though I have been\n   A wandering rebel?  Then shall I\n   Not fail to sing his lasting praise on high.'\n\n2.  'We make no objections against any,' said Goodwill; 'notwithstanding\nall that they have done before they come hither, they are in no wise cast\nout.'  He told me all things that ever I did, said the woman of Samaria,\ntelling her neighbours about our Lord's conversation with her.  And,\nsomehow, there was something in the gatekeeper's words that called back\nto Christian, if not all the things he had ever done, yet from among them\nthe worst things he had ever done.  They all rose up black as hell before\nhis eyes as the gatekeeper did not name them at all, but only said\n'notwithstanding all that thou hast done.'  Christian never felt his past\nlife so black, or his burden so heavy, or his heart so broken, as when\nGoodwill just said that one word 'notwithstanding.'  'We make no\nobjections against any; notwithstanding all that they have done before\nthey come hither, they are in no wise cast out.'\n\n\n\n\nTHE INTERPRETER\n\n\n   'An interpreter, one among a thousand.'--Elihu.\n\nWe come to-night to the Interpreter's House.  And since every minister of\nthe gospel is an interpreter, and every evangelical church is an\ninterpreter's house, let us gather up some of the precious lessons to\nministers and to people with which this passage of the _Pilgrim's\nProgress_ so much abounds.\n\n1.  In the first place, then, I observe that the House of the Interpreter\nstands just beyond the Wicket Gate.  In the whole topography of the\n_Pilgrim's Progress_ there lies many a deep lesson.  The church that Mr.\nWorldly-Wiseman supported, and on the communion roll of which he was so\ndetermined to have our pilgrim's so unprepared name, stood far down on\nthe other side of Goodwill's gate.  It was a fine building, and it had an\neloquent man for its minister, and the whole service was an attraction\nand an enjoyment to all the people of the place; but our Interpreter was\nnever asked to show any of his significant things there; and, indeed,\nneither minister nor people would have understood him had he ever done\nso.  And had any of the parishioners from below the gate ever by any\nchance stumbled into the Interpreter's house, his most significant rooms\nwould have had no significance to them.  Both he and his house would have\nbeen a mystery and an offence to Worldly-Wiseman, his minister, and his\nfellow-worshippers.  John Bunyan has the clear warrant both of Jesus\nChrist and the Apostle Paul for the place on which he has planted the\nInterpreter's house.  'It is given to you,' said our Lord to His\ndisciples, 'to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven, but to them\nit is not given.'  And Paul tells us that 'the natural man receiveth not\nthe things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him:\nneither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.'  And,\naccordingly, no reader of the _Pilgrim's Progress_ will really understand\nwhat he sees in the Interpreter's House, unless he is already a man of a\nspiritual mind.  Intelligent children enjoy the pictures and the people\nthat are set before them in this illustrated house, but they must become\nthe children of God, and must be well on in the life of God, before they\nwill be able to say that the house next the gate has been a profitable\nand a helpful house to them.  All that is displayed here--all the\nfurniture and all the vessels, all the ornaments and all the employments\nand all the people of the Interpreter's House--is fitted and intended to\nbe profitable as well as interesting to pilgrims only.  No man has any\nreal interest in the things of this house, or will take any abiding\nprofit out of it, till he is fairly started on the upward road.  In his\nformer life, and while still on the other side of the gate, our pilgrim\nhad no interest in such things as he is now to see and hear; and if he\nhad seen and heard them in his former life, he would not, with all the\nInterpreter's explanation, have understood them.  As here among ourselves\nto-night, they who will understand and delight in the things they hear in\nthis house to-night are those only who have really begun to live a\nreligious life.  The realities of true religion are now the most real\nthings in life--to them; they love divine things now; and since they\nbegan to love divine things, you cannot entertain them better than by\nexhibiting and explaining divine things to them.  There is no house in\nall the earth, after the gate itself, that is more dear to the true\npilgrim heart than just the Interpreter's House.  'I was glad when it was\nsaid to me, Let us go into the house of the Lord.  Peace be within thy\nwalls, and prosperity within thy palaces.'\n\n2.  And besides being built on the very best spot in all the land for its\nowner's purposes, every several room in that great house was furnished\nand fitted up for the entertainment and instruction of pilgrims.  Every\ninch of that capacious and many-chambered house was given up to the\ndelectation of pilgrims.  The public rooms were thrown open for their\nconvenience and use at all hours of the day and night, and the private\nrooms were kept retired and secluded for such as sought retirement and\nseclusion.  There were dark rooms also with iron cages in them, till\nChristian and his companions came out of those terrible places, bringing\nwith them an everlasting caution to watchfulness and a sober mind.  There\nwere rooms also given up to vile and sordid uses.  One room there was\nfull of straws and sticks and dust, with an old man who did nothing else\nday nor night but wade about among the straws and sticks and dust, and\nrake it all into little heaps, and then sit watching lest any one should\noverturn them.  And then, strange to tell it, and not easy to get to the\nfull significance of it, the bravest room in all the house had absolutely\nnothing in it but a huge, ugly, poisonous spider hanging to the wall with\nher hands.  'Is there but one spider in all this spacious room?' asked\nthe Interpreter.  And the water stood in Christiana's eyes; she had come\nby this time thus far on her journey also.  She was a woman of a quick\napprehension, and the water stood in her eyes at the Interpreter's\nquestion, and she said: 'Yes, Lord, there is here more than one.  Yea,\nand spiders whose venom is far more destructive than that which is in\nher.'  The Interpreter then looked pleasantly on her, and said: 'Thou\nhast said the truth.'  This made Mercy blush, and the boys to cover their\nfaces, for they all began now to understand the riddle.  'This is to show\nyou,' said the Interpreter, 'that however full of the venom of sin you\nmay be, yet you may, by the hand of faith, lay hold of, and dwell in the\nbest room that belongs to the King's House above.'  Then they all seemed\nto be glad, but the water stood in their eyes.  A wall also stood apart\non the grounds of the house with an always dying fire on one side of it,\nwhile a man on the other side of the wall continually fed the fire\nthrough hidden openings in the wall.  A whole palace stood also on the\ngrounds, the inspection of which so kindled our pilgrim's heart, that he\nrefused to stay here any longer, or to see any more sights--so much had\nhe already seen of the evil of sin and of the blessedness of salvation.\nNot that he had seen as yet the half of what that house held for the\ninstruction of pilgrims.  Only, time would fail us to visit the hen and\nher chickens; the butcher killing a sheep and pulling her skin over her\nears, and she lying still under his hands and taking her death patiently;\nalso the garden with the flowers all diverse in stature, and quality, and\ncolour, and smell, and virtue, and some better than some, and all where\nthe gardener had set them, there they stand, and quarrel not with one\nanother.  The robin-red-breast also, so pretty of note and colour and\ncarriage, but instead of bread and crumbs, and such like harmless matter,\nwith a great spider in his mouth.  A tree also, whose inside was rotten,\nand yet it grew and had leaves.  So they went on their way and sang:\n\n   'This place hath been our second stage,\n   Here have we heard and seen\n   Those good things that from age to age\n   To others hid have been.\n   The butcher, garden, and the field,\n   The robin and his bait,\n   Also the rotten tree, doth yield\n   Me argument of weight;\n   To move me for to watch and pray,\n   To strive to be sincere,\n   To take my cross up day by day,\n   And serve the Lord with few.'\n\nThe significant rooms of that divine house instruct us also that all the\nlessons requisite for our salvation are not to be found in any one\nscripture or in any one sermon, but that all that is required by any\npilgrim or any company of pilgrims should all be found in every\nminister's ministry as he leads his flock on from one Sabbath-day to\nanother, rightly dividing the word of truth.  Our ministers should have\nsomething in their successive sermons for everybody.  Something for the\nchildren, something for the slow-witted and the dull of understanding,\nand something specially suited for those who are of a quick apprehension;\nsomething at one time to make the people smile, at another time to make\nthem blush, and at another time to make the water stand in their eyes.\n\n3.  And, then, the Interpreter's life was as full of work as his house\nwas of entertainment and instruction.  Not only so, but his life, it was\nwell known, had been quite as full of work before he had a house to work\nfor as ever it had been since.  The Interpreter did nothing else but\ncontinually preside over his house and all that was in it and around it,\nand it was all gone over and seen to with his own eyes and hands every\nday.  He had been present at the laying of every stone and beam of that\nsolid and spacious house of his.  There was not a pin nor a loop of its\nfurniture, there was not a picture on its walls, nor a bird nor a beast\nin its woods and gardens, that he did not know all about and could not\nhold discourse about.  And then, after he had taken you all over his\nhouse, with its significant rooms and woods and gardens, he was full all\nsupper-time of all wise saws and witty proverbs.  'One leak will sink a\nship,' he said that night, 'and one sin will destroy a sinner.'  And all\ntheir days the pilgrims remembered that word from the Interpreter's lips,\nand they often said it to themselves as they thought of their own\nbesetting sin.  Now, if it is indeed so, that every gospel minister is an\ninterpreter, and every evangelical church an interpreter's house, what an\nimportant passage this is for all those who are proposing and preparing\nto be ministers.  Let them reflect upon it: what a house this is that the\nInterpreter dwells in; how early and how long ago he began to lay out his\ngrounds and to build his house upon them; how complete in all its parts\nit is, and how he still watches and labours to have it more complete.\nUnderstandest thou what thou here readest? it is asked of all ministers,\nyoung and old, as they turn over John Bunyan's pungent pages.  And every\nnew room, every new bird, and beast, and herb, and flower makes us blush\nfor shame as we contrast our own insignificant and ill-furnished house\nwith the noble house of the Interpreter.  Let all our students who have\nnot yet fatally destroyed themselves and lost their opportunity lay the\nInterpreter's House well to heart.  Let them be students not in idle name\nonly, as so many are, but in intense reality, as so few are.  Let them\nread everything that bears upon the Bible, and let them read nothing that\ndoes not.  They have not the time nor the permission.  Let them be\ncontent to be men of one book.  Let them give themselves wholly to the\ninterpretation of divine truth as its riddles are set in nature and in\nman, in scripture, in providence, and in spiritual experience.  Let them\nstore their memories at college with all sacred truth, and with all\nsecular truth that can be made sacred.  And if their memories are weak\nand treacherous, let them be quiet under God's will in that, and all the\nmore labour to make up in other ways for that defect, so that they may\nhave always something to say to the purpose when their future people come\nup to church hungry for instruction and comfort and encouragement.  Let\nthem look around and see the sin that sinks the ship of so many\nministers; and let them begin while yet their ship is in the yard and see\nthat she is fitted up and furnished, stored and stocked, so that she\nshall in spite of sure storms and sunken rocks deliver her freight in the\nappointed haven.  When they are lying in bed of a Sabbath morning, let\nthem forecast the day when they shall have to give a strict account of\ntheir eight years of golden opportunity among the churches, and the\nclasses, and the societies, and the libraries of our university seats.\nLet them be able to name some great book, ay, more than one great book,\nthey mastered, for every year of their priceless and irredeemable student\nlife.  Let them all their days have old treasure-houses that they filled\nfull with scholarship and with literature and with all that will minister\nto a congregation's many desires and necessities, collected and kept\nready from their student days.  'Meditate upon these things; give thyself\nwholly up to them, that thy profiting may appear unto all.'\n\n4.  And then with a sly stroke at us old ministers, our significant\nauthor points out to us how much better furnished the Interpreter's House\nwas by the time Christiana and the boys visited it compared with that\nearly time when Christian was entertained in it.  Our pilgrim got far\nmore in the Interpreter's House of delight and instruction than he could\ncarry out of it, but that did not tempt the Interpreter to sit down and\ncontent himself with taking all his future pilgrims into the same room,\nand showing them the same pictures, and repeating to them the same\nexplanations.  No, for he reflected that each coming pilgrim would need\nsome new significant room to himself, and therefore, as soon as he got\none pilgrim off his hands, he straightway set about building and\nfurnishing new rooms, putting up new pictures, and replenishing his woods\nand his waters with new beasts and birds and fishes.  I am ashamed, he\nsaid, that I had so little to show when I first opened my gates to\nreceive pilgrims, and I do not know why they came to me as they did.  I\nwas only a beginner in these things when my first visitor came to my\ngates.  Let every long-settled, middle-aged, and even grey-headed\nminister read the life of the Interpreter at this point and take courage\nand have hope.  Let it teach us all to break some new ground in the field\nof divine truth with every new year.  Let it teach us all to be students\nall our days.  Let us buy, somehow, the poorest and the oldest of us,\nsome new and first-rate book every year.  Let us not indeed shut up\naltogether our old rooms if they ever had anything significant in them,\nbut let us add now a new wing to our spiritual house, now a new picture\nto its walls, and now a new herb to its gardens.  'Resolved,' wrote\nJonathan Edwards, 'that as old men have seldom any advantage of new\ndiscoveries, because these are beside a way of thinking they have been\nlong used to; resolved, therefore, if ever I live to years, that I will\nbe impartial to hear the reasons of all pretended discoveries, and\nreceive them, if rational, how long soever I have been used to another\nway of thinking.'\n\n5.  The fickle, frivolous, volatile character of so many divinity\nstudents is excellently hit off by Bunyan in our pilgrim's impatience to\nbe out of the Interpreter's House.  No sooner had he seen one or two of\nthe significant rooms than this easily satisfied student was as eager to\nget out of that house as he had been to get in.  Twice over the wise and\nlearned Interpreter had to beg and beseech this ignorant and impulsive\npilgrim to stop and get another lesson in the religious life before he\nleft the great school-house.  All our professors of divinity and all our\nministers understand the parable at this point only too well.  Their\nstudents are eager to get into their classes; like our pilgrim, they have\nheard the fame of this and that teacher, and there is not standing-room\nin the class for the first weeks of the session.  But before Christmas\nthere is room enough for strangers, and long before the session closes,\nhalf the students are counting the weeks and plotting to petition the\nAssembly against the length and labour of the curriculum.  Was there ever\na class that was as full and attentive at the end of the session as it\nwas at the beginning?  Never since our poor human nature was so stricken\nwith laziness and shallowness and self-sufficiency.  But what is the\nchaff to the wheat?  It is the wheat that deserves and repays the\nhusbandman's love and labour.  When Plato looked up from his desk in the\nAcademy, after reading and expounding one of his greatest Dialogues, he\nfound only one student left in the class-room, but then, that student was\nAristotle.  'Now let me go,' said Christian.  'Nay, stay,' said the\nInterpreter, 'till I have showed thee a little more.'  'Sir, is it not\ntime for me to go?'  'Do tarry till I show thee just one thing more.'\n\n6.  'Here have I seen things rare and profitable,\n\n. . . Then let me be\n\nThankful, O good Interpreter, to thee.'\n\nSydney Smith, with his usual sagacity, says that the last vice of the\npulpit is to be uninteresting.  Now, the Interpreter's House had this\nprime virtue in it, that it was all interesting.  Do not our children beg\nof us on Sabbath nights to let them see the Interpreter's show once more;\nit is so inexhaustibly and unfailingly interesting?  It is only stupid\nmen and women who ever weary of it.  But, 'profitable' was the one and\nuniversal word with which all the pilgrims left the Interpreter's House.\n'Rare and pleasant,' they said, and sometimes 'dreadful;' but it was\nalways 'profitable.'  Now, how seldom do we hear our people at the church\ndoor step down into the street saying, 'profitable'?  If they said that\noftener their ministers would study profit more than they do.  The people\nsay 'able,' or 'not at all able'; 'eloquent,' or 'stammering and\nstumbling'; 'excellent' in style and manner and accent, or the opposite\nof all that; and their ministers, to please the people and to earn their\napproval, labour after these approved things.  But if the people only\nsaid that the prayers and the preaching were profitable and helpful, even\nwhen they too seldom are, then our preachers would set the profit of the\npeople far more before them both in selecting and treating and delivering\ntheir Sabbath-day subjects.  A lady on one occasion said to her minister,\n'Sir, your preaching does my soul good.'  And her minister never forgot\nthe grave and loving look with which that was said.  Not only did he\nnever forget it, but often when selecting his subject, and treating it,\nand delivering it, the question would rise in his heart and conscience,\nWill that do my friend's soul any good?  'Rare and profitable,' said the\npilgrim as he left the gate; and hearing that sent the Interpreter back\nwith new spirit and new invention to fill his house of still more\nsignificant, rare, and profitable things than ever before.  'Meditate on\nthese things,' said Paul to Timothy his son in the gospel, 'that thy\nprofiting may appear unto all.'  'Thou art a minister of the word,' wrote\nthe learned William Perkins beside his name on all his books, 'mind thy\nbusiness.'\n\n\n\n\nPASSION\n\n\n   'A man subject to like passions as we are.'--James 5. 17.\n\nThat was a very significant room in the Interpreter's House where our\npilgrim saw Passion and Patience sitting each one in his chair.  Passion\nwas a young lad who seemed to our pilgrim to be much discontented.  He\nwas never satisfied.  He would have all his good things now.  His\ngovernor would have him wait for his best things till the beginning of\nnext year; but no, he will have them all now.  And then, when he had got\nall his good things, he soon lavished and wasted them all till he had\nnothing left but rags.  Then said Christian to the Interpreter, 'Expound\nthis matter more fully to me.'  So he said, 'Those two lads are figures;\nPassion, of the men of this world; and Patience of the men of that which\nis to come.'  'Then I perceive,' said Christian, ''tis not best to covet\nthings that are now, but to wait for things to come.'  'You say truth,'\nreplied the Interpreter, 'for the things that are seen are temporal, but\nthe things that are not seen are eternal.'\n\nNow from the texts that I have taken out of James and out of this so\nsignificant room in the Interpreter's House, let me try to tell you\nsomething profitable, if so it may be, about passion; the nature of it,\nthe place it holds, and the part it performs both in human nature and in\nthe life and the character of a Christian man.\n\nThe name of Passion has already told us his nature, his past life, and\nhis present character.  The whole nomenclature of _The Pilgrim's\nProgress_ and of _The Holy War_ is composed on the divine, original, and\nnatural principle of embodying the nature of a man in his name.  God\ntakes His own names to Himself on that principle.  The Creator gave Adam\nhis name also on that same principle; and then Adam gave their names to\nall cattle, to the fowls of the air, and to every beast of the field on\nthe same principle on which he had got his own name.  And so it was at\nfirst with all the Bible names of men and of nations of men.  Their name\ncontained their nature.  And John Bunyan was such a student of the Bible,\nand of no other book but the Bible, that all his best books are all full,\nlike the Bible, of the most descriptive and suggestive names.  As soon as\nBunyan tells us the name of some new acquaintance or fellow-traveller, we\nalready know him, so exactly is his nature put into his name.  And thus\nit is that when we stop for a moment at the door of this little\nsignificant room in the Interpreter's House and ask ourselves the meaning\nof the name Passion, we see at once where we are and what we have here\nbefore us.  For a 'passion' is just some excitement or agitation of the\nmind caused by some outward thing acting on the mind.  The inward world\nof the mind and heart of man, and this outward world down into which God\nhas placed man, instantly and continually respond to one another.  And\nwhat are called, with so much correctness and propriety, our passions,\nare just those inward responses, excitements, and agitations that the\noutward world causes in the inward world when those two worlds meet\ntogether.  'Passion' and 'perturbation' are the old classical names that\nthe ancient philosophers and moralists gave to what they felt in\nthemselves as their minds and their hearts were affected by the world of\nmen and things around them.  And they used to illustrate their teaching\non the subject of the passions by the figure of a storm at sea.  They\nsaid that it was because God had made the sea sensitive and responsive to\nthe winds that blew over it that a storm at sea ever arose.  The storm\ndid not arise and the ships were not wrecked by anything from within the\nsea itself; it was the outward world of the winds striking against the\nquiet and inward world of the waters that roused the storms and sank the\nships.  And with that illustration well printed in the minds and\nimaginations of their scholars the old moralists felt their work among\ntheir scholars was already all but done.  For, so full of adaptation and\nappeal is the whole outward world to the mind and heart of man, and so\nsensitive and instantly responsive is the mind and heart of man to all\nthe approaches of the outward world, that the mind and heart of man are\nconstantly full of all kinds of passions, both bad and good.  And, then,\nthis is our present life of probation and opportunity, that all our\npassions are placed within us and are committed and entrusted to us as so\nmany first elements and so much unformed material out of which we are\nsummoned to build up our life and to shape and complete our character.\nThe springs of all our actions are in our passions.  All our activities\nin life, trace them all up to their source, and they will all be found to\nrun up into the wellhead of our passions.  All our virtues are cut as\nwith a chisel out of our passions, and all our vices are just the\ndisorders and rebellions of our passions.  Our several passions, as they\nlie still asleep in our hearts, have as yet no moral character; they are\nonly the raw material so to speak, of moral character.  Our passions are\nthe life and the riches and the ornaments of human nature, and it is only\nbecause human nature in its present estate is so corrupt and disordered\nand degraded, that the otherwise so honourable name of passion has such a\nsinister sound to us.  And the full regeneration and restitution of human\nnature will be accomplished when every several passion is in its right\nplace, and when reason and conscience and the Spirit of God shall inspire\nand rule and regulate all that is within us.\n\n   'On life's vast ocean diversely we sail,\n   Reason the card, but passion is the gale.'\n\nAnd not Elijah only, as James says, and not Paul and Barnabas only, as\nthey themselves said, were men of like passions with ourselves, but our\nLord Himself was a man of like passions with us also.  He took to Himself\na true body, full of all the appetites of the body, and a reasonable\nsoul, full of all the affections, passions, and emotions of the soul.\nOnly, in Him reason and conscience and the law and the Spirit of God were\nthe card and the compass according to which He steered His life.  We have\nall our ruling passion, and our Lord also had His.  As His disciples saw\nHis ruling passion kindled in His heart and coming out in His life, they\nremembered that it was written of Him in an old Messianic psalm: 'The\nzeal of Thine house hath eaten me up.'  They were all eaten up of their\nruling passions also.  One of ambition, one of emulation, one of avarice,\nand so on,--each several disciple was eaten up of his own besetting sin.\nBut they all saw that it was not so with their Master.  He was eaten up\nalways and wholly of the zeal of His Father's house, and of absolute\nsurrender and devotion to His Father's service, till His ruling passion\nwas seen to be as strong in His death as it had been in His life.  The\nLaird of Brodie's Diary has repeatedly been of great use to us in these\ninward matters, and his words on this subject are well worth repeating.\n'We poor creatures,' he says, 'are commanded by our affections and\npassions.  They are not at our command.  But the Holy One doth exercise\nall His attributes at His own will; they are at His command; they are not\npassions nor perturbations in His mind, though they transport us.  When I\nwould hate, I cannot.  When I would love, I cannot.  When I would grieve,\nI cannot.  When I would desire, I cannot.  But it is the better for us\nthat all is as He wills it to be.'\n\nAnd now, to come still closer home, let us look for a moment or two at\nsome of our own ruling and tyrannising passions.  And let us look first\nat self-love--that master-passion in every human heart.  Let us give self-\nlove the first place in the inventory and catalogue of our passions,\nbecause it has the largest place in all our hearts and lives.  Nay, not\nonly has self-love the largest place of any of the passions of our\nhearts, but it is out of self-love that all our other evil passions\nspring.  It is out of this parent passion that all the poisonous brood of\nour other evil passions are born.  The whole fall and ruin and misery of\nour present human nature lies in this, that in every human being self-\nlove has taken, in addition to its own place, the place of the love of\nGod and of the love of man also.  We naturally now love nothing and no\none but ourselves.  And as long as self-love is in the ascendant in our\nhearts, all the passions that are awakened in us by our self-love will be\nselfish with its selfishness, inhumane with its inhumanity, and ungodly\nwith its ungodliness.  And it is to kill and extirpate our so passionate\nself-love that is the end and aim of all God's dealings with us in this\nworld.  All that God is doing with us and for us in providence and in\ngrace, in the world and in the church,--it is all to cure us of this\ndeadly disease of self-love.  We may never have had that told us before,\nand we may not like it, and we may not believe it; but there can be no\nbetter proof of the truth of what is now said than just this, that we do\nnot like it and will not have it.  Self-love will not let us listen to\nthe truth about ourselves; it puts us in a passion both against the truth\nand against him who tells the truth, as the history of the truth\nabundantly testifies.  Yes, your indignant protest is quite true.  Self-\nlove has her divine rights,--no doubt she has.  But you are not commanded\nto attend to them.  Your self-love will look after herself.  She will\nmanage to have her full share of what is right and proper for any passion\nto possess even after she cries out that she is trampled upon and\ndespoiled.  My brethren, till you begin to crucify yourselves and to\npluck up your self-love by the roots, you will never know what a cruel\nand hopeless task the Christian life is--I do not say the Christian\nprofession.  Nor, on the other hand, will you ever discover what a noble\ntask it is--what a divine task and how divinely assisted and divinely\nrecompensed.  You will not know what a kennel of hell-hounds your own\nheart is till you have long sought to enter it and cleanse it out.  And\nafter you have done your utmost, and your best, death will hurry you away\nfrom your but half-accomplished task.  Only, in that case you will be\nable to die in the hope that what is impossible with man is possible with\nGod, as promised by Him, and that He will not leave your soul in hell,\nbut will perfect that good thing which alone concerneth you, even your\neverlasting deliverance from all sinful self-love.\n\nAnd if self-love is the fruitful mother of all our passions, then\nsensuality is surely her eldest son.  Indeed, so shallow are we, and so\nshallow are our words, that when we speak of sinful passion most men\ninstantly think of sensuality.  There are so many seductive things that\nappeal to our appetites, and our appetites are so easily awakened, and\nare so imperious when they are awakened, that when passion is spoken\nabout, few men think of the soul, all men think instantly of the body.\nAnd no wonder.  For, stupid and besotted as we are, we must all at some\ntime of our life have felt the bondage and degradation of the senses.\nPassion in the Interpreter's House had soon nothing left but rags.  And\nin this house to-night there are many men whose consciences and hearts\nand characters are all in such rags from sensual sin, that when the\nScriptures speak of uncleanness, or rags, or corruption, their thoughts\nflee at once to sensual sin and its conscience-rending results.  Cease\nfrom sensuality, said Cicero, for if once you give your minds up to\nsensuality, you will never be able to think of anything else.\n\nAmbition, emulation, and envy are the leading members of a whole prolific\nfamily of satanic passions in the human heart.  Indeed, these passions,\ntaken along with their kindred passions of hatred and ill-will, are, in\nour Lord's words, the very lusts of the devil himself.  The Jews hated\nour Lord the more for what He said about these detestable passions, but\nHis own disciples love Him only the more that He so well knows the evil\naffections of their hearts, and so well describes and denounces them.\nAnybody can denounce sensual sin, and everybody will understand and\napprove.  But spiritual sin,--ambition and emulation and envy and ill-\nwill--these things are more easy to denounce than they are to detect and\ndescribe, and more easy to detect and describe than they are to cast out.\nThese sins seem rather to multiply and to strike a deeper root when you\nbegin to cast them out.  What an utterly and abominably evil passion is\nenvy which is awakened not by bad things but by the best things!  That\nanother man's talents, attainments, praises, rewards should kindle it,\nand that the blame, the depreciation, the hurt that another man suffers\nshould satisfy it,--what a piece of very hell must that be in the human\nheart!  What more do we need than just a little envy in our hearts to\nmake us prostrate penitents before God and man all our days?  What more\ndoctrine, argument, proof, authority, persuasion should a sane man need\nbeyond a little envy in his heart at his best friend to make him an\nevangelical believer and an evangelical preacher?  How, in the name of\nwonder, is it that men can be so ignorant of the plague of their own\nhearts as to remain indifferent, and, much more, hostile, to the gospel\nof love and holiness?  Pride, also,--what a hateful and intolerable\npassion is that!  How stone-blind to his own state must that sinner be\nwhose heart is filled with pride, and how impossible it is for that man\nto make any real progress in any kind of truth or goodness!  And\nresentment,--what a deep-seated, long-lived, and suicidal passion is\nthat!  How it hunts down him it hates, and how surely it shuts the door\nof salvation against him who harbours it!  Forgive us our debts, the\nresentful man says in his prayer, as we forgive our debtors.  And\ndetraction,--how some men's ink-horns are filled with detraction for ink,\nand how it drops from their tongue like poison!  At their every word a\nreputation dies.  Life and all its opportunities of doing good and having\ngood done to us is laid like a bag of treasure at our feet, but, like the\nprodigal son in the Interpreter's House, with all those passions raging\nin our own hearts at other men, and in other men's hearts at us, we have\nsoon nothing left us but rags.  God be thanked for every man here who\nsees and feels that he has nothing left him but rags; and, still more,\nthanks for all those who see and feel how, by their bad passions, sensual\nand spiritual, they have left on other people nothing but rags.\n\nNow, from all this let us lay it to heart that our sanctification and\nsalvation lie in our mastery over all these and over many other passions\nthat have not even been named.  He is an accepted saint of God, who,\ntaking his and other people's rags to God's mercy every day, every day\nalso in God's strength grapples with, bridles, and tames his own wild and\nungodly passions.  Be not deceived, my friends; he alone is a saint of\nGod who is a sanctified man; and his passions,--as they are the spring of\nhis actions, so they are the sphere and seat of his sanctification.  Be\nnot deceived; that man, and no other manner of man, is, or ever will be,\na partaker of God's salvation.  You often hear me recommending those\nstudents who have first to subdue their own passions and then the\npassions of those who hear them to study Jonathan Edwards' ethical and\nspiritual writings.  Well, just at this present point, to show you how\nwell that great man practised what he preached, let me read to you a few\nlines from his biographer: 'Few men,' says Henry Rogers, 'ever attained a\nmore complete mastery over their passions than Jonathan Edwards did.  This\nwas partly owing to the ascendency of his intellect; partly, and in a\nstill greater degree, to the elevation of his piety.  For the subjugation\nof his passions he was no doubt very greatly indebted to the prodigious\nsuperiority of his reason.  Such was the commanding attitude his reason\nassumed, and such the tremendous power with which it controlled the whole\nman, that any insurrection among his senses was hopeless; they had their\ntenure only by doing fealty and homage to his intellect.  Those other and\nmore dangerous enemies, because more subtle and more spiritual, such as\npride, vanity, wrath, and envy, which lurk in the inmost recesses of our\nnature, and some of which have such affinities for a genius like that of\nEdwards, yield not to such exorcism.  Such more powerful kind of demons\ngo not forth but by prayer and fasting; to their complete mortification,\ntherefore, Edwards brought incessant watchfulness and devotion; and\nseldom, assuredly, have they been more nearly expelled from the bosom of\na depraved intelligence.'  We shall be in the best company, both\nintellectually and spiritually, if we work out our own salvation among\nthe sinful passions of our depraved hearts.  And then, as life goes on,\nand we continue in well-doing, we shall be able to measure and register\nour growth in grace best by watching the effect of outward temptations\nupon our still sinful and but half-sanctified hearts.  And among much to\nbe humbled for, and much to make us fear and tremble for the issue, we\nshall, from time to time, have a good conscience and a holy and humble\njoy that this passion and that is at last showing some signs of\ncrucifixion and mortification.  And thus that death to sin shall\ngradually set in which shall issue at last in an everlasting life unto\nholiness.\n\n'Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from\nall your filthiness, and from all your idols will I cleanse you.  A new\nheart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you . . .\nBehold, I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee, and I will clothe\nthee with change of raiment.  In that day there shall be a fountain\nopened to the house of David, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for\nsin and for uncleanness . . . Bring forth the best robe and put it upon\nhim, for this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is\nfound . . . What are these that are arrayed in white robes, and whence\ncame they?  These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have\nwashed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.'\n\n\n\n\nPATIENCE\n\n\n   'In your patience possess ye your souls.'  (Revised Version: 'In your\n   patience ye shall win your souls.')--Our Lord.\n\n'I saw moreover in my dream that the Interpreter took the pilgrim by the\nhand, and had him into a little room, where sate two little children,\neach one in his chair.  The name of the eldest was Passion and of the\nother Patience.  Passion seemed to be much discontent, but Patience was\nvery quiet.  Then Christian asked, What is the reason of the discontent\nof Passion?  The interpreter answered, The governor of them would have\nhim stay for his best things till the beginning of the next year; but he\nwill have all now.  But Patience is willing to wait.'\n\nPassion and Patience, like Esau and Jacob, are twin-brothers.  And their\nnames, like their natures, spring up from the same root.  'Patience,'\nsays Crabb in his _English Synonyms_, 'comes from the active participle\nto suffer; while passion comes from the passive participle of the same\nverb; and hence the difference between the two names.  Patience signifies\nsuffering from an active principle, a determination to suffer; while\npassion signifies what is suffered from want of power to prevent the\nsuffering.  Patience, therefore, is always taken in a good sense, and\nPassion always in a bad sense.'  So far this excellent etymologist.  This\nis, therefore, another case of blessing and cursing proceeding out of the\nsame mouth, and of the same fountain sending forth at the same place both\nsweet water and bitter.\n\nOur Lord tells us in this striking text that our very souls by reason of\nsin are not our own.  He tells us that we have lost hold of our souls\nbefore we have as yet come to know that we have souls.  We only discover\nthat we have souls after we have lost them.  And our Lord,--our best,\nindeed our only, authority in the things of the soul,--here tells us that\nit is only by patience that we shall ever win back our lost souls.  More,\nfar more, is needed to the winning back of a lost soul than its owner's\npatience, and our Lord knew that to His cost.  But that is not His point\nwith us to-night.  His sole point with each one of us to-night is our\npersonal part in the conquest and redemption of our sin-enslaved souls.\nHe who has redeemed our souls with His own blood tells us with all\nplainness of speech, that His blood will be shed in vain, as far as we\nare concerned, unless we add to His atoning death our own patient life.\nEvery human life, as our Lord looks at it, and would have us look at it,\nis a vast field of battle in which a soul is lost or won; little as we\nthink of it or will believe it, in His sight every trial, temptation,\nprovocation, insult, injury, and all kinds and all degrees of pain and\nsuffering, are all so many divinely appointed opportunities afforded us\nfor the reconquest and recovery of our souls.  Sometimes faith is\nsummoned into the battle-field, sometimes hope, sometimes self-denial,\nsometimes prayer, sometimes one grace and sometimes another; but as with\nthe sound of a trumpet the Captain of our salvation here summons Patience\nto the forefront of the fight.\n\n1.  To begin with, how much impatience we are all from time to time\nguilty of in our family life.  Among the very foundations of our family\nlife how much impatience the husband often exhibits toward the wife, and\nthe wife toward her husband.  Patience is the very last grace they look\nforward to having any need of when they are still dreaming about their\nmarried life; but, in too many cases, they have not well entered on that\nlife, when they find that they need no grace of God so much as just\npatience, if the yoke of their new life is not to gall them beyond\nendurance.  However many good qualities of mind and heart and character\nany husband or wife may have, no human being is perfect, and most of us\nare very far from being perfect.  When therefore, we are closely and\nindissolubly joined to another life and another will, it is no wonder\nthat sometimes the ill-fitting yoke eats into a lifelong sore.  We have\nall many defects in our manners, in our habits, and in our constitutional\nways of thinking and speaking and acting,--defects that tempt those who\nlive nearest us to fall into annoyances with us that sometimes deepen\ninto dislike, and even positive disgust, till it has been seen, in some\nextreme cases, that home-life has become a very prison-house, in which\nthe impatient prisoner chafes and jibs and strikes out as he does nowhere\nelse.  Now, when any unhappy man or woman wakens up to discover how\ndifferent life is now to be from what it once promised to become, let\nthem know that all their past blindness, and precipitancy, and all the\npainful results of all that, may yet be made to work together for good.\nIn your patience with one another, says our Lord, you will make a\nconquest of your adverse lot, and of your souls to the bargain.  Say to\nyourselves, therefore, that perfection, faultlessness, and absolute\nsatisfaction are not to be found in this world.  And say also that since\nyou have not brought perfection to your side of the house any more than\nyour partner has to his side, you are not so foolish as to expect\nperfection in return for such imperfection.  You have your own share of\nwhat causes fireside silence, aversion, disappointment, and dislike; and,\nwith God's help, say that you will patiently submit to what may not now\nbe mended.  And then, the sterner the battle the nobler will the victory\nbe; and the lonelier the fight, the more honour to him who flinches not\nfrom it.  In your patience possess ye your souls.\n\nWhat a beautiful, instructive, and even impressive sight it is to see a\nnurse patiently cherishing her children!  How she has her eye and her\nheart at all their times upon them, till she never has any need to lay\nher hand upon them!  Passion has no place in her little household,\nbecause patience fills all its own place and the place of passion too.\nWhat a genius she displays in her talks to her children!  How she cheats\ntheir little hours of temptation, and tides them over the rough places\nthat her eye sees lying like sunken rocks before her little ship!  How\nskilfully she stills and heals their impulsive little passions by her\nsudden and absorbing surprise at some miracle in a picture-book, or some\nastonishing sight under her window!  She has a thousand occupations also\nfor her children, and each of them with a touch of enterprise and\nadventure and benevolence in it.  She is so full of patience herself,\nthat the little gusts of passion are soon over in her presence, and the\nsunshine is soon back brighter than ever in her little paradise.  And,\nover and above her children rising up and calling her blessed, what\nwounds she escapes in her own heart and memory by keeping her patient\nhands from ever wounding her children!  What peace she keeps in the\nhouse, just by having peace always within herself!  Paul can find no\nbetter figure wherewith to set forth God's marvellous patience with\nIsrael during her fretful childhood in the wilderness, than just that of\nsuch a nurse among her provoking children.  And we see the deep hold that\nsame touching and instructive sight had taken of the apostle's heart as\nhe returns to it again to the Thessalonians: 'We were gentle among you,\neven as a nurse cherisheth her children.  So, being affectionately\ndesirous of you, we were willing to have imparted unto you, not the\ngospel of God only, but also our own souls, because ye were dear unto\nus.'  What a school of divine patience is every man's own family at home\nif he only were teachable, observant, and obedient!\n\n2.  Clever, quick-witted, and, themselves, much-gifted men, are terribly\nintolerant of slow and stupid men, as they call them.  But the\nmany-talented man makes a great mistake here, and falls into a great sin.\nIn his fulness of all kinds of intellectual gifts, he quite forgets from\nWhom he has his many gifts, and why it is that his despised neighbour has\nso few gifts.  If you have ten or twenty talents, and I have only two,\nwho is to be praised and who is to be blamed for that allotment?  Your\ncleverness has misled you and has hitherto done you far more evil than\ngood.  You bear yourself among ordinary men, among less men than\nyourself, as if you had added all these cubits to your own stature.  You\nride over us as if you had already given in your account, and had heard\nit said, Take the one talent from them and give it to this my\nten-talented servant.  You seem to have set it down to your side of the\ngreat account, that you had such a good start in talent, and that your\nfine mind had so many tutors and governors all devoting themselves to\nyour advancement.  And you conduct yourself to us as if the Righteous\nJudge had cast us away from His presence, because we were not found among\nthe wise and mighty of this world.  The truth is, that the whole world is\non a wholly wrong tack in its praise and in its blame.  We praise the man\nof great gifts, and we blame the man of small gifts, completely forgetful\nthat in so doing we give men the praise that belongs to God, and lay on\nmen the blame, which, if there is any blame in the matter, ought to be\nlaid elsewhere.  Learn and lay to heart, my richly-gifted brethren, to be\npatient with all men, but especially to be patient with all stupid, slow-\nwitted, ungifted, God-impoverished men.  Do not add your insults and your\nill-usage to the low estate of those on whom, in the meantime, God's hand\nlies so cold and so straitened.  For who maketh thee to differ from\nanother? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive?  Now, if thou\ndidst receive it, why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received it?\nCall that to mind the next time you are tempted to cry out that you have\nno patience with your slow-witted servant.\n\n3.  'Is patient with the bad' is one of the tributes of praise that is\npaid in the fine paraphrase to that heart that is full of the same love\nthat is in God.  A patient love to the unjust and the evil is one of the\nattributes and manifestations of the divine nature, as that nature is\nseen both in God and in all genuinely godly men.  And, indeed, in no\nother thing is the divine nature so surely seen in any man as just in his\nlove to and his patience with bad men.  He schools and exercises himself\nevery day to be patient and good to other men as God has been to him.  He\nremembers when tempted to resentment how God did not resent his evil,\nbut, while he was yet an enemy to God and to godliness, reconciled him to\nHimself by the death of His Son.  And ever since the godly man saw that,\nhe has tried to reconcile his worst enemies to himself by the death of\nhis impatience and passion toward them, and has more pitied than blamed\nthem, even when their evil was done against himself.  Let God judge, and\nif it must be, condemn that bad man.  But I am too bad myself to cast a\nstone at the worst and most injurious of men.  If we so much pity\nourselves for our sinful lot, if we have so much compassion on ourselves\nbecause of our inherited and unavoidable estate of sin and misery, why do\nwe not share our pity and our compassion with those miserable men who are\nin an even worse estate than our own?  At any rate, I must not judge them\nlest I be judged.  I must take care when I say, Forgive me my trespasses,\nas I forgive them that trespass against me.  Not to seven times must I\ngrudgingly forgive, but ungrudgingly to seventy times seven.  For with\nwhat judgment I judge, I shall be judged; and with what measure I mete,\nit shall be measured to me again.\n\n   'Love harbours no suspicious thought,\n   Is patient to the bad:\n   Grieved when she hears of sins and crimes,\n   And in the truth is glad.'\n\n4.  And then, most difficult and most dangerous, but most necessary of\nall patience, we must learn how to be patient with ourselves.  Every day\nwe hear of miserable men rushing upon death because they can no longer\nendure themselves and the things they have brought on themselves.  And\nthere are moral suicides who cast off the faith and the hope and the\nendurance of a Christian man because they are so evil and have lived such\nan evil life.  We speak of patience with bad men, but there is no man so\nbad, there is no man among all our enemies who has at all hurt us like\nthat man who is within ourselves.  And to bear patiently what we have\nbrought upon ourselves,--to endure the inward shame, the self-reproof,\nthe self-contempt bitterer to drink than blood, the lifelong injuries,\nimpoverishment, and disgrace,--to bear all these patiently and\nuncomplainingly,--to acquiesce humbly in the discovery that all this was\nalways in our hearts, and still is in our hearts--what humility, what\npatience, what compassion and pity for ourselves must all that call\nforth!  The wise nurse is patient with her passionate, greedy, untidy,\ndisobedient child.  She does not cast it out of doors, she does not run\nand leave it, she does not kill it because all these things have been and\nstill are in its sad little heart.  Her power for good with such a child\nlies just in her pity, in her compassion, and in her patience with her\nchild.  And the child that is in all of us is to be treated in the same\npatient, hopeful, believing, forgiving, divine way.  We should all be\nwith ourselves as God is with us.  He knoweth our frame.  He remembereth\nthat we are dust.  He shows all patience toward us.  He does not look for\ngreat things from us.  He does not break the bruised reed, nor quench the\nsmoking flax.  He shall not fail nor be discouraged till He have set\njudgment in the earth.  And so shall not we.\n\n5.  And, then,--it is a sufficiently startling thing to say, but--we must\nlearn to be patient with God also.  All our patience, and all the\nexercises of it, if we think aright about it, all run up in the long-run\ninto patience with God.  But there are some exercises of patience that\nhave to do directly and immediately with God and with God alone.  When\nany man's heart has become fully alive to God and to the things of God;\nwhen he begins to see and feel that he lives and moves and has his being\nin God; then everything that in any way affects him is looked on by him\nas come to him from God.  Absolutely, all things.  The very weather that\neverybody is so atheistic about, the climate, the soil he labours, the\nrain, the winter's cold and the summer's heat,--true piety sees all these\nthings as God's things, and sees God's immediate will in the disposition\nand dispensation of them all.  He feels the untameableness of his tongue\nin the indecent talk that goes on everlastingly about the weather.  All\nthese things may be without God to other men, as they once were to him\nalso, but you will find that the truly and the intelligently devout man\nno longer allows himself in such unbecoming speech.  For, though he\ncannot trace God's hand in all the changes of the seasons, in heat and\ncold, in sunshine and snow, yet he is as sure that God's wisdom and will\nare there as that Scripture is true and the Scripture-taught heart.\n'Great is our Lord, and His understanding is infinite.  Who covereth the\nheavens with clouds, and prepareth rain for the earth, and maketh the\ngrass to grow upon the mountains.  He giveth snow like wool; He\nscattereth the hoarfrost like ashes; He casteth forth His ice like\nmorsels.  Who can stand before his cold?'  Here is the patience and the\nfaith of the saints.  Here are they that keep the commandments of God and\nthe faith of Jesus Christ.\n\nAnd, then, when through rain or frost or fire, when out of any terror by\nnight or arrow that flieth by day, any calamity comes on the man who is\nthus pointed and practised in his patience, he is able with Job to say,\n'This is the Lord.  What, shall we receive good at the hand of God and\nnot also receive evil?'  By far the best thing I have ever read on this\nsubject, and I have read it a thousand times since I first read it as a\nstudent, is Dr. Thomas Goodwin's _Patience and its Perfect Work_.  That\nnoble treatise had its origin in the great fire of London in 1666.  The\nlearned President of Magdalen College lost the half of his library, five\nhundred pounds worth of the best books, in that terrible fire.  And his\nson tells us he had often heard his father say that in the loss of his\nnot-to-be-replaced books, God had struck him in a very sensible place.  To\nlose his Augustine, and his Calvin, and his Musculus, and his Zanchius,\nand his Amesius, and his Suarez, and his Estius was a sore stroke to such\na man.  I loved my books too well, said the great preacher, and God\nrebuked me by this affliction.  Let the students here read Goodwin's\ncostly treatise, and they will be the better prepared to meet such\ncalamities as the burning of their manse and their library, as also to\ncounsel and comfort their people when they shall lose their shops or\ntheir stockyards by fire.\n\n   'Blind unbelief is sure to err,\n   And scan His work in vain;\n   God is His own interpreter,\n   And He will make it plain.'\n\nAnd, then, in a multitude of New Testament scriptures, we are summoned to\ngreat exercise of patience with the God of our salvation, because it is\nHis purpose and plan that we shall have to wait long for our salvation.\nGod has not seen it good to carry us to heaven on the day of our\nconversion.  He does not glorify us on the same day that He justifies us.\nWe are appointed to salvation indeed, but it is also appointed us to wait\nlong for it.  This is not our rest.  We are called to be pilgrims and\nstrangers for a season with God upon the earth.  We are told to endure to\nthe end.  It is to be through faith and patience that we, with our\nfathers, shall at last inherit the promises.  Holiness is not a Jonah's\ngourd.  It does not come up in a night, and it does not perish in a\nnight.  Holiness is the Divine nature, and it takes a lifetime to make us\npartakers of it.  But, then, if the time is long the thing is sure.  Let\nus, then, with a holy and a submissive patience wait for it.\n\n'I saw moreover in my dream that Passion seemed to be much discontent,\nbut Patience was very quiet.  Then Christian asked, What is the reason of\nthe discontent of Passion?  The Interpreter answered, The governor of\nthem would have him stay for his best things till the beginning of the\nnext year; but he will have them all now.  But Patience is willing to\nwait.'\n\n\n\n\nSIMPLE, SLOTH, AND PRESUMPTION\n\n\n   'Ye did run well, who did hinder you?'--Paul.\n\nIt startles us not a little to come suddenly upon three pilgrims fast\nasleep with fetters on their heels on the upward side of the\nInterpreter's House, and even on the upward side of the cross and the\nsepulchre.  We would have looked for those three miserable men somewhere\nin the City of Destruction or in the Town of Stupidity, or, at best,\nsomewhere still outside of the wicket-gate.  But John Bunyan did not lay\ndown his _Pilgrim's Progress_ on any abstract theory, or on any easy and\npleasant presupposition, of the Christian life.  He constructed his so\nlifelike book out of his own experiences as a Christian man, as well as\nout of all he had learned as a Christian minister.  And in nothing is\nBunyan's power of observation, deep insight, and firm hold of fact better\nseen than just in the way he names and places the various people of the\npilgrimage.  Long after he had been at the Cross of Christ himself, and\nhad seen with his own eyes all the significant rooms in the Interpreter's\nHouse, Bunyan had often to confess that the fetters of evil habit, unholy\naffection, and a hard heart were still firmly riveted on his own heels.\nAnd his pastoral work had led him to see only too well that he was not\nalone in the temptations and the dangers and the still-abiding bondage to\nsin that had so surprised himself after he was so far on in the Christian\nlife.  It was the greatest sorrow of his heart, he tells us in a powerful\npassage in his _Grace Abounding_, that so many of his spiritual children\nbroke down and came short in the arduous and perilous way in which he had\nso hopefully started them.  'If any of those who were awakened by my\nministry did after that fall back, as sometimes too many did, I can truly\nsay that their loss hath been more to me than if one of my own children,\nbegotten of my body, had been going to its grave.  I think, verily, I may\nspeak it without an offence to the Lord, nothing hath gone so near me as\nthat, unless it was the fear of the salvation of my own soul.  I have\ncounted as if I had goodly buildings and lordships in those places where\nmy children were born; my heart has been so wrapped up in this excellent\nwork that I counted myself more blessed and honoured of God by this than\nif He had made me the emperor of the Christian world, or the lord of all\nthe glory of the earth without it.'  And I have no doubt that we have\nhere the three things that above everything else bereft Bunyan of so many\nof his spiritual children personified and then laid down by the heels in\nSimple, Sloth, and Presumption.\n\n\n\n\nSIMPLE\n\n\nLet us shake up Simple first and ask him what it was that laid him so\nsoon and in such a plight and in such company in this bottom.  It was not\nthat which from his name we might at first think it was.  It was not the\nweakness of his intellects, nor his youth, nor his inexperience.  There\nis danger enough, no doubt, in all these things if they are not carefully\nattended to, but none of all these things in themselves, nor all of them\ntaken together, will lay any pilgrim by the heels.  There must be more\nthan mere and pure simplicity.  No blame attaches to a simple mind, much\nless to an artless and an open heart.  We do not blame such a man even\nwhen we pity him.  We take him, if he will let us, under our care, or we\nput him under better care, but we do not anticipate any immediate ill to\nhim so long as he remains simple in mind, untainted in heart, and willing\nto learn.  But, then, unless he is better watched over than any young man\nor young woman can well be in this world, that simplicity and\nchild-likeness and inexperience of his may soon become a fatal snare to\nhim.  There is so much that is not simple and sincere in this world;\nthere is so much falsehood and duplicity; there are so many men abroad\nwhose endeavour is to waylay, mislead, entrap, and corrupt the simple-\nminded and the inexperienced, that it is next to impossible that any\nyouth or maiden shall long remain in this world both simple and safe\nalso.  My son, says the Wise Man, keep my words, and lay up my\ncommandments with thee.  For at the window of my house I looked through\nmy casement, and beheld among the simple ones, I discerned among the\nyouths, a young man void of understanding;--and so on,--till a dart\nstrike through his liver, and he goeth as an ox to the slaughter.  And\nso, too often in our own land, the maiden in her simplicity also opens\nher ear to the promises and vows and oaths of the flatterer, till she\nloses both her simplicity and her soul, and lies buried in that same\nbottom beside Sloth and Presumption.\n\nIt is not so much his small mind and his weak understanding that is the\nfatal danger of their possessor, it is his imbecile way of treating his\nsmall mind.  In our experience of him we cannot get him, all we can do,\nto read an instructive book.  We cannot get him to attend our young men's\nclass with all the baits and traps we can set for him.  Where does he\nspend his Sabbath-day and week-day evenings?  We cannot find out until we\nhear some distressing thing about him, that, ten to one, he would have\nescaped had he been a reader of good books, or a student with us, say, of\nDante and Bunyan and Rutherford, and a companion of those young men and\nyoung women who talk about and follow such intellectual tastes and\npursuits.  Now, if you are such a young man or young woman as that, or\nsuch an old man or old woman, you will not be able to understand what in\nthe world Bunyan can mean by saying that he saw you in his dream fast\nasleep in a bottom with irons on your heels.  No; for to understand the\n_Pilgrim's Progress_, beyond a nursery and five-year-old understanding of\nit, you must have worked and studied and suffered your way out of your\nmental and spiritual imbecility.  You must have for years attended to\nwhat is taught from the pulpit and the desk, and, alongside of that, you\nmust have made a sobering and solemnising application of it all to your\nown heart.  And then you would have seen and felt that the heels of your\nmind and of your heart are only too firmly fettered with the irons of\nignorance and inexperience and self-complacency.  But as it is, if you\nwould tell the truth, you would say to us what Simple said to Christian,\nI see no danger.  The next time that John Bunyan passed that bottom, the\nchains had been taken off the heels of this sleeping fool and had been\nput round his neck.\n\n\n\n\nSLOTH\n\n\nSloth had a far better head than Simple had; but what of that when he\nmade no better use of it?  There are many able men who lie all their days\nin a sad bottom with the irons of indolence and inefficiency on their\nheels.  We often envy them their abilities, and say about them, What\nmight they not have done for themselves and for us had they only worked\nhard?  Just as we are surprised to see other men away above us on the\nmountain top, not because they have better abilities than we have, but\nbecause they tore the fetters of sloth out of their soft flesh and set\nthemselves down doggedly to their work.  And the same sloth that starves\nand fetters the mind at the same time casts the conscience and the heart\ninto a deep sleep.  I often wonder as I go on working among you, if you\never attach any meaning or make any application to yourselves of all\nthose commands and counsels of which the Scriptures are full,--to be up\nand doing, to watch and pray, to watch and be sober, to fight the good\nfight of faith, to hold the fort, to rise early, and even by night, and\nto endure unto death, and never for one moment to be found off your\nguard.  Do you attach any real meaning to these examples of the\npsalmists, to these continual commands and examples of Christ, and to\nthese urgent counsels of his apostles?  Do you?  Against whom and against\nwhat do you thus campaign and fight?  For fear of whom or of what do you\nthus watch?  What fort do you hold?  What occupies your thoughts in night-\nwatches, and what inspires and compels your early prayers?  It is your\nstupefying life of spiritual sloth that makes it impossible for you to\nanswer these simple and superficial questions.  Sloth is not the word for\nit.  Let them give the right word to insanity like that who sleep and\nsoak in sinful sloth no longer.\n\nWe have all enemies in our own souls that never sleep, whatever we may\ndo.  There are no irons on their heels.  They never procrastinate.  They\nnever say to their master, A little more slumber.  Now, could you name\nany hateful enemy entrenched in your own heart, of which you have of\nyourself said far more than that?  And, if so, what have you done, what\nare you at this moment doing, to cast that enemy out?  Have you any\narmour on, any weapons of offence and precision, against that enemy?  And\nwhat success and what defeat have you had in unearthing and casting out\nthat enemy?  What fort do you hold?  On what virtue, on what grace are\nyou posted by your Lord to keep for yourself and for Him?  And with what\ncost of meat and drink and sleep and amusement do you lose it or keep it\nfor Him?  Alexander used to leave his tent at midnight and go round the\ncamp, and spear to his post the sentinel he found sleeping.\n\nThere is nothing we are all so slothful in as secret, particular,\nimportunate prayer.  We have an almighty instrument in our hand in secret\nand exact prayer if we would only importunately and perseveringly employ\nit.  But there is an utterly unaccountable restraint of secret and\nparticularising prayer in all of us.  There is a soaking, stupefying\nsloth, that so fills our hearts that we forget and neglect the immense\nconcession and privilege we have afforded us in secret prayer.  Our sloth\nand stupidity in prayer is surely the last proof of our fall and of the\nmisery of our fallen state.  Our sloth with a gold mine open at our feet;\na little more sleep on the top of a mast with a gulf under us that hath\nno bottom,--no language of this life can adequately describe the\nbesottedness of that man who lies with irons on his heels between Simple\nand Presumption.\n\n\n\n\nPRESUMPTION\n\n\nThe greatest theologian of the Roman Catholic Church has made an\ninduction and classification of sins that has often been borrowed by our\nProtestant and Puritan divines.  His classification is made, as will be\nseen, on an ascending scale of guilt and aggravation.  In the world of\nsin, he says, there are, first, sins of ignorance; next, there are sins\nof infirmity; and then, at the top, there are sins of presumption.  And\nthis, it will be remembered, was the Psalmist's inventory and estimate of\nsins also.  His last and his most earnest prayer was, that he might be\nkept back from all presumptuous sin.  Now you know quite well, without\nany explanation, what presumption is.  Don't presume, you say, with\nrising and scarce controlled anger.  Don't presume too far.  Take care,\nyou say, with your heart beating so high that you can scarcely command\nit, take care lest you go too far.  And the word of God feels and speaks\nabout presumptuous sin very much as you do yourself.  Now, what gave this\nthird man who lay in fetters a little beyond the cross the name of\nPresumption was just this, that he had been at the cross with his past\nsin, and had left the cross to commit the same sin at the first\nopportunity.  Presumption presumed upon his pardon.  He presumed upon the\nabounding grace of God.  He presumed upon the blood of Christ.  He was so\nhigh on the Atonement, that he held that the gospel was not sufficiently\npreached to him, unless not past sin only and present, but also all\nfuture sin was atoned for on the tree before it was committed.  There is\na reprobate in Dante, who, all the time he was repenting, had his eye on\nhis next opportunity.  Now, our Presumption was like that.  He presumed\non his youth, on his temptations, on his opportunities, and especially on\nhis future reformation and the permanence and the freeness of the gospel\noffer.  When he was in the Interpreter's House he did not hear what the\nInterpreter was saying, the blood was roaring so through his veins.  His\neyes were so full of other images that he did not see the man in the iron\ncage, nor the spider on the wall, nor the fire fed secretly.  He had no\nmore intention of keeping always to the way that was as straight as a\nrule could make it, than he had of cutting off both his hands and\nplucking out both his eyes.  When the three shining ones stripped him of\nhis rags and clothed him with change of raiment, he had no more intention\nof keeping his garments clean than he had of flying straight up to heaven\non the spot.  Now, let each man name to himself what that is in which he\nintentionally, deliberately, and by foresight and forethought sins.  Have\nyou named it?  Well, it was for that that this reprobate was laid by the\nheels on the immediately hither side of the cross and the sepulchre.  Not\nthat the iron might not have been taken off his heels again on certain\nconditions, even after it was on; but, even so, he would never have been\nthe same man again that he was before his presumptuous sin.  You will\neasily know a man who has committed much presumptuous sin,--that is to\nsay, if you have any eye for a sinner.  I think I would find him out if I\nheard him pray once, or preach once, or even select a psalm for public or\nfor family worship; even if I heard him say grace at a dinner-table, or\nreprove his son, or scold his servant.  Presumptuous sin has so much of\nthe venom and essence of sin in it that, forgiven or unforgiven, even a\nlittle of it never leaves the sinner as it found him.  Even if his\nfetters are knocked off, there is always a piece of the poisonous iron\nleft in his flesh; there is always a fang of his fetters left in the\nbroken bone.  The presumptuous saint will always be detected by the way\nhe halts on his heels all his after days.  Keep back Thy servant, O God,\nfrom presumptuous sin.  Let him be innocent of the great transgression.\n\nDr. Thomas Goodwin says somewhere that the worm that dieth not only comes\nto its sharpest sting and to its deadliest venom when it is hatched up\nunder gospel light.  The very light of nature itself greatly aggravates\nsome of our sins.  The light of our early education greatly aggravates\nothers of our sins.  But nothing wounds our conscience and then\nexasperates the wound like a past experience of the same sin, and,\nespecially, an experience of the grace of God in forgiving that sin.  Had\nwe found young Presumption in his irons before his conversion, we would\nhave been afraid enough at the sight.  Had we found him laid by the heels\nafter his first uncleanness, it would have made us shudder for ourselves.\nBut we are horrified and speechless as we see him apprehended and laid in\nirons on the very night of his first communion, and with the wine\nscarcely dry on his unclean lips.  Augustine postponed his baptism till\nhe should have his fill of sin, and till he should no longer return to\nsin like a dog to his vomit.  Now, next Sabbath is our communion day in\nthis congregation.  Let us therefore this week examine ourselves.  And if\nwe must sin as long as we are in this world, let it henceforth be the sin\nof ignorance and of infirmity.\n\nSo the three reprobates lay down to sleep again, and Christian as he left\nthat bottom went on in the narrow way singing:\n\n   'O to grace how great a debtor\n   Daily I'm constrained to be\n   Let that grace, Lord, like a fetter,\n   Bind my wandering heart to Thee.'\n\n\n\n\nTHE THREE SHINING ONES AT THE CROSS\n\n\n   'Salvation shall God appoint for walls.'--Isaiah.\n\nJohn Bunyan's autobiography, _Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners_,\nis the best of all our commentaries on _The Pilgrim's Progress_, and\nagain to-night I shall have to fall back on that incomparable book.  'Now,\nI saw in my dream that the highway up which Christian was to go was\nfenced on either side with a wall, and that wall is called Salvation.  Up\nthis way, therefore, did burdened Christian run, but not without great\ndifficulty, because of the load on his back.'  In the corresponding\nparagraph in _Grace Abounding_, our author says, speaking about himself:\n'But forasmuch as the passage was wonderful narrow, even so narrow that I\ncould not but with great difficulty enter in thereat, it showed me that\nnone could enter into life but those that were in downright earnest, and\nunless also they left this wicked world behind them; for here was only\nroom for body and soul, but not for body and soul and sin.'  'He ran thus\ntill he came to a place somewhat ascending, and upon that place stood a\ncross, and a little below in the bottom a sepulchre.  So I saw in my\ndream, that just as Christian came up with this cross, his burden loosed\nfrom off his shoulders and fell from off his back, and began to tumble,\nand so continued to do till it came to the mouth of the sepulchre, where\nit fell in, and I saw it no more.'  Turning again to the _Grace\nAbounding_, we read in the 115th paragraph: 'I remember that one day as I\nwas travelling into the country and musing on the wickedness and\nblasphemy of my heart, and considering of the enmity that was in me to\nGod, that scripture came into my mind, He hath made peace by the blood of\nHis Cross.  By which I was made to see both again and again and again\nthat day that God and my soul were friends by that blood: yea, I saw that\nthe justice of God and my sinful soul could embrace and kiss each other\nthrough that blood.  That was a good day to me; I hope I shall not forget\nit.  I thought I could have spoken of His love and of His mercy to me\nthat day to the very crows that sat upon the ploughed lands before me had\nthey been capable to have understood me.  Wherefore I said in my soul\nwith much gladness, Well, I would I had a pen and ink here and I would\nwrite this down before I go any farther, for surely I will not forget\nthis forty years hence.'\n\nFrom all this we learn that the way to the Celestial City lies within\nhigh and close fencing walls.  There is not room for many pilgrims to\nwalk abreast in that way; indeed, there is seldom room for two.  There\nare some parts of the way where two or even three pilgrims can for a time\nwalk and converse together, but for the most part the path is\ndistressingly lonely.  The way is so fenced up also that a pilgrim cannot\nso much as look either to the right hand or the left.  Indeed, it is one\nof the laws of that road that no man is to attempt to look except\nstraight on before him.  But then there is this compensation for the\nsolitude and stringency of the way that the wall that so encloses it is\nSalvation.  And Salvation is such a wall that it is companionship and\nprospect enough of itself.  Dante saw a long reach of this same wall\nrunning round the bottom of the mount that cleanses him who climbs it,--a\nlong stretch of such sculptured beauty, that it arrested him and\ninstructed him and delighted him beyond his power sufficiently to praise\nit.  And thus, that being so, burdened and bowed down to the earth as our\npilgrim was, he was on the sure way, sooner or later, to deliverance.\nSomewhere and sometime and somehow on that steep and high fenced way\ndeliverance was sure to come.  And, then, as to the burdened man himself.\nHis name was once Graceless, but his name is Graceless no longer.  No\ngraceless man runs long between these close and cramping-up walls; and,\nespecially, no graceless man has that burden long on his back.  That is\nnot Graceless any longer who is leaving the Interpreter's House for the\nfenced way; that is Christian, and as long as he remains Christian, the\ncloseness of the fence and the weight of his burden are a small matter.\nBut long-looked-for comes at last.  And so, still carrying his burden and\nkeeping close within the fenced-up way, our pilgrim came at last to a\ncross.  And a perfect miracle immediately took place in that somewhat\nascending ground.  For scarcely had Christian set his eyes on the cross,\nwhen, without his pulling at it, or pushing it, or even at that moment\nthinking of it, ere ever he was aware, he saw his burden begin to tumble,\nand so it continued to do till it fell fairly out of his sight into an\nopen sepulchre.\n\nThe application of all that is surely self-evident.  For our way in a\nholy life is always closely fenced up.  It is far oftener a lonely way\nthan otherwise.  And the steepness, sternness, and loneliness of our way\nare all aggravated by the remembrance of our past sins and follies.  They\nstill, and more and more, lie upon our hearts a heart-crushing burden.\nBut if we, like Christian, know how to keep our back to our former house\nand our face to heaven, sooner or later we too shall surely come to the\ncross.  And then, either suddenly, or after a long agony, our burden also\nshall be taken off our back and shut down into Christ's sepulchre.  And I\nsaw it no more, says the dreamer.  He does not say that its owner saw it\nno more.  He was too wise and too true a dreamer to say that.\n\nIt will be remembered that the first time we saw this man, with whose\nprogress to the Celestial City we are at present occupied, he was\nstanding in a certain place clothed with rags and with a burden on his\nback.  After a long journey with him, we have just seen his burden taken\noff his back, and it is only after his burden is off and a Shining One\nhas said to him, Thy sins be forgiven, that a second Shining One comes\nand strips him of his rags and clothes him with change of raiment.  Now,\nwhy, it may be asked, has Christian had to carry his burden so long, and\nwhy is he still kept so ragged and so miserable and he so far on in the\npilgrim's path?  Surely, it will be said, John Bunyan was dreaming indeed\nwhen he kept a truly converted man, a confessedly true and sincere\nChristian, so long in bonds and in rags.  Well, as to his rags: filthy\nrags are only once spoken of in the Bible, and it is the prophet Isaiah,\nwhose experience and whose language John Bunyan had so entirely by heart,\nwho puts them on.  And that evangelist among the prophets not only calls\nhis own and Israel's sins filthy rags, but Isaiah is very bold, and calls\ntheir very righteousnesses by that opprobrious name.  Had that bold\nprophet said that all his and all his people's _un_righteousnesses were\nfilthy rags, all Israel would have subscribed to that.  There was no man\nso brutish as not to admit that.  But as long as they had any sense of\ntruth and any self-respect, multitudes of Isaiah's first hearers and\nreaders would resent what he so rudely said of their righteousnesses.  On\nthe other hand, the prophet's terrible discovery and comparison, just\nlike our dreamer's dramatic distribution of Christian experience, was, to\na certainty, an immense consolation to many men in Israel in his day.\nThey gathered round Isaiah because, but for him and his evangelical\nministry, they would have been alone in their despair.  To them Isaiah's\nministry was a house of refuge, and the prophet himself a veritable tower\nof strength.  They felt they were not alone so long as Isaiah dwelt in\nthe same city with them.  And thus, whatever he might be to others, he\nwas God's very prophet to them as his daily prayers in the temple both\ncast them down and lifted them up.  'Oh that Thou wouldst rend the\nheavens and come down . . . But we are all as an unclean thing, and all\nour righteousnesses are as filthy rags, and our iniquities like the wind\nhave taken us away.'  Thousands in Israel found in these terrible words a\ndoor of hope, a sense of fellowship, and a call to trust and\nthanksgiving.  And tens of thousands have found the same help and\nconsolation out of what have seemed to others the very darkest and most\nperplexing pages of the _Pilgrim's Progress_ and the _Grace Abounding_.\n'It made me greatly ashamed,' says Hopeful, 'of the vileness of my former\nlife, and confounded me with the sense of mine own ignorance, for there\nnever came into mine heart before now that showed me so by contrast the\nbeauty of the Lord Jesus.  My own vileness and nakedness made me love a\nholy life.  Yea, I thought that had I now a thousand gallons of blood in\nmy body, I could spill it all for the sake of the Lord Jesus.'  And if\nyou, my brother, far on in the way of Salvation, still think sometimes\nthat, after all, you must be a reprobate because of your filthy rags,\nread what David Brainerd wrote with his half-dead hand on the last page\nof his seraphic journal: 'How sweet it is to love God and to have a heart\nall for God!  Yes; but a voice answered me, You are not all for God, you\nare not an angel.  To which my whole soul replied, I as sincerely desire\nto love and glorify God as any angel in heaven.  But you are filthy, and\nnot fit for heaven.  When hereupon there instantly appeared above me and\nspread over me the blessed robes of Christ's righteousness which I could\nnot but exult and triumph in.  And then I knew that I should be as active\nas an angel in heaven, and should then be for ever stripped of my filthy\ngarments and clothed with spotless raiment.'  Let me die the death of\nDavid Brainerd, and let my latter end be like his!\n\nThe third Shining One then came forward and set a mark on the forehead of\nthis happy man.  And it was a most ancient and a most honourable mark.\nFor it was the same redeeming mark that was set by Moses upon the\nforeheads of the children of Israel when the Lord took them into covenant\nwith Himself at the Passover in the wilderness.  It was the same\ndistinguishing mark also that the man with the slaughter-weapon in his\nhand first set upon the foreheads of the men who sighed and cried for the\nabominations that were done in the midst of Jerusalem.  And it was the\nsame glorious mark that John saw in the foreheads of the hundred and\nforty and four thousand who stood upon Mount Zion and sang a song that no\nman knew but those men who had been redeemed from the earth by the blood\nof the Lamb.  The mark was set for propriety and for ornament and for\nbeauty.  It was set upon his forehead so that all who looked on him ever\nafter might thus know to what company and what country he belonged, and\nthat this was not his rest, but that he had been called and chosen to a\nheavenly inheritance.  And, besides, it was no sooner set upon his\nforehead than it greatly added to his dignity and his comeliness.  He had\nnow the gravity and beauty of an angel; nay, the beauty in his measure\nand the gravity of Goodwill at the gate himself.  And, then, as if that\nwere not enough, the third Shining One also gave him a roll with a seal\nupon it, which he was bidden look on as he ran, and which he was to give\nin when he arrived at the Celestial Gate.  Now, what was that sealed roll\nbut just the inward memory and record of all this pilgrim's experiences\nof the grace of God from the day he set out on pilgrimage down to that\nday when he stood unburdened of his guilt, unclothed of his rags, and\nclothed upon with change of raiment?  The roll contained his own secret\nlife, all sealed and shone in upon by the light of God's countenance.  The\nsecret of the Lord with this pilgrim was written within that roll, a\nsecret that no man could read but he himself alone.  It was the same roll\nthat this same Shining One gave to Abraham, the first pilgrim and the\nfather of all true pilgrims, after Melchizedek, the priest of the Most\nHigh God, had brought forth bread and wine and had blessed that great\nbeliever.  'Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great\nreward.'  And, again, after Abram had lost his roll, like our pilgrim in\nthe arbour, when he recovered it he read thus in it: 'I am the Almighty\nGod: walk before Me, and be thou perfect.  And I will make My covenant\nbetween Me and thee.'  And Abram fell on his face for joy.  It was the\nsame roll out of which the Psalmist proposed to read a passage to all\nthose in his day who feared God.  'Come and hear, all ye that fear God,\nand I will declare what He hath done for my soul.'  It was the same roll\nalso that God sent to Israel in his sore captivity.  'Fear not, O Israel,\nfor I have redeemed thee; I have called thee by thy name, thou art Mine.\nWhen thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee.'  The high\npriest Joshua also had the same roll put into his hand, and that not only\nfor his own comfort, but to make him the comforter of God's afflicted\npeople.  For after the Lord had plucked Joshua as a brand out of the\nfire, and had made his iniquity to pass from him, and had clothed him\nwith change of raiment, and had set a fair mitre on his head, the Lord\ngave to Joshua a sealed roll, the contents of which may be read to this\nday in the book of the prophet Zechariah.  Nay, more: 'Will you have me\nto speak plainly?' says great Goodwin on this matter.  'Then, though our\nLord had the assurance of faith that He was the Son of God, for He knew\nit out of the Scriptures by reading all the prophets, yet, to have it\nsealed to Him with joy unspeakable and glorious,--this was deferred to\nthe time of His baptism.  He was then anointed with the oil of assurance\nand gladness in a more peculiar and transcendent manner.'  'In His\nbaptism,' says Bengel, 'our Lord was magnificently enlightened.  He was\npreviously the Son of God, and yet the power of the Divine testimony to\nHis Sonship at His baptism long affected Him in a lively manner.'  And we\nsee our Lord reading His roll to assure and sustain His heart when all\noutward acceptance and sustenance failed Him.  'There is One who beareth\nwitness of Me, and His witness is true.  I receive not witness from men.\nI have a greater witness than even that of John.  For the Father Himself\nthat hath sent Me, He beareth witness of Me.'  No wonder that our heavy-\nladen pilgrim of yesterday gave three leaps for joy and went on singing\nwith such a roll as that in his bosom.  For, at that supreme moment he\nhad that inward illumination and assurance sealed on his heart that had\nso gladdened and sustained so many prophets and psalmists and apostles\nand saints before his day.  And though, like Abraham and all the other\nsaints who ever had that noble roll put into their keeping, except Jesus\nChrist, he often lost it, yet as often as he again recovered it, it\nbrought back again with it all his first joy and gladness.\n\nBut, as was said at the beginning, the _Grace Abounding_ is the best of\nall our commentaries on _The Pilgrim's Progress_.  As thus here also:\n'Now had I an evidence, as I thought, of my salvation from heaven, with\nmany golden seals thereon, all hanging in my sight.  Now could I remember\nthis manifestation and that other discovery of grace with comfort, and\nshould often long and desire that the last day were come, that I might be\nfor ever inflamed with the sight and joy of Him and communion with Him\nwhose head was crowned with thorns, whose face was spit on, and body\nbroken, and soul made an offering for my sins.  For whereas, before, I\nlay continually trembling at the mouth of hell, now, methought, I was got\nso far therefrom that I could not, when I looked back, scarce discern it.\nAnd oh! thought I, that I were fourscore years old now, that I might die\nquickly, that my soul might be gone to rest.'\n\nThen Christian gave three leaps for joy and went on singing:\n\n   'Thus far did I come laden with my sin,\n   Nor could ought ease the grief that I was in\n   Till I came hither: . . .\n   Blest Cross! blest Sepulchre! blest rather be\n   The Man that there was put to shame for me.'\n\n\n\n\nFORMALIST AND HYPOCRISY\n\n\n   'A form of godliness.'--Paul.\n\nWe all began our religious life by being formalists.  And we were not\naltogether to blame for that.  Our parents were first to blame for that,\nand then our teachers, and then our ministers.  They made us say our\npsalm and our catechism to them, and if we only said our sacred lesson\nwithout stumbling, we were straightway rewarded with their highest\npraise.  They seldom took the trouble to make us understand the things we\nsaid to them.  They were more than content with our correct repetition of\nthe words.  We were never taught either to read or repeat with our eyes\non the object.  And we had come to our manhood before we knew how to seek\nfor the visual image that lies at the root of all our words.  And thus\nthe ill-taught schoolboy became in us the father of the confirmed\nformalist.  The mischief of this neglect still spreads through the whole\nof our life, but it is absolutely disastrous in our religious life.  Look\nat the religious formalist at family worship with his household gathered\nround him all in his own image.  He would not on any account let his\nfamily break up any night without the habitual duty.  He has a severe\nmethod in his religious duties that nothing is ever allowed to disarrange\nor in any way to interfere with.  As the hour strikes, the big Bible is\nbrought out.  He opens where he left off last night, he reads the\nregulation chapter, he leads the singing in the regulation psalm, and\nthen, as from a book, he repeats his regulation prayer.  But he never\nsays a word to show that he either sees or feels what he reads, and his\nhousehold break up without an idea in their heads or an affection in\ntheir hearts.  He comes to church and goes through public worship in the\nsame wooden way, and he sits through the Lord's Table in the same formal\nand ceremonious manner.  He has eyes of glass and hands of wood, and a\nheart without either blood or motion in it.  His mind and his heart were\ndestroyed in his youth, and all his religion is a religion of rites and\nceremonies without sense or substance.  'Because I knew no better,' says\nBunyan, 'I fell in very eagerly with the religion of the times: to wit,\nto go to church twice a day, and that, too, with the foremost.  And there\nshould I sing and say as others did.  Withal, I was so overrun with the\nspirit of superstition that I adored, and that with great devotion, even\nall things, both the high place, priest, clerk, vestment, service, and\nwhat else belonged to the church: counting all things holy that were\ntherein contained.  But all this time I was not sensible of the danger\nand evil of sin.  I was kept from considering that sin would damn me,\nwhat religion soever I followed, unless I was found in Christ.  Nay, I\nnever thought of Christ, nor whether there was one or no.'\n\nA formalist is not yet a hypocrite exactly, but he is ready now and well\non the way at any moment to become a hypocrite.  As soon now as some\ntemptation shall come to him to make appear another and a better man than\nhe really is: when in some way it becomes his advantage to seem to other\npeople to be a spiritual man: when he thinks he sees his way to some\nprofit or praise by saying things and doing things that are not true and\nnatural to him,--then he will pass on from being a bare and simple\nformalist, and will henceforth become a hypocrite.  He has never had any\nreal possession or experience of spiritual things amid all his formal\nobservances of religious duties, and he has little or no difficulty,\ntherefore, in adding another formality or two to his former life of\nunreality.  And thus the transition is easily made from a comparatively\ninnocent and unconscious formalist to a conscious and studied hypocrite.\n'An hypocrite,' says Samuel Rutherford, 'is he who on the stage\nrepresents a king when he is none, a beggar, an old man, a husband, when\nhe is really no such thing.  To the Hebrews, they were _faciales_, face-\nmen; _colorati_, dyed men, red men, birds of many colours.  You may paint\na man, you may paint a rose, you may paint a fire burning, but you cannot\npaint a soul, or the smell of a rose, or the heat of a fire.  And it is\nhard to counterfeit spiritual graces, such as love to Christ, sincere\nintending of the glory of God, and such like spiritual things.'  Yes,\nindeed; it is hard to put on and to go through with a truly spiritual\ngrace even to the best and most spiritually-minded of men; and as for the\ntrue hypocrite, he never honestly attempts it.  If he ever did honestly\nand resolutely attempt it, he would at once in that pass out of the ranks\nof the hypocrites altogether and pass over into a very different\ncategory.  Bunyan lets us see how a formalist and a hypocrite and a\nChristian all respectively do when they come to a real difficulty.  The\nthree pilgrims were all walking in the same path, and with their faces\nfor the time in the same direction.  They had not held much conference\ntogether since their first conversation, and as time goes on, Christian\nhas no more talk but with himself, and that sometimes sighingly, and\nsometimes more comfortably.  When, all at once, the three men come on the\nhill Difficulty.  A severe act of self-denial has to be done at this\npoint of their pilgrimage.  A proud heart has to be humbled to the dust.\nA second, a third, a tenth place has to be taken in the praise of men.  An\noutbreak of anger and wrath has to be kept under for hours and days.  A\ngreat injury, a scandalous case of ingratitude, has to be forgiven and\nforgotten; in short, as Rutherford says, an\nimpossible-to-be-counterfeited spiritual grace has to be put into its\nseverest and sorest exercise; and the result was--what we know.  Our\npilgrim went and drank of the spring that always runs at the bottom of\nthe hill Difficulty, and thus refreshed himself against that hill; while\nFormalist took the one low road, and Hypocrisy the other, which led him\ninto a wide field full of dark mountains, where he stumbled and fell and\nrose no more.  When, after his visit to the spring, Christian began to go\nup the hill, saying:\n\n   'This hill, though high, I covet to ascend;\n   The difficulty will not me offend;\n   For I perceive the way to life lies here;\n   Come, pluck up heart; let's neither faint nor fear;\n   Better, though difficult, the right way to go,\n   Than wrong, though easy, where the end is woe.'\n\nNow, all this brings us to the last step in the evolution of a perfect\nhypocrite out of a simple formalist.  The perfect and finished hypocrite\nis not your commonplace and vulgar scoundrel of the playwright and the\npenny-novelist type; the finest hypocrite is a character their art cannot\ntouch.  'The worst of hypocrites,' Rutherford goes on to say, 'is he who\nwhitens himself till he deceives himself.  It is strange that a man hath\nsuch power over himself.  But a man's heart may deceive his heart, and he\nmay persuade himself that he is godly and righteous when he knows nothing\nabout it.'  'Preaching in a certain place,' says Boston, 'after supper\nthe mistress of the house told me how I had terrified God's people.  This\nwas by my doctrine of self-love, self-righteousness, self-ends, and such\nlike.  She restricted hypocrites to that sort that do all things to be\nseen of men, and harped much on this--how can one be a hypocrite who\nhates hypocrisy in other people? how can one be a hypocrite and not know\nit?  All this led me to see the need of such doctrine.'  And if only to\nshow you that this is not the dismal doctrine of antediluvian\nPresbyterians only, Canon Mozley says: 'The Pharisee did not know that he\nwas a Pharisee; if he had known it he would not have been a Pharisee.  He\ndoes not know that he is a hypocrite.  The vulgar hypocrite knows that he\nis a hypocrite because he deceives others, but the true Scripture\nhypocrite deceives himself.'  And the most subtle teacher of our century,\nor of any century, has said: 'What is a hypocrite?  We are apt to\nunderstand by a hypocrite one who makes a profession of religion for\nsecret ends without practising what he professes; who is malevolent,\ncovetous, or profligate, while he assumes an outward sanctity in his\nwords and conduct, and who does so deliberately, deceiving others, and\nnot at all self-deceived.  But this is not what our Saviour seems to have\nmeant by a hypocrite; nor were the Pharisees such.  The Pharisees\ndeceived themselves as well as others.  Indeed, it is not in human nature\nto deceive others for any long time without in a measure deceiving\nourselves also.  When they began, each in his turn, to deceive the\npeople, they were not at the moment self-deceived.  But by degrees they\nforgot that outward ceremonies avail nothing without inward purity.  They\ndid not know themselves, and they unawares deceived themselves as well as\nthe people.'  What a terrible light, as of the last day itself, does all\nthat cast upon the formalisms and the hypocrisies of which our own\nreligious life is full!  And what a terrible light it casts on those\nmiserable men who are complete and finished in their self-deception!  For\nthe complete and finished hypocrite is not he who thinks that he is\nbetter than all other men; that is hopeless enough; but the paragon of\nhypocrisy is he who does not know that he is worse than all other men.\nAnd in his stone-blindness to himself, and consequently to all reality\nand inwardness and spirituality in religion, you see him intensely\ninterested in, and day and night occupied with, the outside things of\nreligion, till nothing short of a miracle will open his eyes.  See him in\nthe ministry, for instance, sweating at his sermons and in his visiting,\ntill you would almost think that he is the minister of whom Paul\nprophesied, who should spend and be spent for the salvation of men's\nsouls.  But all the time, such is the hypocrisy that haunts the\nministerial calling, he is really and at bottom animated with ambition\nfor the praise of men only, and for the increase of his congregation.  See\nhim, again, now assailing or now defending a church's secular privileges,\nand he knowing no more, all the time, what a church has been set up for\non earth than the man in the moon.  What a penalty his defence is and his\nsupport to a church of Christ, and what an incubus his membership must\nbe!  Or, see him, again, making long speeches and many prayers for the\nextension of the kingdom of Christ, and all the time spending ten times\nmore on wine or whisky or tobacco, or on books or pictures or foreign\ntravel, than he gives to the cause of home or foreign missions.  And so\non, all through our hypocritical and self-blinded life.  Through such\nstages, and to such a finish, does the formalist pass from his\nthoughtless and neglected youth to his hardened, blinded, self-seeking\nlife, spent in the ostensible service of the church of Christ.  If the\nlight that is in such men be darkness, how great is that darkness!  We\nmay all well shudder as we hear our Lord saying to ministers and members\nand church defenders and church supporters, like ourselves: 'Now ye say,\nWe see; therefore your sin remaineth.'\n\nNow, the first step to the cure of all such hypocrisy, and to the\nsalvation of our souls, is to know that we are hypocrites, and to know\nalso what that is in which we are most hypocritical.  Well, there are two\nabsolutely infallible tests of a true hypocrite,--tests warranted to\nunmask, expose, and condemn the most finished, refined, and even\nevangelical hypocrite in this house to-night, or in all the world.  By\nfar and away the best and swiftest is prayer.  True prayer, that is.  For\nhere again our inexpugnable hypocrisy comes in and leads us down to\nperdition even in our prayers.  There is nothing our Lord more bitterly\nand more contemptuously assails the Pharisees for than just the length,\nthe loudness, the number, and the publicity of their prayers.  The truth\nis, public prayer, for the most part, is no true prayer at all.  It is at\nbest an open homage paid to secret prayer.  We make such shipwrecks of\ndevotion in public prayer, that if we have a shred of true religion about\nus, we are glad to get home and to shut our door.  We preach in our\npublic prayers.  We make speeches on public men and on public events in\nour public prayers.  We see the reporters all the time in our public\nprayers.  We do everything but pray in our public prayers.  And to get\naway alone,--what an escape that is from the temptations and defeats of\npublic prayer!  No; public prayer is no test whatever of a hypocrite.  A\nhypocrite revels in public prayer.  It is secret prayer that finds him\nout.  And even secret prayer will sometimes deceive us.  We are crushed\ndown on our secret knees sometimes, by sheer shame and the strength of\nconscience.  Fear of exposure, fear of death and hell, will sometimes\nmake us shut our door.  A flood of passing feeling will sometimes make us\npray for a season in secret.  Job had all that before him when he said,\n'Will the hypocrite delight himself in the Almighty? will he always call\nupon God?'  No, he will not.  And it is just here that the hypocrite and\nthe true Christian best discover themselves both to God and to\nthemselves.  The true Christian will, as Job again says, pray in secret\ntill God slays him.  He will pray in his dreams; he will pray till death;\nhe will pray after he is dead.  Are you in earnest, then, not to be any\nmore a hypocrite and to know the infallible marks of such?  Ask the key\nof your closet door.  Ask the chair at your bedside.  Ask the watchman\nwhat you were doing and why your light was in so long.  Ask the birds of\nthe air and the beasts of the field and the crows on the ploughed lands\nafter your solitary walk.\n\nAlmost a better test of true and false religion than even secret prayer,\nbut a test that is far more difficult to handle, is our opinion of\nourselves.  In His last analysis of the truly justified man and the truly\nreprobate, our Lord made the deepest test to be their opinion of\nthemselves.  'God, I thank Thee that I am not as this publican,' said the\nhypocrite.  'God be merciful to me a sinner,' said the true penitent.  And\nthen this fine principle comes in here--not only to speed the sure\nsanctification of a true Christian, but also, if he has skill and courage\nto use it, for his assurance and comfort,--that the saintlier he becomes\nand the riper for glory, the more he will beat his breast over what yet\nabides within his breast.  Yes; a man's secret opinion of himself is\nalmost a better test of his true spiritual state than even secret prayer.\nBut, then, these two are not competing and exclusive tests; they always\ngo together and are never found apart.  And at the mouth of these two\nwitnesses every true hypocrite shall be condemned and every true\nChristian justified.\n\nDr. Pusey says somewhere that the perfect hypocrite is the man who has\nthe truth of God in his mind, but is without the love of God in his\nheart.  'Truth without love,' says that saintly scholar, 'makes a\nfinished Pharisee.'  Now we Scottish and Free Church people believe we\nhave the truth, if any people on the face of the earth have it; and if we\nhave not love mixed with it, you see where and what we are.  We are\ncalled to display a banner because of the truth, but let love always be\nour flag-staff.  Let us be jealous for the truth, but let it be a godly,\nthat is to say, a loving jealousy.  When we contend for purity of\ndoctrine and for purity of worship, when we protest against popery and\npriestcraft, when we resist rationalism and infidelity, when we do battle\nnow for national religion, as we call it, and now for the freedom of the\nchurch, let us do it all in love to all men, else we had better not do it\nat all.  If we cannot do it with clean and all-men-loving hearts, let us\nleave all debate and contention to stronger and better men than we are.\nThe truth will never be advanced or guarded by us, nor will the Lord of\ntruth and love accept our service or bless our souls, till we put on the\ndivine nature, and have our hearts and our mouths still more full of love\nthan our minds and our mouths are full of truth.  Let us watch ourselves,\nlest with all our so-called love of truth we be found reprobates at last\nbecause we loved the truth for some selfish or party end, and hated and\ndespised our brother, and believed all evil and disbelieved all good\nconcerning our brother.  Truth without love makes a hypocrite, says Dr.\nPusey; and evangelical truth without evangelical love makes an\nevangelical hypocrite, says Thomas Shepard.  Only where the whole truth\nis united to a heart full of love have we the perfect New Testament\nChristian.\n\n\n\n\nTIMOROUS AND MISTRUST\n\n\n   'There is a lion in the way.'--The Slothful Man.\n\n   'I must venture.'--Christian.\n\n'I at any rate must venture,' said Christian to Timorous and Mistrust.\n'Whatever you may do I must venture, even if the lions you speak of\nshould pull me to pieces.  I, for one, shall never go back.  To go back\nis nothing but death; to go forward is fear of death and everlasting life\nbeyond it.  I will yet go forward.'  So Mistrust and Timorous ran down\nthe hill, and Christian went on his way.  George Offor says, in his notes\non this passage, that civil despotism and ecclesiastical tyranny so\nterrified many young converts in John Bunyan's day, that multitudes\nturned back like Mistrust and Timorous; while at the same time, many like\nBunyan himself went forward and for a time fell into the lion's mouth.\nCivil despotism and ecclesiastical tyranny do not stand in our way as\nthey stood in Bunyan's way--at least, not in the same shape: but every\nage has its own lions, and every Christian man has his own lions that\nneither civil despots nor ecclesiastical tyrants know anything about.\n\nNow, who or what is the lion in your way?  Who or what is it that fills\nyou with such timorousness and mistrust, that you are almost turning back\nfrom the way to life altogether?  The fiercest of all our lions is our\nown sin.  When a man's own sin not only finds him out and comes roaring\nafter him, but when it dashes past him and gets into the woods and\nthickets before him, and stands pawing and foaming on the side of his\nway, that is a trial of faith and love and trust indeed.  Sometimes a\nman's past sins will fill all his future life with sleepless\napprehensions.  He is never sure at what turn in his upward way he may\nnot suddenly run against some of them standing ready to rush out upon\nhim.  And it needs no little quiet trust and humble-minded resignation to\ncarry a man through this slough and that bottom, up this hill and down\nthat valley, all the time with his life in his hand; and yet at every\nturn, at every rumour that there are lions in the way, to say, Come lion,\ncome lamb, come death, come life, I must venture, I will yet go forward.\nAs Job also, that wonderful saint of God, said, 'Hold your peace, let me\nalone that I may speak, and let come on me what will.  Wherefore do I\ntake my flesh in my teeth and put my life in my hand?  Though He slay me,\nyet will I trust in Him.  He also shall be my salvation; for an hypocrite\nshall not come before Him.'\n\nOne false step, one stumble in life, one error in judgment, one outbreak\nof an unbridled temperament, one small sin, if it is even so much as a\nsin, of ignorance or of infirmity, will sometimes not only greatly injure\nus at the time, but, in some cases, will fill all our future life with\ntrials and difficulties and dangers.  Many of us shall have all our days\nto face a future of defeat, humiliation, impoverishment, and many\nhardships, that has not come on us on account of any presumptuous\ntransgression of God's law so much as simply out of some combination of\nunfortunate circumstances in which we may have only done our duty, but\nhave not done it in the most serpent-like way.  And when we are made to\nsuffer unjustly or disproportionately all our days for our error of\njudgment or our want of the wisdom of this world, or what not, we are\nsorely tempted to be bitter and proud and resentful and unforgiving, and\nto go back from duty and endurance and danger altogether.  But we must\nnot.  We must rather say to ourselves, Now and here, if not in the past,\nI must play the man, and, by God's help, the wise man.  I must pluck\nsafety henceforth out of the heart of the nettle danger.  Yes, I made a\nmistake.  I did what I would not do now, and I must not be too proud to\nsay so.  I acted, I see now, precipitately, inconsiderately, imprudently.\nAnd I must not gloom and rebel and run away from the cross and the lion.\nI must not insist or expect that the always wise and prudent man's reward\nis to come to me.  The lion in my way is a lion of my own rearing; and I\nmust not turn my back on him, even if he should be let loose to leap on\nme and rend me.  I must pass under his paw and through his teeth, if need\nbe, to a life with him and beyond him of humility and duty and\nquiet-hearted submission to his God and mine.\n\nThen, again, our salvation itself sometimes, our true sanctification,\nputs on a lion's skin and not unsuccessfully imitates an angry lion's\nroar.  Some saving grace that up till now we have been fatally lacking in\nlies under the very lip of that lion we see standing straight in our way.\nGod in His wisdom so orders our salvation, that we must work out the best\npart of it with fear and trembling.  Right before us, just beside us,\nstanding over us with his heavy paw upon us, is a lion, from under whose\npaw and from between whose teeth we must pluck and put on that grace in\nwhich our salvation lies.  Repentance and reformation lie in the way of\nthat lion; resignation also and humility; the crucifixion of our own\nwill; the sacrifice of our own heart; in short, everything that is still\nlacking but is indispensable to our salvation lies through that den of\nlions.  One man here is homeless and loveless; another is childless;\nanother has a home and children, and much envies the man who has neither;\none has talents there is no scope for; another has the scope, but not the\nsufficient talent; another must now spend all his remaining life in a\nplace where he sees that anger and envy and jealousy and malevolence will\nbe his roaring lions daily seeking to devour his soul.  There is not a\nChristian man or woman in this house whose salvation, worth being called\na salvation, does not lie through such a lion's thicket as that.  Our\nLord Himself was a roaring lion to John the Baptist.  For the Baptist's\nsalvation lay not in his powerful preaching, but in his being laid aside\nfrom all preaching; not in his crowds increasing, but in his Successor's\ncrowds increasing and his decreasing.  The Baptist was the greatest born\nof woman in that day, not because he was a thundering preacher--any\nordinary mother in Israel might have been his mother in that: but to\ndecrease sweetly and to steal down quietly to perfect humility and self-\noblivion,--that salvation was reserved for the son of Elisabeth alone.  I\nwould not like to say Who that is champing and pawing for your blood\nright in your present way.  Reverence will not let me say Who it is.\nOnly, you venture on Him.\n\n'Yes, I shall venture!' said Christian to the two terrified and\nretreating men.  Now, every true venture is made against risk and\nuncertainty, against anxiety and danger and fear.  And it is just this\nthat constitutes the nobleness and blessedness of faith.  Faith sells all\nfor Christ.  Faith risks all for eternal life.  Faith faces all for\nsalvation.  When it is at the worst, faith still says, Very well; even if\nthere is no Celestial City anywhere in the world, it is better to die\nstill seeking it than to live on in the City of Destruction.  Even if\nthere is no Jesus Christ,--I have read about Him and heard about Him and\npictured Him to myself, till, say what you will, I shall die kissing and\nembracing that Divine Image I have in my heart.  Even if there is neither\nmercy-seat nor intercession in heaven, I shall henceforth pray without\nceasing.  Far far better for me all the rest of my sinful life to be\nclothed with sackcloth and ashes, even if there is no fountain opened in\nJerusalem for sin and uncleanness, and no change of raiment.  Christian\nprotested that, as for him, lions and all, he had no choice left.  And no\nmore have we.  He must away somewhere, anywhere, from his past life.  And\nso must we.  If all the lions that ever drank blood are to collect upon\nhis way, let them do so; they shall not all make him turn back.  Why\nshould they?  What is a whole forest full of lions to a heart and a life\nfull of sin?  Lions are like lambs compared with sin.  'Good morning!  I\nfor one must venture.  I shall yet go forward.'  So Mistrust and Timorous\nran down the hill, and Christian went on his way.\n\nSo I saw in my dream that he made haste and went forward, that if\npossible he might get lodging in the house called Beautiful that stood by\nthe highway side.  Now, before he had gone far he entered into a very\nnarrow passage which was about a furlong off from the porter's lodge, and\nlooking very narrowly before him as he went, he espied two lions in the\nway.  Then was he afraid, and thought also to go back, for he thought\nthat nothing but death was before him.  But the porter at the lodge,\nwhose name was Watchful, perceiving that Christian made a halt, as if he\nwould go back, cried unto him, saying, 'Is thy strength so small?  Fear\nnot the lions, for they are chained, and are only placed there for the\ntrial of faith where it is, and for the discovery of those who have none.\nKeep the midst of the path and no hurt shall come to thee.'  Yes, that is\nall we have to do.  Whatever our past life may have been, whatever our\npast sins, past errors of judgment, past mistakes and mishaps, whatever\nof punishment or chastisement or correction or instruction or\nsanctification and growth in grace may be under those lions' skins and\nbetween their teeth for us, all we have got to do at present is to leave\nthe lions to Him who set them there, and to go on, up to them and past\nthem, keeping always to the midst of the path.  The lions may roar at us\ntill they have roared us deaf and blind, but we are far safer in the\nmidst of that path than we would be in our own bed.  Only let us keep in\nthe midst of the path.  When their breath is hot and full of blood on our\ncheek; when they paw up the blinding earth; when we feel as if their\nteeth had closed round our heart,--still, all the more, let us keep in\nthe midst of the path.  We must sometimes walk on a razor-edge of fear\nand straightforwardness; that is the only way left for us now.  But,\nthen, we have the Divine assurance that on that perilous edge no hurt\nshall come to us.  'Temptations,' says our author in another place, 'when\nwe meet them at first, are as the lion that roared upon Samson; but if we\novercome them, the next time we see them we shall find a nest of honey in\nthem.'  O God, for grace and sense and imagination to see and understand\nand apply all that to our own daily life!  O to be able to take all that\nhome to-night and see it all there; lions and runaways, venturesome\nsouls, narrow paths, palaces of beauty, everlasting life and all!  Open\nThou our eyes that we may see the wonderful things that await us in our\nown house at home!\n\n   'Things out of hope are compassed oft with venturing.'\n\nSo they are; and so they were that day with our terrified pilgrim.  He\nmade a venture at the supreme moment of his danger, and things that were\nquite out of all hope but an hour before were then compassed and ever\nafter possessed by him.  Make the same venture, then, yourselves\nto-night.  Naught venture, naught have.  Your lost soul is not much to\nventure, but it is all that Christ at this moment asks of you--that you\nleave your lost soul in His hand, and then go straight on from this\nmoment in the middle of the path: the path, that is, as your case may be,\nof purity, humility, submission, resignation, and self-denial.  Keep your\nmind and your heart, your eyes and your feet, in the very middle of that\npath, and you shall have compassed the House Beautiful before you know.\nThe lions shall soon be behind you, and the grave and graceful damsels of\nthe House--Discretion and Prudence and Piety and Charity--shall all be\nwaiting upon you.\n\n\n\n\nPRUDENCE {1}\n\n\n   'Let a man examine himself.'--Paul.\n\nLet a man examine himself, says the apostle to the Corinthians, and so\nlet him eat of that bread and drink of that cup.  And thus it was, that\nbefore the pilgrim was invited to sit down at the supper table in the\nHouse Beautiful, quite a number of most pointed and penetrating questions\nwere put to him by those who had charge of that house and its supper\ntable.  And thus the time was excellently improved till the table was\nspread, while the short delay and the successive exercises whetted to an\nextraordinary sharpness the pilgrim's hunger for the supper.  Piety and\nCharity, who had joint charge of the house from the Master of the house,\nheld each a characteristic conversation with Christian, but it was left\nto Prudence to hold the most particular discourse with him until supper\nwas ready, and it is to that so particular discourse that I much wish to\nturn your attention to-night.\n\nWith great tenderness, but at the same time with the greatest possible\ngravity, Prudence asked the pilgrim whether he did not still think\nsometimes of the country from whence he had come out.  Yes, he replied;\nhow could I help thinking continually of that unhappy country and of my\nsad and miserable life in it; but, believe me,--or, rather, you cannot\nbelieve me,--with what shame and detestation I always think of my past\nlife.  My face burns as I now speak of my past life to you, and as I\nthink what my old companions know and must often say about me.  I detest,\nas you cannot possibly understand, every remembrance of my past life, and\nI hate and never can forgive myself, who, with mine own hands, so filled\nall my past life with shame and self-contempt.  Gently stopping the\nremorseful pilgrim's self-accusations about his past life, Prudence asked\nhim if he had not still with him, and, indeed, within him, some of the\nvery things that had so destroyed both him and all his past life.  'Yes,'\nhe honestly and humbly said.  'Yes, but greatly against my will:\nespecially my inward and sinful cogitations.'  At this Prudence looked on\nhim with all her deep and soft eyes, for it was to this that she had been\nleading the conversation up all the time.  Prudence had a great look of\nsatisfaction, mingled with love and pity, at the way the pilgrim said\n'especially my inward and sinful cogitations.'  Those who stood by and\nobserved Prudence wondered at her delight in the sad discourse on which\nthe pilgrim now entered.  But she had her own reasons for her delight in\nthis particular kind of discourse, and it was seldom that she lighted on\na pilgrim who both understood her questions and responded to them as did\nthis man now sitting beside her.  Now, my brethren, all parable apart, is\nthat your religious experience?  Are you full of shame and detestation at\nyour inward cogitations?  Are you tormented, enslaved, and downright\ncursed with your own evil thoughts?  I do not ask whether or no you have\nsuch thoughts always within you.  I do not ask, because I know.  But I\nask, because I would like to make sure that you know what, and the true\nnature of what, goes on incessantly in your mind and in your heart.  Do\nyou, or do you not, spit out your most inward thoughts ten times a day\nlike poison?  If you do, you are a truly religious man, and if you do\nnot, you do not yet know the very ABC of true religion, and your dog has\na better errand at the Lord's table than you have.  And if your minister\nlets you sit down at the Lord's table without holding from time to time\nsome particular discourse with you about your sinful thoughts, he is\ndeceiving and misleading you, besides laying up for himself an awakening\nat last to shame and everlasting contempt.  What a mill-stone his\ncommunion roll will be round such a minister's neck!  And how his\ncongregation will gnash their teeth at him when they see to what his\nmiserable ministry has brought them!\n\nLet a man examine himself, said Paul.  What about your inward and sinful\ncogitations? asked Prudence.  How long shall thy vain thoughts lodge\nwithin thee? demanded the bold prophet.  Now, my brethren, what have you\nto say to that particular accusation? Do you know what vain thoughts are?\nAre you at all aware what multitudes of such thoughts lodge within you?\nDo they drive you every day to your knees, and do you blush with shame\nwhen you are alone before God at the fountain of folly that fills your\nmind and your heart continually?  The Apostle speaks of vain hopes that\nmake us ashamed that we ever entertained them.  You have been often so\nashamed, and yet do not such hopes still too easily arise in your heart?\nWhat castles of idiotic folly you still build!  Were a sane man or a\nmodest woman even to dream such dreams of folly overnight, they would\nblush and hide their heads all day at the thought.  Out of a word, out of\na look, out of what was neither a word nor a look intended for you, what\na world of vanity will you build out of it!  The question of Prudence is\nnot whether or no you are still a born fool at heart, she does not put\nunnecessary questions: hers to you is the more pertinent and particular\nquestion, whether, since you left your former life and became a\nChristian, you feel every day increasing shame and detestation at\nyourself, on account of the vanity of your inward cogitations.  My\nbrethren, can you satisfy her who is set by her Master to hold particular\ndiscourse with all true Christians before supper?  Can you say with the\nPsalmist,--could you tell Prudence where the Psalmist says,--I hate vain\nthoughts, but Thy law do I love?  And can you silence her by telling her\nthat her Master alone knows with what shame you think that He has such a\nfool as you are among His people?\n\nAnger, also, sudden and even long-entertained anger, was one of the 'many\nfailings' of which Christian was so conscious to himself.  His outbursts\nof anger at home, he bitterly felt, might well be one of the causes why\nhis wife and children did not accompany him on his pilgrimage.  And\nthough he knew his failing in this respect, and was very wary of it, yet\nhe often failed even when he was most wary.  Now, while anger is largely\na result of our blood and temperament, yet few of us are so well-balanced\nand equable in our temperament and so pure and cool in our blood, as\naltogether to escape frequent outbursts of anger.  The most happily\nconstituted and the best governed of us have too much cause to be ashamed\nand penitent both before God and our neighbours for our outbursts of\nangry passion.  But Prudence is so particular in her discourse before\nsupper, that she goes far deeper into our anger than our wives and our\nchildren, our servants and our neighbours, can go.  She not only asks if\nwe stamp out the rising anger of our heart as we would stamp out sparks\nof fire in a house full of gunpowder; but she insists on being told what\nwe think of ourselves when the house of our heart is still so full of\nsuch fire and such gunpowder.  Any man, to call a man, would be humbled\nin his own eyes and in his walk before his house at home after an\nexplosion of anger among them; but he who would satisfy Prudence and sit\nbeside her at supper, must not only never let his anger kindle, but the\nsimple secret heat of it, that fire of hell that is hid from all men but\nhimself in the flint of his own hard and proud heart,--what, asks\nPrudence, do you think of that, and of yourself on account of that?  Does\nthat keep you not only watchful and prayerful, but, what is the best\nground in you of all true watchfulness and prayerfulness, full of secret\nshame, self-fear, and self-detestation?  One forenoon table would easily\nhold all our communicants if Prudence had the distribution of the tokens.\n\nAnd, then, we who are true pilgrims, are of all men the most miserable,\non account of that 'failing,' that rankling sting in our hearts, when any\nof our friends has more of this world's possessions, honours, and praises\nthan we have, that pain at our neighbour's pleasure, that sickness at his\nhealth, that hunger for what we see him eat, that thirst for what we see\nhim drink, that imprisonment of our spirits when we see him set at\nliberty, that depression at his exaltation, that sorrow at his joy, and\njoy at his sorrow, that evil heart that would have all things to itself.\nYes, said Christian, I am only too conversant with all these sinful\ncogitations, but they are all greatly against my will, and might I but\nchoose mine own thoughts, do you suppose that I would ever think these\nthings any more?  'The cause is in my will,' said Caesar, on a great\noccasion.  But the true Christian, unhappily, cannot say that.  If he\ncould say that, he would soon say also that the snare is broken and that\nhis soul has escaped.  And then the cause of all his evil cogitations,\nhis vain thoughts, his angry feelings, his envious feelings, his\nineradicable covetousness, his hell-rooted and heaven-towering pride, and\nhis whole evil heart of unbelief would soon be at an end.  'I cannot be\nfree of sin,' said Thomas Boston, 'but God knows that He would be welcome\nto make havoc of my lusts to-night and to make me henceforth a holy man.\nI know no lust that I would not be content to part with.  My will bound\nhand and foot I desire to lay at His feet.'  Yes: such is the mystery and\ndepth of sin in the hearts of all God's saints, that far deeper than\ntheir will, far back behind their will, the whole substance and very core\nof their hearts is wholly corrupt and enslaved to sin.  And thus it is\nthat while their renewed and delivered will works out, so far, their\nsalvation in their walk and conversation among men, the helplessness of\ntheir will in the cleansing and the keeping of their hearts is to the end\nthe sorrow and the mystery of their sanctification.  To will was present\nwith Paul, and with Bunyan, and with Boston; but their heart--they could\nnot with all their keeping keep their heart.  No man can; no man who has\nat all tried it can.  'Might I but choose mine own thoughts, I would\nchoose never to think of these things more: but when I would be doing of\nthat which is best, that which is worst is with me.'  We can choose\nalmost all things.  Our will and choice have almost all things at their\ndisposal.  We can choose our God.  We can choose life or death.  We can\nchoose heaven or hell.  We can choose our church, our minister, our\nbooks, our companions, our words, our works, and, to some extent, our\ninward thoughts, but only to some extent.  We can encourage this or that\nthought; we can entertain it and dwell upon it; or we can detect it,\ndetest it, and cast it out.  But that secret place in our heart where our\nthoughts hide and harbour, and out of which they spring so suddenly upon\nthe mind and the heart, the imagination and the conscience,--of that\nsecretest of all secret places, God alone is able to say, I search the\nheart.  'As for secret thoughts,' says our author, speaking of his own\nformer religious life, 'I took no notice of them, neither did I\nunderstand what Satan's temptations were, nor how they were to be\nwithstood and resisted.'  But now all these things are his deepest grief,\nas they are ours,--as many of us as have been truly turned in our deepest\nhearts to God.\n\n'But,' replied Prudence, 'do you not find sometimes as if those things\nwere vanquished which at other times are your perplexity?'  'Yes, but\nthat is but seldom; but they are to me golden hours in which such things\nhappen to me.'  'Can you remember by what means you find your annoyances\nat times as if they were vanquished?'  'Yes, when I think what I saw at\nthe cross, that will do it; and when I look upon my broidered coat, that\nwill do it; also, when I look into the roll that I carry in my bosom,\nthat will do it; and when my thoughts wax warm about whither I am going,\nthat will do it.'  Yes; and these same things have many a time done it to\nourselves also.  We also, my brethren--let me tell you your own\nundeniable experience--we also have such golden hours sometimes, when we\nfeel as if we should never again have such an evil heart within us.  The\nCross of Christ to us also has done it.  It is of such golden hours that\nIsaac Watts sings in his noble hymn:\n\n   'When I survey the wondrous Cross;'\n\nand as often as we sing that hymn with our eyes upon the object, that\nwill for a time vanquish our worst cogitations.  Also, when we read the\nroll that we too carry in our bosom--that is to say, when we go back into\nour past life till we see it and feel it all, and till we can think and\nspeak of nothing else but the sin that abounded in it and the grace that\nmuch more abounded, that has a thousand times given us also golden hours,\neven rest from our own evil hearts.  And we also have often made our\nhearts too hot for sin to show itself, when we read our hearts deep into\nsuch books as _The Paradiso_, _The Pilgrim's Progress_, _The Saint's\nRest_, _The Serious Call_, _The Religious Affections_, and such like.\nThese books have often vanquished our annoyances, and given us golden\nhours on the earth.  Yes, but that is but seldom.\n\n'Now, what is it,' asked Prudence, as she wound up this so particular\ncolloquy, 'that makes you so desirous to go to Mount Zion?'\n\n'Why,' replied the pilgrim, and the water stood in his eyes, 'why, there\nI hope to see Him alive that did hang dead on the cross; and there I hope\nto be rid of all those things that to this day are an annoyance to me;\nthere they say is no death, and there shall I dwell with such company as\nI love best.  For, to tell you truth, I love Him, because by Him I was\neased of my burden, and I am weary of my inward sickness; and I would\nfain be where I shall die no more, and for ever with that company that\nshall continually cry, Holy, holy, holy.'\n\n\n\n\nCHARITY\n\n\n   'I will walk within my house with a perfect heart.'--David.\n\nThere can be nobody here to-night so stark stupid as to suppose that the\npilgrim had run away from home and left his wife and children to the work-\nhouse.  There have been wiseacres who have found severe fault with John\nBunyan because he made his Puritan pilgrim such a bad husband and such an\nunnatural father.  But nobody possessed of a spark of common sense, not\nto say religion or literature, would ever commit himself to such an utter\nimbecility as that.  John Bunyan's pilgrim, whatever he may have been\nbefore he became a pilgrim, all the time he was a pilgrim, was the most\nfaithful, affectionate, and solicitous husband in all the country round\nabout, and the tenderest, the most watchful, and the wisest of fathers.\nThis pilgrim stayed all the more at home that he went so far away from\nhome; he accomplished his whole wonderful pilgrimage beside his own forge\nand at his own fireside; and he entered the Celestial City amid trumpets\nand bells and harps and psalms, while all the time sleeping in his own\nhumble bed.  The House Beautiful, therefore, to which we have now come in\nhis company, is not some remote and romantic mansion away up among the\nmountains a great many days' journey distant from this poor man's\neveryday home.  The House Beautiful was nothing else,--what else better,\nwhat else so good could it be?--than just this Christian man's first\ncommunion Sabbath and his first communion table (first, that is, after\nhis true conversion from sin to God and his confessed entrance into a new\nlife), while the country from whence he had come out, and concerning\nwhich both Piety and Prudence catechised him so closely, was just his\nformer life of open ungodliness and all his evil walk and conversation\nwhile he was as yet living without God and without hope in the world.  The\ncountry on which he confessed that he now looked back with so much shame\nand detestation was not England or Bedfordshire, but the wicked life he\nhad lived in that land and in that shire.  And when Charity asked him as\nto whether he was a married man and had a family, she knew quite well\nthat he was, only she made a pretence of asking him those domestic\nquestions in order thereby to start the touching conversation.\n\nBeginning, then, at home, as she always began, Charity said to Christian,\n'Have you a family?  Are you a married man?'  'I have a wife and four\nsmall children,' answered Christian.  'And why did you not bring them\nwith you?'  Then Christian wept and said, 'Oh, how willingly would I have\ndone so, but they were all of them utterly averse to my going on\npilgrimage.'  'But you should have talked to them and have shown them\ntheir danger.'  'So I did,' he replied, 'but I seemed to them as one that\nmocked.'  Now, this of talking, and, especially, of talking about\nreligious things to children, is one of the most difficult things in the\nworld,--that is, to do it well.  Some people have the happy knack of\ntalking to their own and to other people's children so as always to\ninterest and impress them.  But such happy people are few.  Most people\ntalk at their children whenever they begin to talk to them, and thus,\nwithout knowing it, they nauseate their children with their conversation\naltogether.  To respect a little child, to stand in some awe of a little\nchild, to choose your topics, your opportunities, your neighbourhood,\nyour moods and his as well as all your words, and always to speak your\nsincerest, simplest, most straightforward and absolutely wisest is\nindispensable with a child.  Take your mannerisms, your condescensions,\nyour affectations, your moralisings, and all your insincerities to your\ndebauched equals, but bring your truest and your best to your child.\nUnless you do so, you will be sure to lay yourself open to a look that\nwill suddenly go through you, and that will swiftly convey to you that\nyour child sees through you and despises you and your conversation too.\n'You should not only have talked to your children of their danger,' said\nCharity, 'but you should have shown them their danger.'  Yes, Charity;\nbut a man must himself see his own and his children's danger too, before\nhe can show it to them, as well as see it clearly at the time he is\ntrying to show it to them.  And how many fathers, do you suppose, have\nthe eyes to see such danger, and how then can they shew such danger to\ntheir children, of all people?  Once get fathers to see dangers or\nanything else aright, and then you will not need to tell them how they\nare to instruct and impress their children.  Nature herself will then\ntell them how to talk to their children, and when Nature teaches, all our\nchildren will immediately and unweariedly listen.\n\nBut, especially, said Charity, as your boys grew up--I think you said\nthat you had four boys and no girls?--well, then, all the more, as they\ngrew up, you should have taken occasion to talk to them about yourself.\nDid your little boy never petition you for a story about yourself; and as\nhe grew up did you never confide to him what you have never confided to\nhis mother?  Something, as I was saying, that made you sad when you were\na boy and a rising man, with a sadness your son can still see in you as\nyou talk to him.  In conversations like that a boy finds out what a\nfriend he has in his father, and his father from that day has his best\nfriend in his son.  And then as Matthew grew up and began to out-grow his\nbrothers and to form friendships out of doors, did you study to talk at\nthe proper time to him, and on subjects on which you never venture to\ntalk about to any other boy or man?  You men, Charity went on to say,\nlive in a world of your own, and though we women are well out of it, yet\nwe cannot be wholly ignorant that it is there.  And, we may well be\nwrong, but we cannot but think that fathers, if not mothers, might safely\ntell their men-children at least more than they do tell them of the sure\ndangers that lie straight in their way, of the sorrow that men and women\nbring on one another, and of what is the destruction of so many cities.\nWe may well be wrong, for we are only women, but I have told you what we\nall think who keep this house and hear the reports and repentances of\npilgrims, both Piety and Prudence and I myself.  And I, for one, largely\nagree with the three women.  It is easier said than done.  But the simple\nsaying of it may perhaps lead some fathers and mothers to think about it,\nand to ask whether or no it is desirable and advisable to do it, which of\nthem is to attempt it, on what occasion, and to what extent.  Christian\nby this time had the Slough of Despond with all its history and all that\nit contained to tell his eldest son about; he had the wicket gate also\njust above the slough, the hill Difficulty, the Interpreter's House, the\nplace somewhat ascending with a cross standing upon it, and a little\nbelow, in the bottom, a sepulchre, not to speak of her who assaulted\nFaithful, whose name was Wanton, and who at one time was like to have\ndone even that trusty pilgrim a lifelong mischief.  Christian rather\nboasted to Charity of his wariness, especially in the matter of his\nchildren's amusements, but Charity seemed to think that he had carried\nhis wariness into other matters besides amusements, without the best\npossible results there either.  I have sometimes thought with her that\namong our multitude of congresses and conferences of all kinds of people\nand upon all manner of subjects, room and membership might have been\nfound for a conference of fathers and mothers.  Fathers to give and take\ncounsel about how to talk to their sons, and mothers to their daughters.\nI am much of Charity's mind, that, if more were done at home, and done\nwith some frankness, for our sons and daughters, there would be fewer\nfathers and mothers found sitting at the Lord's table alone.  'You should\nhave talked to them,' said Charity, with some severity in her tones,\n'and, especially, you should have told them of your own sorrow.'\n\nAnd then, coming still closer up to Christian, Charity asked him whether\nhe prayed, both before and after he so spoke to his children, that God\nwould bless what he said to them.  Charity believeth all things, hopeth\nall things, but when she saw this man about to sit down all alone at the\nsupper table, it took Charity all her might to believe that he had both\nspoken to his children and at the same time prayed to God for them as he\nought to have done.  Our old ministers used to lay this vow on all\nfathers and mothers at the time of baptism, that they were to pray both\nwith and for their children.  Now, that is a fine formula; it is a most\ncomprehensive, and, indeed, exhaustive formula.  Both with and for.  And\nespecially with.  With, at such and such times, on such and such\noccasions, and in such and such places.  At those times, say, when your\nboy has told a lie, or struck his little brother, or stolen something, or\ndestroyed something.  To pray with him at such times, and to pray with\nhim properly, and, if you feel able to do it, and are led to do it, to\ntell him something after the prayer about yourself, and your own not-yet-\nforgotten boyhood, and your father; it makes a fine time to mix talk and\nprayer together in that way.  Charity is not easily provoked, but the\nlonger she lives and keeps the table in the House Beautiful the more she\nis provoked to think that there is far too little prayer among pilgrims;\nfar too little of all kinds of prayer, but especially prayer with and for\ntheir children.  But hard as it was to tell all the truth at that moment\nabout Christian's past walk in his house at home, yet he was able with\nthe simple truth to say that he had indeed prayed both with and for his\nchildren, and that, as they knew and could not but remember, not seldom.\nYes, he said, I did sometimes so pray with my boys, and that too, as you\nmay believe, with much affection, for you must think that my four boys\nwere all very dear to me.  And it is my firm belief that all that good\nman's boys will come right yet: Matthew and Joseph and James and Samuel\nand all.  'With much affection.'  I like that.  I have unbounded faith in\nthose prayers, both for and with, in which there is much affection.  It\nis want of affection, and want of imagination, that shipwrecks so many of\nour prayers.  But this man's prayers had both these elements of sure\nsuccess in them, and they must come at last to harbour.  At that one word\n'with much affection,' this man's closet door flies open and I see the\nold pilgrim first alone, and then with his arms round his eldest son's\nneck, and both father and son weeping together till they are ashamed to\nappear at supper till they have washed their faces and got their most\nsmiling and everyday looks put on again.  You just wait and see if\nMatthew and all the four boys down to the last do not escape into the\nCelestial City before the gate is shut.  And when it is asked, Who are\nthese and whence came they? listen to their song and you will hear those\nfour happy children saying that their father, when they were yet boys,\nboth talked with them and prayed for and with them with so much affection\nthat therefore they are before the throne.\n\nWhy, then, with such a father and with such makable boys, why was this\nhousehold brought so near everlasting shipwreck?  It was the mother that\ndid it.  In one word, it was the wife and the mother that did it.  It was\nthe mistress of the house who wrought the mischief here.  She was a poor\nwoman, she was a poor man's wife, and one would have thought that she had\nlittle enough temptation to harm upon this present world.  But there it\nwas, she did hang upon it as much as if she had been the mother of the\nfinest daughters and the most promising boys in all the town.  Things\nlike this were from time to time reported to her by her neighbours.  One\nfine lady had been heard to say that she would never have for her\ntradesman any man who frequented conventicles, who was not content with\nthe religion of his betters, and who must needs scorn the parish church\nand do despite to the saints' days.  Another gossip asked her what she\nexpected to make of her great family of boys when it was well known that\nall the gentry in the neighbourhood but two or three had sworn that they\nwould never have a hulking Puritan to brush their boots or run their\nerrands.  And it almost made her husband burn his book and swear that he\nwould never be seen at another prayer-meeting when his wife so often said\nto him that he should never have had children, that he should never have\nmade her his wife, and that he was not like this when they were first man\nand wife.  And in her bitterness she would name this wife or that maid,\nand would say, You should have married her.  She would have gone to the\nmeeting-house with you as often as you wished.  Her sons are far enough\nfrom good service to please you.  'My wife,' he softly said, 'was afraid\nof losing the world.  And then, after that, my growing sons were soon\ngiven over, all I could do, to the foolish delights of youth, so that,\nwhat by one thing and what by another, they left me to wander in this\nmanner alone.'  And I suppose there is scarcely a household among\nourselves where there have not been serious and damaging\nmisunderstandings between old-fashioned fathers and their young people\nabout what the old people called the 'foolish delights' of their sons and\ndaughters.  And in thinking this matter over, I have often been struck\nwith how Job did when his sons and his daughters were bent upon feasting\nand dancing in their eldest brother's house.  The old man did not lay an\ninterdict upon the entertainment.  He did not take part in it, but\nneither did he absolutely forbid it.  If it must be it must be, said the\nwise patriarch.  And since I do not know whom they may meet there, or\nwhat they may be tempted to do, I will sanctify them all.  I will not go\nup into my bed till I have prayed for all my seven sons and three\ndaughters, each one of them by their names; and till they come home\nsafely I will rise every morning and offer burnt-offerings according to\nthe number of them all.  And do you think that those burnt-offerings and\naccompanying intercessions would go for nothing when the great wind came\nfrom the wilderness and smote the four corners of the banqueting-house?\nIf you cannot banish the love of foolish delights out the hearts of your\nsons and daughters, then do not quarrel with them over such things; a\nfamily quarrel in a Christian man's house is surely far worse than a\nfeast or a dance.  Only, if they must feast and dance and such like, be\nyou all the more diligent in your exercises at home on their behalf till\nthey are back again, where, after all, they like best to be, in their\ngood, kind, liberal, and loving father's house.\n\nHave you a family?  Are you a married man?  Or, if not, do you hope one\nday to be?  Then attend betimes to what Charity says to Christian in the\nHouse Beautiful, and not less to what he says back again to her.\n\n\n\n\nSHAME\n\n\n   'Whosoever shall be ashamed of Me, and of My words, of him shall the\n   Son of Man be ashamed, when He shall come in His own glory, and in His\n   Father's, and of the holy angels.'--Our Lord.\n\nShame has not got the attention that it deserves either from our moral\nphilosophers or from our practical and experimental divines.  And yet it\nwould well repay both classes of students to attend far more to shame.\nFor, what really is shame?  Shame is an original instinct planted in our\nsouls by our Maker, and intended by Him to act as a powerful and pungent\ncheck to our doing of any act that is mean or dishonourable in the eyes\nof our fellow-men.  Shame is a kind of social conscience.  Shame is a\nsecondary sense of sin.  In shame, our imagination becomes a kind of\nmoral sense.  Shame sets up in our bosom a not undivine tribunal, which\njudges us and sentences us in the absence or the silence of nobler and\nmore awful sanctions and sentences.  But then, as things now are with us,\nlike all the rest of the machinery of the soul, shame has gone sadly\nastray both in its objects and in its operations, till it demands a long,\na severe, and a very noble discipline over himself before any man can\nkeep shame in its proper place and directed in upon its proper objects.\nIn the present disorder of our souls, we are all acutely ashamed of many\nthings that are not the proper objects of shame at all; while, on the\nother hand, we feel no shame at all at multitudes of things that are\nreally most blameworthy, dishonourable, and contemptible.  We are ashamed\nof things in our lot and in our circumstances that, if we only knew it,\nare our opportunity and our honour; we are ashamed of things that are the\nclear will and the immediate dispensation of Almighty God.  And, then, we\nfeel no shame at all at the most dishonourable things, and that simply\nbecause the men around us are too coarse in their morals and too dull in\ntheir sensibilities to see any shame in such things.  And thus it comes\nabout that, in the very best of men, their still perverted sense of shame\nremains in them a constant snare and a source of temptation.  A man of a\nfine nature feels keenly the temptation to shrink from those paths of\ntruth and duty that expose him to the cruel judgments and the coarse and\nscandalising attacks of public and private enemies.  It was in the Valley\nof Humiliation that Shame set upon Faithful, and it is a real humiliation\nto any man of anything of this pilgrim's fine character and feeling to be\nattacked, scoffed at, and held up to blame and opprobrium.  And the finer\nand the more affectionate any man's heart and character are, the more he\nfeels and shrinks from the coarse treatment this world gives to those\nwhom it has its own reasons to hate and assail.  They had the stocks and\nthe pillory and the shears in Bunyan's rude and uncivilised day, by means\nof which many of the best men of that day were exposed to the insults and\nbrutalities of the mob.  The newspapers would be the pillory of our day,\nwere it not that, on the whole, the newspaper press is conducted with\nsuch scrupulous fairness and with a love of truth and justice such that\nno man need shrink from the path of duty through fear of insult and\ninjury.\n\nBut it is time to come to the encounter between Shame and Faithful in the\nValley of Humiliation.  Shame, properly speaking, is not one of our\nBunyan gallery of portraits at all.  Shame, at best, is but a kind of\nsecondary character in this dramatic book.  We do not meet with Shame\ndirectly; we only hear about him through the report of Faithful.  That\nfirst-class pilgrim was almost overcome of Shame, so hot was their\nencounter; and it is the extraordinarily feeling, graphic, and realistic\naccount of their encounter that Faithful gives us that has led me to take\nup Shame for our reproof and correction to-night.\n\nReligion altogether, but especially all personal religion, said Shame to\nFaithful, is an unmanly business.  There is a certain touch of smallness\nand pitifulness, he said, in all religion, but especially in experimental\nreligion.  It brings a man into junctures and into companionships, and it\nputs offices and endurances upon one such as try a man if he has any\ngreatness of spirit about him at all.  This life on which you are\nentering, said Shame, will cost you many a blush before you are done with\nit.  You will lay yourself open to many a scoff.  The Puritan religion,\nand all the ways of that religious fraternity, are peculiarly open to the\nshafts of ridicule.  Now, all that was quite true.  There was no denying\nthe truth of what Shame said.  And Faithful felt the truth of it all, and\nfelt it most keenly, as he confessed to Christian.  The blood came into\nmy face as the fellow spake, and what he said for a time almost beat me\nout of the upward way altogether.  But in this dilemma also all true\nChristians can fall back, as Faithful fell back, upon the example of\ntheir Master.  In this as in every other experience of temptation and\nendurance, our Lord is the forerunner and the example of His people.  Our\nLord was in all points tempted like as we are, and among all His other\ntemptations He was tempted to be ashamed of His work on earth and of the\nlife and the death His work led Him into.  He must have often felt\nashamed at the treatment He received during His life of humiliation, as\nit is well called; and He must often have felt ashamed of His disciples:\nbut all that is blotted out by the crowning shame of the cross.  We hang\nour worst criminals rather than behead or shoot them, in order to heap up\nthe utmost possible shame and disgrace upon them, as well as to execute\njustice upon them.  And what the hangman's rope is in our day, all that\nthe cross was in our Lord's day.  And, then, as if the cross itself was\nnot shame enough, all the circumstances connected with His cross were\nplanned and carried out so as to heap the utmost possible shame and\nhumiliation upon His head.  Our prison warders have to watch the\nmurderers in their cells night and day, lest they should take their own\nlife in order to escape the hangman's rope; but our Lord, keenly as He\nfelt His coming shame, said to His horrified disciples, Behold, we go up\nto Jerusalem, when the Son of Man shall be mocked, and spitefully\nentreated, and spitted on; and they shall scourge Him and put Him to\ndeath.  Do you ever think of your Lord in His shame?  How they made a\nfool of Him, as we say.  How they took off His own clothes and put on Him\nnow a red cloak and now a white; how they put a sword of lath in His\nhand, and a crown of thorns on His head; how they bowed the knee before\nHim, and asked royal favours from Him; and then how they spat in His\nface, and struck Him on the cheek, while the whole house rang with shouts\nof laughter.  And, then, the last indignity of man, how they stripped Him\nnaked and lashed His naked and bleeding body to a whipping-post.  And how\nthey wagged their heads and put out their tongues at Him when He was on\nthe tree, and invited Him to come down and preach to them now, and they\nwould all become His disciples.  Did not Shame say the simple truth when\nhe warned Faithful that religion had always and from the beginning made\nits followers the ridicule of their times?\n\nIf you are really going to be a religious man, Shame went on, you will\nhave to carry about with you a very tender conscience, and a more unmanly\nand miserable thing than a tender conscience I cannot conceive.  A tender\nconscience will cost you something, let me tell you, to keep it.  If\nnothing else, a tender conscience will all your life long expose you to\nthe mockery and the contempt of all the brave spirits of the time.  That\nalso is true.  At any rate, a tender conscience will undoubtedly compel\nits possessor to face the brave spirits of the time.  There is a good\nstory told to this present point about Sir Robert Peel, a Prime Minister\nof our Queen.  When a young man, Peel was one of the guests at a select\ndinner-party in the West-end of London.  And after the ladies had left\nthe table the conversation of the gentlemen took a turn such that it\ncould not have taken as long as the ladies were present.  Peel took no\nshare in the stories or the merriment that went on, and, at last, he rose\nup and ordered his carriage, and, with a burning face, left the room.\nWhen he was challenged as to why he had broken up the pleasant party so\nsoon, he could only reply that his conscience would not let him stay any\nlonger.  No doubt Peel felt the mocking laughter that he left behind him,\nbut, as Shame said to Faithful, the tenderness of the young statesman's\nconscience compelled him to do as he did.  But we are not all Peels.  And\nthere are plenty of workshops and offices and dinner-tables in our own\ncity, where young men who would walk up to the cannon's mouth without\nflinching have not had Peel's courage to protest against indecency or to\nconfess that they belonged to an evangelical church.  If a church is only\nsufficiently unevangelical there is no trial of conscience or of courage\nin confessing that you belong to it.  But as Shame so ably and honestly\nsaid, that type of religion that creates a tender conscience in its\nfollowers, and sets them to watch their words and their ways, and makes\nthem tie themselves up from all hectoring liberty--to choose that\nreligion, and to cleave to it to the end, will make a young man the\nridicule still of all the brave spirits round about him.  Ambitious young\nmen get promotion and reward every day among us for desertions and\napostasies in religion, for which, if they had been guilty of the like in\nwar, they would have been shot.  'And so you are a Free Churchman, I am\ntold.'  That was all that was said.  But the sharp youth understood\nwithout any more words, and he made his choice accordingly; till it is\nbecoming a positive surprise to find the rising members of certain\nprofessions in certain churches.  The Quakers have a proverb in England\nthat a family carriage never drives for two generations past the parish\nchurch door.  Of which state of matters Shame showed himself a shrewd\nprophet two hundred years ago when he said that but few of the rich and\nthe mighty and the wise remained long of Faithful's Puritan opinion\nunless they were first persuaded to be fools, and to be of a voluntary\nfondness to venture the loss of all.\n\nAnd I will tell you two other things, said sharp-sighted and plain-spoken\nShame, that your present religion will compel you to do if you adhere to\nit.  It will compel you from time to time to ask your neighbour's\nforgiveness even for petty faults, and it will insist with you that you\nmake restitution when you have done the weak and the friendless any hurt\nor any wrong.  And every manly mind will tell you that life is not worth\nhaving on such humbling terms as those are.  Whatever may be thought\nabout Shame in other respects, it cannot be denied that he had a sharp\neye for the facts of life, and a shrewd tongue in setting those facts\nforth.  He has hit the blot exactly in the matter of our first duty to\nour neighbour; he has put his finger on one of the matters where so many\nof us, through a false shame, come short.  It costs us a tremendous\nstruggle with our pride to go to our neighbour and to ask his forgiveness\nfor a fault, petty fault or other.  Did you ever do it?  When did you do\nit last, to whom, and for what?  One Sabbath morning, now many years ago,\nI had occasion to urge this elementary evangelical duty on my people\nhere, and I did it as plainly as I could.  Next day one of my young men,\nwho is now a devoted and honoured elder, came to me and told me that he\nhad done that morning what his conscience yesterday told him in the\nchurch to do.  He had gone to a neighbour's place of business, had asked\nfor an interview, and had begged his neighbour's pardon.  I am sure\nneither of those two men have forgotten that moment, and the thought of\nit has often since nerved me to speak plainly about some of their most\nunwelcome duties to my people.  Shame, no doubt, pulled back my noble\nfriend's hand when it was on the office bell, but, like Faithful in the\ntext, he shook him out of his company and went in.  I spoke of the\nremarkable justice of the newspaper press in the opening of these\nremarks.  And it so happens that, as I lay down my pen to rest my hand\nafter writing this sentence and lift a London evening paper, I read this\neditorial note, set within the well-known brackets at the end of an\nindignant and expostulatory letter: ['Our correspondent's complaint is\njust.  The paragraph imputing bad motives should not have been\nadmitted.']  I have no doubt that editor felt some shame as he handed\nthat apologetic note to the printer.  But not to speak of any other\nrecognition and recompense, he has the recompense of the recognition of\nall honourable-minded men who have read that honourable admission and\napology.\n\nShame was quite right in his scoff about restitution also.  For\nrestitution rings like a trumpet tone through the whole of the law of\nMoses, and then the New Testament republishes that law if only in the\nexquisite story of Zaccheus.  And, indeed, take it altogether, I do not\nknow where to find in the same space a finer vindication of Puritan\npulpit ethics than just in this taunting and terrifying attack on\nFaithful.  There is no better test of true religion both as it is\npreached and practised than just to ask for and to grant forgiveness, and\nto offer and accept restitution.  Now, does your public and private life\ndefend and adorn your minister's pulpit in these two so practical\nmatters?  Could your minister point to you as a proof of the ethics of\nevangelical teaching?  Can any one in this city speak up in defence of\nyour church and thus protest: 'Say what you like about that church and\nits ministers, all I can say is, that its members know how to make an\napology; as, also, how to pay back with interest what they at one time\ndamaged or defrauded'?  Can any old creditor's widow or orphan stand up\nfor our doctrine and defend our discipline pointing to you?  If you go on\nto be a Puritan, said Shame to Faithful, you will have to ask your\nneighbour's forgiveness even for petty faults, and you will have to make\nrestitution with usury where you have taken anything from any one, and\nhow will you like that?\n\nAnd what did you say to all this, my brother?  Say?  I could not tell\nwhat to say at the first.  I felt my blood coming up into my face at some\nof the things that Shame said and threatened.  But, at last, I began to\nconsider that that which is highly esteemed among men is often had in\nabomination with God.  And I said to myself again, Shame tells me what\nmen do and what men think, but he has told me nothing about what He\nthinks with Whom I shall soon have alone to do.  Therefore, thought I,\nwhat God thinks and says is wisest and best, let all the men of the world\nsay what they will.  Let all false shame, then, depart from my heart, for\nhow else shall I look upon my Lord, and how shall He look upon me at His\ncoming?\n\n\n\n\nTALKATIVE\n\n\n   'A man full of talk.'--Zophar.\n\n   'Let thy words be few.'--The Preacher.\n\n   'The soul of religion is the practick part.'--Christian.\n\nSince we all have a tongue, and since so much of our time is taken up\nwith talk, a simple catalogue of the sins of the tongue is enough to\nterrify us.  The sins of the tongue take up a much larger space in the\nBible than we would believe till we have begun to suffer from other men's\ntongues and especially from our own.  The Bible speaks a great deal more\nand a great deal plainer about the sins of the tongue than any of our\npulpits dare to do.  In the Psalms alone you would think that the\npsalmists scarcely suffer from anything else worth speaking about but the\nevil tongues of their friends and of their enemies.  The Book of Proverbs\nalso is full of the same lashing scourge.  And James the Just, in a\npassage of terrible truth and power, tells us that we are already as good\nas perfect men if we can bridle our tongue; and that, on the other hand,\nif we do not bridle our tongue, all our seeming to be religious is a sham\nand a self-deception,--that man's religion is vain.\n\nWith many men and many women great talkativeness is a matter of simple\ntemperament and mental constitution.  And a talkative habit would be a\nchildlike and an innocent habit if the heart of talker and the hearts of\nthose to whom he talks so much were only full of truth and love.  But our\nhearts and our neighbours' hearts being what they are, in the multitude\nof words there wanteth not sin.  So much of our talk is about our absent\nneighbours, and there are so many misunderstandings, prejudices,\nambitions, competitions, oppositions, and all kinds of cross-interests\nbetween us and our absent neighbours, that we cannot long talk about them\ntill our hearts have run our tongues into all manner of trespass.  Bishop\nButler discourses on the great dangers that beset a talkative temperament\nwith almost more than all his usual sagacity, seriousness, and depth.  And\nthose who care to see how the greatest of our modern moralists deals with\ntheir besetting sin should lose no time in possessing and mastering\nButler's great discourse.  It is a truly golden discourse, and it ought\nto be read at least once a month by all the men and all the women who\nhave tongues in their heads.  Bishop Butler points out to his offending\nreaders, in a way they can never forget, the certain mischief they do to\nthemselves and to other people just by talking too much.  But there are\nfar worse sins that our tongues fall into than the bad enough sins that\nspring out of impertinent and unrestrained loquacity.  There are many\ntimes when our talk, long or short, is already simple and downright evil.\nIt is ten to one, it is a hundred to one, that you do not know and would\nnot believe how much you fall every day and in every conversation into\none or other of the sins of the tongue.  If you would only begin to see\nand accept this, that every time you speak or hear about your absent\nneighbour what you would not like him to speak or hear about you, you are\nin that a talebearer, a slanderer, a backbiter, or a liar,--when you\nbegin to see and admit that about yourself, you will not wonder at what\nthe Bible says with such bitter indignation about the diabolical sins of\nthe tongue.  If you would just begin to-night to watch yourselves--on the\nway home from church, at home after the day is over, to-morrow morning\nwhen the letters and the papers are opened, and so on,--how\ninstinctively, incessantly, irrepressibly you speak about the absent in a\nway you would be astounded and horrified to be told they were at that\nmoment speaking about you, then you would soon be wiser than all your\nteachers in the sins and in the government of the tongue.  And you would\nseven times every day pluck out your tongue before God till He gives it\nback to you clean and kind in that land where all men shall love their\nneighbours, present and absent, as themselves.\n\nTake detraction for an example, one of the commonest, and, surely, one of\nthe most detestable of the sins of the tongue.  And the etymology here,\nas in this whole region, is most instructive and most impressive.  In\ndetraction you _draw away_ something from your neighbour that is most\nprecious and most dear to him.  In detraction you are a thief, and a\nthief of the falsest and wickedest kind.  For your neighbour's purse is\ntrash, while his good name is far more precious to him than all his gold.\nSome one praises your neighbour in your hearing, his talents, his\nperformances, his character, his motives, or something else that belongs\nto your neighbour.  Some one does that in your hearing who either does\nnot know you, or who wishes to torture and expose you, and you fall\nstraight into the snare thus set for you, and begin at once to belittle,\ndepreciate, detract from, and run down your neighbour, who has been too\nmuch praised for your peace of mind and your self-control.  You insinuate\nsomething to his disadvantage and dishonour.  You quote some authority\nyou have heard to his hurt.  And so on past all our power to picture you.\nFor detraction has a thousand devices taught to it by the master of all\nsuch devices, wherewith to drag down and defile the great and the good.\nBut with all you can say or do, you cannot for many days get out of your\nmind the heart-poisoning praise you heard spoken of your envied\nneighbour.  Never praise any potter's pots in the hearing of another\npotter, said the author of the _Nicomachean Ethics_.  Aristotle said\npotter's pots, but he really all the time was thinking of a philosopher's\nbooks; only he said potter's pots to draw off his readers' attention from\nhimself.  Now, always remember that ancient and wise advice.  Take care\nhow you praise a potter's pots, a philosopher's books, a woman's beauty,\na speaker's speech, a preacher's sermon to another potter, philosopher,\nwoman, speaker, or preacher; unless, indeed, you maliciously wish\nsecretly to torture them, or publicly to expose them, or, if their\nsanctification is begun, to sanctify them to their most inward and\nspiritual sanctification.\n\nBackbiting, again, would seem at first sight to be a sin of the teeth\nrather than of the tongue, only, no sharpest tooth can tear you when your\nback is turned like your neighbour's evil tongue.  Pascal has many\ndreadful things about the corruption and misery of man, but he has\nnothing that strikes its terrible barb deeper into all our consciences\nthan this, that if all our friends only knew what we have said about them\nbehind their back, we would not have four friends in all the world.\nNeither we would.  I know I would not have one.  How many would you have?\nAnd who would they be?  You cannot name them.  I defy you to name them.\nThey do not exist.  The tongue can no man tame.\n\n'Giving of characters' also takes up a large part of our everyday\nconversation.  We cannot well help characterising, describing, and\nestimating one another.  But, as far as possible, when we see the\nconversation again approaching that dangerous subject, we should call to\nmind our past remorse; we should suppose our absent neighbour present; we\nshould imagine him in our place and ourselves in his place, and so turn\nthe rising talk into another channel.  For, the truth is, few of us are\nable to do justice to our neighbour when we begin to discuss and describe\nhim.  Generosity in our talk is far easier for us than justice.  It was\nthis incessant giving of characters that our Lord had in His eye when He\nsaid in His Sermon on the Mount, Judge not.  But our Lord might as well\nnever have uttered that warning word for all the attention we give it.\nFor we go on judging one another and sentencing one another as if we were\nentirely and in all things blameless ourselves, and as if God had set us\nup in our blamelessness in His seat of judgment over all our fellows.  How\nseldom do we hear any one say in a public debate or in a private\nconversation, I don't know; or, It is no matter of mine; or, I feel that\nI am not in possession of all the facts; or, It may be so, but I must not\njudge.  We never hear such things as these said.  No one pays the least\nattention to the Preacher on the Mount.  And if any one says to us, I\nmust not judge, we never forgive him, because his humility and his\nobedience so condemn all our ill-formed, prejudiced, rash, and\nill-natured judgments of our neighbour.  Since, therefore, so Butler sums\nup, it is so hard for us to enter on our neighbour's character without\noffending the law of Christ, we should learn to decline that kind of\nconversation altogether, and determine to get over that strong\ninclination most of us have, to be continually talking about the\nconcerns, the behaviour, and the deserts of our neighbours.\n\nNow, it was all those vices of the tongue in full outbreak in the day of\nJames the Just that made that apostle, half in sorrow, half in anger,\ndemand of all his readers that they should henceforth begin to bridle\ntheir tongues.  And, like all that most practical apostle's counsels,\nthat is a most impressive and memorable commandment.  For, it is well\nknown that all sane men who either ride on or drive unruly horses, take\ngood care to bridle their horses well before they bring them out of their\nstable door.  And then they keep their bridle-hand firm closed on the\nbridle-rein till their horses are back in the stable again.  Especially\nand particularly they keep a close eye and a firm hand on their horse's\nbridle on all steep inclines and at all sharp angles and sudden turns in\nthe road; when sudden trains are passing and when stray dogs are barking.\nIf the rider or the driver of a horse did not look at nothing else but\nthe bridle of his horse, both he and his horse under him would soon be in\nthe ditch,--as so many of us are at the present moment because we have an\nuntamed tongue in our mouth on which we have not yet begun to put the\nbridle of truth and justice and brotherly love.  Indeed, such woe and\nmisery has an untamed tongue wrought in other churches and in other and\nmore serious ages than ours, that special religious brotherhoods have\nbeen banded together just on the special and strict engagement that they\nwould above all things put a bridle on their tongues.  'What are the\nchief cares of a young convert?' asked such a convert at an aged\nCarthusian.  'I said I will take heed to my ways that I trespass not with\nmy tongue,' replied the saintly father.  'Say no more for the present,'\ninterrupted the youthful beginner; 'I will go home and practise that, and\nwill come again when I have performed it.'\n\nNow, whatever faults that tall man had who took up so much of Faithful's\ntime and attention, he was a saint compared with the men and the women\nwho have just passed before us.  Talkative, as John Bunyan so scornfully\nnames that tall man, though he undoubtedly takes up too much time and too\nmuch space in Bunyan's book, was not a busybody in other men's matters at\nany rate.  Nobody could call him a detractor or a backbiter or a\ntalebearer or a liar.  Christian knew him well, and had known him long,\nbut Christian was not afraid to leave him alone with Faithful.  We all\nknow men we feel it unsafe to leave long alone with our friends.  We feel\nsure that they will be talking about us, and that to our hurt, as soon as\nour backs are about.  But to give that tall man his due, he was not given\nwith all his talk to tale-bearing or scandal or detraction.  Had he been\nguilty of any of these things, Faithful would soon have found him out,\nand would have left him to go to the Celestial City by himself.  But,\nafter talking for half a day with Talkative, instead of finding out\nanything wrong in the tall man's talk, Faithful was so taken and so\nstruck with it, that he stepped across to Christian and said, 'What a\nbrave companion we have got!  Surely this man will make a most excellent\npilgrim!'  'So I once thought too,' said Christian, 'till I went to live\nbeside him, and have to do with him in the business of daily life.'  Yes,\nit is near neighbourhood and the business of everyday life that try a\ntalking man.  If you go to a meeting for prayer, and hear some men\npraying and speaking on religious subjects, you would say to yourself,\nWhat a good man that is, and how happy must his wife and children and\nservants and neighbours be with such an example always before them, and\nwith such an intercessor for them always with God!  But if you were to go\nhome with that so devotional man, and try to do business with him, and\nwere compelled to cross him and go against him, you would find out why\nChristian smiled so when Faithful was so full of Talkative's praises.\n\nBut of all the religiously-loquacious men of our day, your ministers are\nthe chief.  For your ministers must talk in public, and that often and at\ngreat length, whether they are truly religious men at home or no.  It is\ntheir calling to talk to you unceasingly about religious matters.  You\nchose them to be your ministers because they could talk well.  You would\nnot put up with a minister who could not talk well on religious things.\nYou estimate them by their talk.  You praise and pay them by their talk.\nAnd if they are to live, talk incessantly to you about religion they\nmust, and they do.  If any other man among us is not a religious man,\nwell, then, he can at least hold his tongue.  There is no necessity laid\non him to speak in public about things that he does not practise at home.\nBut we hard-bested ministers must go on speaking continually about the\nmost solemn things.  And if we are not extraordinarily watchful over\nourselves, and extraordinarily and increasingly conscientious, if we are\nnot steadily growing in inwardness and insight and depth and real\nspirituality of mind and life ourselves, we cannot escape,--our calling\nin life will not let us escape,--becoming as sounding brass.  There is an\nawful sentence in Butler that should be written in letters of fire in\nevery minister's conscience, to the effect that continually going over\nreligion in talk and making fine pictures of it in the pulpit, creates a\nprofessional insensibility to personal religion that is the everlasting\nruin of multitudes of eloquent ministers.  That is true.  We ministers\nall feel that to be true.  Our miserable experience tells us that is only\ntoo true of ourselves.  What a flood of demoralising talk has been poured\nout from the pulpits of this one city to-day!--demoralising to preachers\nand to hearers both, because not intended to be put in practice.  How few\nof those who have talked and heard talk all this day about divine truth\nand human duty, have made the least beginning or the least resolve to\nlive as they have spoken and heard!  And, yet, all will in words again\nadmit that the soul of religion is the practick part, and that the tongue\nwithout the heart and the life is but death and corruption.\n\nLet us, then, this very night begin to do something practical after all\nthis talk about talk.  And let us all begin to do something in the direct\nline of our present talk.  What a noble congregation of evangelical\nCarthusians that would make us if we all put a bridle on our tongue to-\nnight before we left this house.  For we all have neighbours, friends,\nenemies, against whom we every day sin with our unbridled tongue.  We all\nhave acquaintances we are ashamed to meet, we have been so unkind and so\nunjust to them with our tongue.  We hang down our head when they shake\nour hand.  Yes, we know the men quite well of whom Pascal speaks.  We\nknow many men who would never speak to us again if they only knew how,\nand how often, we have spoken about them behind their back.  Well, let us\nsin against them, and against ourselves, and against our Master's command\nand example no more.  Let this night and this lecture on Talkative and\nhis kindred see the last of our sin against our ill-used neighbour.  Let\nus promise God and our own consciences to-night, that we shall all this\nweek put on a bridle about that man, and about that subject, and in that\nplace, and in that company.  Let us say, God helping me, I shall for all\nthis week not speak about that man at all, anything either good or bad,\nnor on that subject, nor will I let the conversation turn into that\nchannel at all if I can help it.  And God will surely help us, till,\nafter weeks and years of such prayer and such practice, we shall by slow\ndegrees, and after many defeats, be able to say with the Psalmist, 'I\nwill take heed to my ways, that I sin not with my tongue.  I will keep my\nmouth with a bridle.  I will be dumb with silence.  I will hold my peace\neven from good.'\n\n\n\n\nJUDGE HATE-GOOD\n\n\n   'Hear, O heads of Jacob, and ye princes of the house of Israel . . .\n   who hate the good and love the evil.'--Micah.\n\nThe portrait of Judge Hate-good in _The Pilgrim's Progress_ is but a poor\nreplica, as our artists say, of the portrait of Judge Jeffreys in our\nEnglish history books.  I am sure you have often read, with astonishment\nat Bunyan's literary power, his wonderful account of the trial of\nFaithful, when, as Bunyan says, he was brought forth to his trial in\norder to his condemnation.  We have the whole ecclesiastical\njurisprudence of Charles and James Stuart put before us in that single\nsatirical sentence.  But, powerful as Bunyan's whole picture of Judge\nHate-good's court is, it is a tame and a poor picture compared with what\nall the historians tell us of the injustice and cruelty of the court of\nJudge Jeffreys.  Macaulay's portrait of the Lord Chief Justice of England\nfor ferocity and fiendishness beats out of sight Bunyan's picture of that\njudge who keeps Satan's own seal in Bunyan's Book.  Jeffreys was bred for\nhis future work at the bar of the Old Bailey, a bar already proverbial\nfor the licence of its tongue and for the coarseness of its cases.\nJeffreys served his apprenticeship for the service that our two last\nStuarts had in reserve for him so well, that he soon became, so his\nbeggared biographer describes him, the most consummate bully that ever\ndisgraced an English bench.  The boldest impudence when he was a young\nadvocate, and the most brutal ferocity when he was an old judge, sat\nequally secure on the brazen forehead of George Jeffreys.  The real and\nundoubted ability and scholarship of Jeffreys only made his wickedness\nthe more awful, and his whole career the greater curse both to those\nwhose tool he was, and to those whose blood he drank daily.  Jeffreys\ndrank brandy and sang lewd songs all night, and he drank blood and cursed\nand swore on the bench all day.  Just imagine the state of our English\ncourts when a judge could thus assail a poor wretch of a woman after\npassing a cruel sentence upon her.  'Hangman,' shouted the ermined brute,\n'Hangman, pay particular attention to this lady.  Scourge her soundly,\nman.  Scourge her till the blood runs.  It is the Christmas season; a\ncold season for madam to strip in.  See, therefore, man, that you warm\nher shoulders thoroughly.'  And you all know who Richard Baxter was.  You\nhave all read his seraphic book, _The Saints' Rest_.  Well, besides being\nthe Richard Baxter so well known to our saintly fathers and mothers, he\nwas also, and he was emphatically, the peace-maker of the Puritan party.\nBaxter's political principles were of the most temperate and\nconciliatory, and indeed, almost royalist kind.  He was a man of strong\npassions, indeed, but all the strength and heat of his passions ran out\ninto his hatred of sin and his love of holiness, and an unsparing and\nconsuming care for the souls of his people.  Very Faithful himself stood\nbefore the bar of Judge Jeffreys in the person of Richard Baxter.  It\ntook all the barefaced falsehood and scandalous injustice of the crown\nprosecutors to draw out the sham indictment that was read out in court\nagainst inoffensive Richard Baxter.  But what was lacking in the charge\nof the crown was soon made up by the abominable scurrility of the judge.\n'You are a schismatical knave,' roared out Jeffreys, as soon as Baxter\nwas brought into court.  'You are an old hypocritical villain.'  And\nthen, clasping his hands and turning up his eyes, he sang through his\nnose: 'O Lord, we are Thy peculiar people: we are Thy dear and only\npeople.'  'You old blockhead,' he again roared out, 'I will have you\nwhipped through the city at the tail of the cart.  By the grace of God I\nwill look after you, Richard.'  And the tiger would have been as good as\nhis word had not an overpowering sense of shame compelled the other\njudges to protest and get Baxter's inhuman sentence commuted to fine and\nimprisonment.  And so on, and so on.  But it was Jeffreys' 'Western\nCircuit,' as it was called, that filled up the cup of his infamy--an\ninfamy, say the historians, that will last as long as the language and\nthe history of England last.  The only parallel to it is the infamy of a\nroyal house and a royal court that could welcome home and promote to\nhonour such a detestable miscreant as Jeffreys was.  But the slaughter in\nSomerset was only over in order that a similar slaughter in London might\nbegin.  Let those who have a stomach for more blood and tears follow out\nthe hell upon earth that James Stuart and George Jeffreys together let\nloose on the best life of England in their now fast-shortening day.  Was\nJudge Jeffreys, some of you will ask me, born and bred in hell?  Was the\ndevil his father, and original sin his mother?  Or, was he not the very\ndevil himself come to earth for a season in English flesh?  No, my\nbrethren, not so.  Judge Jeffreys was one of ourselves.  Little George\nJeffreys was born and brought up in a happy English home.  He was\nbaptised and confirmed in an English church.  He took honours in an\nEnglish university.  He ate dinners, was called to the bar, conducted\ncases, and took silk in an English court of justice.  And in the ripeness\nof his years and of his services, he wore the honourable ermine and sat\nupon the envied wool-sack of an English sovereign.  It would have been\nfar less awful and far less alarming to think of, had Judge Jeffreys\nbeen, as you supposed, a pure devil let loose on the Church of Christ and\nthe awakening liberty of England.  But some innocent soul will ask me\nnext whether there has ever been any other monster on the face of the\nearth like Judge Jeffreys; and whether by any possibility there are any\nsuch monsters anywhere in our own day.  Yes, truth compels me to reply.\nYes, there are, plenty, too many.  Only their environment, nowadays, as\nour naturalists say, does not permit them to grow to such strength and\ndimensions as those of James Stuart, and George Jeffreys, his favourite\njudge.  At the same time, be not deceived by your own deceitful heart,\nnor by any other deceiver's smooth speeches.  Judge Jeffreys is in\nyourself, only circumstances have not yet let him fully show himself in\nyou.  Still, if you look close enough and deep enough into your own\nhearts, you will see the same wicked light glancing sometimes there that\nused so to terrify Judge Jeffreys' prisoners when they saw it in his\nwicked eyes.  If you lay your ear close enough to your own heart, you\nwill sometimes hear something of that same hiss with which that human\nserpent sentenced to torture and to death the men and the women who would\nnot submit to his command.  The same savage laughter also will sometimes\nall but escape your lips as you think of how your enemy has been made to\nsuffer in body and in estate.  O yes, the very same hell-broth that ran\nfor blood in Judge Jeffreys' heart is in all our hearts also; and those\nwho have the least of its poison left in their hearts will be the\nforemost to confess its presence, and to hate and condemn and bewail\nthemselves on account of its terrible dregs.\n\nHATE-GOOD is an awful enough name for any human being to bear.  Those who\nreally know what goodness is, and then, what hatred is,--they will feel\nhow awful a thing it is for any man to hate goodness.  But there is\nsomething among us sinful men far more awful than even that, and that is\nto hate God.  The carnal mind, writes the apostle Paul to the Romans--and\nit is surely the most terrible sentence that often terrible enough\napostle ever wrote--the carnal mind is enmity against God.  And Dr. John\nOwen annotating on that sentence is equally terrible.  The carnal mind,\nhe says, has 'chosen a great enemy indeed.'  And having mentioned John\nOwen, will you let me once more beseech all students of divinity, that\nis, all students, amongst other things, of the desperate depravity of the\nhuman heart, to read John Owen's sixth volume till they have it by\nheart,--by a broken, believing heart.  Owen _On Indwelling Sin_ is one of\nthe greatest works of the great Puritan period.  It is a really great,\nand as we nowadays say, a truly scientific work to the bargain.  But all\nthat by the way.  Yes, this carnal heart that is still left in every one\nof us has chosen a great enemy, and it would need both strong and\nfaithful allies in order to fight him.  The hatred that His Son also met\nwith when He was in this world is one of the most hateful pages of this\nhateful world's hateful history.  He knew His own heart towards His\nenemies, and thus He was able to say to the Searcher of Hearts with His\ndying breath, They hated Me without a cause.  Truly our hatred is hottest\nwhen it is most unjust.\n\n'Look to yourselves,' wrote the apostle John to the elect lady and her\nchildren.  Yes; let us all look sharply and suspiciously to ourselves in\nthis matter now in hand, and we shall not need John Owen nor anybody else\nto discover to us the hatred and the hatefulness of our own hearts.  Look\nto yourselves, and the work of the law will soon be fulfilled in you.\n_Homo homini lupus_, taught an old philosopher who had studied moral\nphilosophy not in books so much as in his own heart.  'Is no man\nnaturally good?' asked innocent Lady Macleod of Dunvegan Castle at her\nguest, Dr. Samuel Johnson.  'No, madam, no more than a wolf.'  That is\nquite past all question with all those who either in natural morals or in\nrevealed religion look to and know and characterise themselves.  We have\nall an inborn propensity to dislike one another, and a very small\nprovocation will suddenly blow that banked-up furnace into a flame.  It\nis ever present with me, says self-examining Paul, and hence its so\nsudden and so destructive outbreaks.  So the written or the printed name\nof our enemy, his image in our mind, his passing step, his figure out of\nthe window; his wife, his child, his carriage, his cart in the street,\nanything, everything will stir up our heart at the man we do not like.\nAnd the whole of our so honest Bible, our present text, and the\nillustrations of our text in Judge Jeffreys' and Judge Hate-good's\ncourts, all go to show that the better a man is the more sometimes will\nwe hate him.  Good men, better men than we are, men who in public life\nand in private life pursue great and good ends, of necessity cross and go\ncounter to us in our pursuit of small, selfish, evil ends, and of\nnecessity we hate them.  For, cross a selfish sinner sufficiently and you\nhave a very devil--as many good men, if they knew it, have in us.  Again,\ngood men who come into contact with us cannot help seeing our bad lives,\nour tempers, our selfishness, our public and private vices; and we see\nthat they see us, and we cannot love those whose averted eye so goes to\nour conscience.  And not only in the hatred of good men, but if you know\nof God how to watch yourselves, you will find yourselves out every day\nalso in the hatred of good movements, good causes, good institutions, and\ngood works.  There are doctors who would far rather hear of their rival's\npatient expiring in his hands than hear their rival's success trumpeted\nthrough all the town.  There are ministers, also, who would rather that\nthe masses of the city and the country sank yet deeper into improvidence\nand drink and neglect of ordinances than that they were rescued by any\nother church than their own.  They hate to hear of the successes of\nanother church.  There are party politicians who would rather that the\nship of the state ran on the rocks both in her home and her foreign\npolicy than that the opposite party should steer her amid a nation's\ncheers into harbour.  And so of good news.  I will stake the divine truth\nof this evening's Scriptures, and of their historical and imaginative\nillustrations, on the feelings, if you know how to observe, detect,\ncharacterise, and confess them,--the feelings, I say, that will rise in\nyour heart to-morrow morning when you read what is good news to other\nmen, even to good men, and to the families and family interests of good\nmen.  It does not matter one atom into what profession, office,\noccupation, interest you track the corrupt heart of man, as sure as a\nsubstance casts a shadow, so sure will you find your own selfish heart\nhating goodness when the goodness does not serve or flatter you.\n\nNow, though they will never be many, yet there must be some men among us,\none here and another there, who have so looked at and found out\nthemselves.  I can well believe that some men here came up to this house\nto-night trembling in their heart all the way.  They felt the very\nadvertisement go through them like a knife: they felt that they were\nsummoned up hither almost by name as to judgment.  For they feel every\nday, though they have never told their feelings to any, that they have\nthis horrible heart deep-seated within them to love evil and to hate\ngood.  They gnash their teeth at themselves as they catch themselves\nrejoicing in iniquity.  They feel their hearts expanding, and they know\nthat their faces shine, when you tell them evil tidings.  They sicken and\nlose heart and sit solitary when you carry to them a good report.  They\nfeel as John Bunyan felt, that no one but the devil can equal them in\npollution of heart.  And their wonder sometimes is that the Searcher of\nHearts does not drive them down where devils dwell and hate God and man\nand one another.  They look around them when the penitential psalm is\nbeing sung, and they smile bitterly to themselves.  O people of God, they\nsay, you do not know what you are saying.  Leave that psalm to me.  I can\nsing it.  I can tell to God what He knows about sin, and about sin in the\nheart.  Stand away back from me, that man says, for I am a leper.  The\nchief of sinners is beside you.  A whited sepulchre stands open beside\nyou.--Stop now, O hating and hateful man, and let me speak for a single\nmoment before we separate.  Before you say any more about yourself, and\nbefore you leave the house of God, lift up your broken heart and with all\nyour might bless God that He has opened your eyes and taught you how to\nlook at yourself and how to hate yourself.  There are hundreds of honest\nChristian men and women in this house at this moment to whom God has not\ndone as, in His free grace, He has done to you.  For He has not only\nbegun a good work in you, but He has begun that special and peculiar work\nwhich, when it goes on to perfection, makes a great and an eminent saint\nof God.  To know your own heart as you evidently know it, and to hate it\nas you say you hate it, and to hunger after a clean heart as, with every\nbreath, you hunger,--all that, if you would only believe it, sets you, or\nwill yet set you, high up among the people of God.  Be comforted; it is\nyour bounden duty to be comforted.  God deserves it at your hands that\nyou be more than comforted amid such unmistakable signs of His eminent\ngrace to you.  And be patient under your exceptional sanctification.  Rome\nwas not built in a day.  You cannot reverse the awful law of your\nsanctification.  You cannot be saved by Jesus Christ and His Holy Spirit\nwithout seeing yourself, and you cannot see yourself without hating\nyourself, and you cannot begin to hate yourself without all your hatred\nhenceforth turning against yourself.  You are deep in the red-hot bosom\nof the refiner's fire.  And when you are once sufficiently tried by the\nDivine Refiner of Souls, He will in His own good time and way bring you\nout as gold.  Be patient, therefore, till the coming of the Lord.  And\nsay continually amid all your increasing knowledge of yourself, and amid\nall your increasing hatred of yourself, 'As for me, I will behold Thy\nface in righteousness; I shall be satisfied when I awake with Thy\nlikeness.'\n\n\n\n\nFAITHFUL IN VANITY FAIR {2}\n\n\n   'Be thou faithful.'--Rev. 2. 10.\n\nThe breadth of John Bunyan's mind, the largeness of his heart, and the\ntolerance of his temper all come excellently out in his fine portrait of\nFaithful.  New beginners in personal religion, when they first take up\n_The Pilgrim's Progress_ in earnest, always try to find out something in\nthemselves that shall somewhat correspond to the recorded experience of\nChristian, the chief pilgrim.  And they are afraid that all is not right\nwith them unless they, like him, have had, to begin with, a heavy burden\non their back.  They look for something in their religious life that\nshall answer to the Slough of Despond also, to the Hill Difficulty, to\nthe House Beautiful, and, especially and indispensably, to the place\nsomewhat ascending with a cross upon it and an open sepulchre beneath it.\nAnd because they cannot always find all these things in themselves in the\nexact order and in the full power in which they are told of Christian in\nBunyan's book, they begin to have doubts about themselves as to whether\nthey are true pilgrims at all.  But here is Faithful, with whom Christian\nheld such sweet and confidential discourse, and yet he had come through\nnot a single one of all these things.  The two pilgrims had come from the\nsame City of Destruction indeed, and they had met at the gate of Vanity\nand passed through Vanity Fair together, but, till they embraced one\nanother again in the Celestial City, that was absolutely all the\nexperience they had in common.  Faithful had never had any such burden on\nhis back as that was which had for so long crushed Christian to the\nearth.  And the all but complete absence of such a burden may have helped\nto let Faithful get over the Slough of Despond dry shod.  He had the good\nlot to escape Sinai also and the Hill Difficulty, and his passing by the\nHouse Beautiful and not making the acquaintance of Discretion and\nPrudence and Charity may have had something to do with the fact that one\nnamed Wanton had like to have done him such a mischief.  His remarkable\nexperiences, however, with Adam the First, with Moses, and then with the\nMan with holes in His hands, all that makes up a page in Faithful's\nautobiography we could ill have spared.  His encounter with Shame also,\nand soon afterwards with Talkative, are classical passages in his so\nindividual history.  Altogether, it would be almost impossible for us to\nimagine two pilgrims talking so heartily together, and yet so completely\nunlike one another.  A very important lesson surely as to how we should\nabstain from measuring other men by ourselves, as well as ourselves by\nother men; an excellent lesson also as to how we should learn to allow\nfor all possible varieties among good men, both in their opinions, their\nexperiences, and their attainments.  True Puritan as the author of _The\nPilgrim's Progress_ is, he is no Procrustes.  He does not cut down all\nhis pilgrims to one size, nor does he clip them all into one pattern.\nThey are all thinking men, but they are not all men of one way of\nthinking.  John Bunyan is as fresh as Nature herself, and as free and\nfull as Holy Scripture herself in the variety, in the individuality, and\neven in the idiosyncrasy of his spiritual portrait gallery.\n\nVanity Fair is one of John Bunyan's universally-admitted masterpieces.\nThe very name of the fair is one of his happiest strokes.  Thackeray's\nfamous book owes half its popularity to the happy name he borrowed from\nJohn Bunyan.  Thackeray's author's heart must have leaped in his bosom\nwhen Vanity Fair struck him as a title for his great satire.  'Then I saw\nin my dream that when they were got out of the wilderness they presently\nsaw a town before them, and the name of that town is Vanity, and at that\ntown there is a fair kept called Vanity Fair.  The fair is kept all the\nyear long, and it beareth the name of Vanity Fair, because the town where\nit is kept is lighter than Vanity.  And, also, because all that is sold\nthere is vanity.  As is the saying of the wise, All that cometh is\nvanity.  The fair is no new erected business, but a thing of ancient\nstanding: I will show you the original of it.  About five thousand years\nago there were pilgrims walking to the Celestial City, as these two\nhonest persons now are, and Beelzebub, Apollyon, and Legion, with their\ncompanions, perceiving that by the path that the pilgrims made, that\ntheir way to the city lay through this town of Vanity, they contrived\nthere to set up a fair: a fair wherein should be sold all sorts of\nvanity, and that it should last all the year long.  Therefore at this\nfair are all such merchandise sold as houses, lands, trades, places,\nhonours, preferments, titles, countries, kingdoms, pleasures, and\ndelights of all sorts, as wives, husbands, children, masters, servants,\nlives, blood, bodies, souls, silver, gold, precious stones, and what not.\nAnd, moreover, at this fair at all times there is to be seen juggling,\ncheats, games, plays, fools, apes, knaves, and rogues, and that of every\nkind.'  And then our author goes on to tell us the names of the various\nstreets and rows where such and such wares are vended.  And from that\nagain he goes on to tell how the Prince of princes Himself went at one\ntime through this same fair, and that upon a fair day too, and how the\nlord of the fair himself came and took Him from street to street to try\nto get Him induced to cheapen and buy some of the vain merchandise.  But\nas it turned out He had no mind to the merchandise in question, and He\ntherefore passed through the town without laying out so much as one\nfarthing upon its vanities.  The fair, therefore, you will see, is of\nlong standing and a very great fair.  Now, our two pilgrims had heard of\nall that, they remembered also what Evangelist had told them about the\nfair, and so they buttoned up their pockets and pushed through the booths\nin the hope of getting out at the upper gate before any one had time to\nspeak to them.  But that was not possible, for they were soon set upon by\nthe men of the fair, who cried after them: 'Hail, strangers, look here,\nwhat will you buy?'  'We buy the truth only,' said Faithful, 'and we do\nnot see any of that article of merchandise set out on any of your\nstalls.'  And from that began a hubbub that ended in a riot, and the riot\nin the apprehension and shutting up in a public cage of the two innocent\npilgrims.  Lord Hate-good was the judge on the bench of Vanity in the day\nof their trial, and the three witnesses who appeared in the witness-box\nagainst the two prisoners were Envy, Superstition, and Pickthank.  The\ntwelve jurymen who sat on their case were Mr. Blindman, Mr. No-good, Mr.\nMalice, Mr. Love-lust, Mr. Live-loose, Mr. Heady, Mr. High-mind, Mr.\nEnmity, Mr. Liar, Mr. Cruelty, Mr. Hate-light, and Mr. Implacable,--Mr.\nBlindman to be the foreman.  And it was before these men that Faithful\nwas brought forth to his trial in order to his condemnation.  And very\nsoon after his trial Faithful came to his end.  'Now I saw that there\nstood behind the multitude a chariot and a couple of horses waiting for\nFaithful, who (so soon as his adversaries had despatched him) was taken\nup into it, and straightway was carried up through the clouds, with sound\nof trumpet, the nearest way to the Celestial gate.'\n\nNow, I cannot tell you how it was, I cannot account for it to myself, but\nit is nevertheless absolutely true that as I was reading my author last\nweek and was meditating my present exposition, it came somehow into my\nmind, and I could not get it out of my mind, that there is a great and a\nclose similarity between John Bunyan's Vanity Fair and a general\nelection.  And, all I could do to keep the whole thing out of my mind,\none similarity after another would leap up into my mind and would not be\nput out of it.  I protest that I did not go out to seek for such\nsimilarities, but the more I frowned on them the thicker they came.  And\nthen the further question arose as to whether I should write them down or\nno; and then much more, as to whether I should set them out before my\npeople or no.  As you will easily believe, I was immediately in a real\nstrait as to what I should do.  I saw on the one side what would be sure\nto be said by ill-natured people and people of a hasty judgment.  And I\nsaw with much more anxiety what would be felt even when they restrained\nthemselves from saying it by timid and cautious and scrupulous people.  I\nhad the full fear of all such judges before my eyes; but, somehow,\nsomething kept this before my eyes also, that, as Evangelist met the two\npilgrims just as they were entering the fair, so, for anything I knew to\nthe contrary, it might be of God, that I also, in my own way, should warn\nmy people of the real and special danger that their souls will be in for\nthe next fortnight.  And as I thought of it a procession of people passed\nbefore me all bearing to this day the stains and scars they had taken on\ntheir hearts and their lives and their characters at former general\nelections.  And, like Evangelist, I felt a divine desire taking\npossession of me to do all I could to pull my people out of gunshot of\nthe devil at this election.  And, then, when I read again how both the\npilgrims thanked Evangelist for his exhortation, and told him withal that\nthey would have him speak further to them about the dangers of the way, I\nsaid at last to myself, that the thanks of one true Christian saved in\nanything and in any measure from the gun of the devil are far more to be\nattended to by a minister than the blame and the neglect of a hundred who\ndo not know their hour of temptation and will not be told it.  And so I\ntook my pen and set down some similarities between Vanity Fair and the\napproaching election, with some lessons to those who are not altogether\nbeyond being taught.\n\nWell, then, in the first place, the only way to the Celestial City ran\nthrough Vanity Fair; by no possibility could the advancing pilgrims\nescape the temptations and the dangers of the fatal fair.  He that will\ngo to the Celestial City and yet not go through Vanity Fair must needs go\nout of the world.  And so it is with the temptations and trials of the\nnext ten days.  We cannot get past them.  They are laid down right across\nour way.  And to many men now in this house the next ten days will be a\ntime of simply terrible temptation.  If I had been quite sure that all my\npeople saw that and felt that, I would not have introduced here to-night\nwhat some of them, judging too hastily, will certainly call this so\nsecular and unseemly subject.  But I am so afraid that many not untrue,\nand in other things most earnest men amongst us, do not yet know\nsufficiently the weakness and the evil of their own hearts, that I wish\nmuch, if they will allow me, to put them on their guard.  ''Tis hard,'\nsaid Contrite, who was a householder and had a vote in the town of\nVanity, ''tis hard keeping our hearts and our spirits in any good order\nwhen we are in a cumbered condition.  And you may be sure that we are\nfull of hurry at fair-time.  He that lives in such a place as this is,\nand that has to do with such as we have to do with, has need of an item\nto caution him to take heed every hour of the day.'  Now, if all my\npeople, and all this day's communicants, were only contrite enough, I\nwould leave them to the hurry of the approaching election with much more\ncomfort.  But as it is, I wish to give them such an item as I am able to\ncaution them for the next ten days.  Let them know, then, that their way\nfor the next fortnight lies, I will not say through a fair of jugglings\nand cheatings, carried on by apes and knaves, but, to speak without\nfigure, their way certainly lies through what will be to many of them a\nseason of the greatest temptation to the very worst of all possible\nsins--to anger and bitterness and ill-will; to no end of evil-thinking\nand evil-speaking; to the breaking up of lifelong friendships; and to\nwidespread and lasting damage to the cause of Christ, which is the cause\nof truth and love, meekness and a heavenly mind.  Now, amid all that, as\nEvangelist said to the two pilgrims, look well to your own hearts.  Let\nnone of all these evil things enter your heart from the outside, and let\nnone of all these evil things come out of your hearts from the inside.\nSet your faces like a flint from the beginning against all evil-speaking\nand evil-thinking.  Let your own election to the kingdom of heaven be\nalways before you, and walk worthy of it; and amid all the hurry of\nthings seen and temporal, believe steadfastly concerning the things that\nare eternal, and walk worthy of them.\n\n'We buy the truth and we sell it not again for anything,' was the reply\nof the two pilgrims to every stall-keeper as they passed up the fair, and\nthis it was that made them to be so hated and hunted down by the men of\nthe fair.  And, in like manner, there is nothing more difficult to get\nhold of at an election time than just the very truth.  All the truth on\nany question is not very likely to be found put forward in the programme\nof any man or any party, and, even if it were, a general election is not\nthe best time for you to find it out.  'I design the search after truth\nto be the one business of my life,' wrote the future Bishop Butler at the\nage of twenty-one.  And whether you are to be a member of Parliament or a\nsilent voter for a member of Parliament, you, too, must love truth and\nsearch for her as for hid treasure from your youth up.  You must search\nfor all kinds of truth,--historical, political, scientific, and\nreligious,--with much reading, much observation, and much reflection.  And\nthose who have searched longest and dug deepest will always be found to\nbe the most temperate, patient, and forbearing with those who have not\nyet found the truth.  I do not know who first said it, but he was a true\ndisciple of Socrates and Plato who first said it.  'Plato,' he said, 'is\nmy friend, and Socrates is my friend, but the truth is much more my\nfriend.'  There is a thrill of enthusiasm, admiration and hope that goes\nthrough the whole country and comes down out of history as often as we\nhear or read of some public man parting with all his own past, as well as\nwith all his leaders and patrons and allies and colleagues in the\npresent, and taking his solitary way out after the truth.  Many may call\nthat man Quixotic, visionary, unpractical, imprudent, and he may be all\nthat and more, but to follow conscience and the love of truth even when\nthey are for the time leading him wrong is noble, and is every way far\nbetter both for himself and for the cause he serves, than if he were\nalways found following his leaders loyally and even walking in the way of\nrighteousness with the love of self and the love of party at bottom\nruling his heart.  How healthful and how refreshing at an election time\nit is to hear a speech replete with the love of the truth, full knowledge\nof the subject, and with the dignity, the good temper, the respect for\nopponents, and the love of fair play that full knowledge of the whole\nsubject is so well fitted to bring with it!  And next to hearing such a\nspeaker is the pleasure of meeting such a hearer or such a reader at such\na time.  Now, I want such readers and such hearers, if not such speakers,\nto be found all the next fortnight among my office-bearers and my people.\nBe sure you say to some of your political opponents something like\nthis:--'I do not profess to read all the speeches that fill the papers at\npresent.  I do not read all the utterances made even on my own side, and\nmuch less all the utterances made on your side.  But there is one of your\nspeakers I always read, and I almost always find him instructive and\nimpressive, a gentleman, if not a Christian.  He is fair, temperate,\nfrank, bold, and independent; and, to my mind at least, he always throws\nlight on these so perplexing questions.'  Now, if you have the\nintelligence and the integrity and the fair-mindedness to say something\nlike that to a member of the opposite party you have poured oil on the\nwaters of party; nay, you are in that a wily politician, for you have\nalmost, just in saying that, won over your friend to your own side.  So\nnoble is the love of truth, and so potent is the high-principled pursuit\nand the fearless proclamation of the truth.\n\nA general election is a trying time to all kinds of public men, but it is\nperhaps most trying of all to Christian ministers.  Unless they are to\ndisfranchise themselves and are to detach and shut themselves in from all\ninterest in public affairs altogether, an election time is to our\nministers, beyond any other class of citizens perhaps, a peculiarly\ntrying time.  How they are to escape the Scylla of cowardice and the\ncontempt of all free and true men on the one hand, and the Charybdis of\npride and self-will and scorn of other men's opinions and wishes on the\nother, is no easy dilemma to our ministers.  Some happily constituted and\nhappily circumstanced ministers manage to get through life, and even\nthrough political life, without taking or giving a wound in all their\nway.  They are so wise and so watchful; they are so inoffensive,\nunprovoking, and conciliatory; and even where they are not always all\nthat, they have around them sometimes a people who are so patient and\ntolerant and full of the old-fashioned respect for their minister that\nthey do not attempt to interfere with him.  Then, again, some ministers\npreach so well, and perform all their pastoral work so well, that they\nmake it unsafe and impossible for the most censorious and intolerant of\ntheir people to find fault with them.  But all our ministers are not like\nthat.  And all our congregations are not like that.  And those of our\nministers who are not like that must just be left to bear that which\ntheir past unwisdom or misfortune has brought upon them.  Only, if they\nhave profited by their past mistakes or misfortunes, a means of grace,\nand an opportunity of better playing the man is again at their doors.  I\nam sure you will all join with me in the prayer that all our ministers,\nas well as all their people, may come well out of the approaching\nelection.\n\nThere is yet one other class of public men, if I may call them so, many\nof whom come almost worse out of an election time than even our\nministers, and that class is composed of those, who, to continue the\nlanguage of Vanity Fair, keep the cages of the fair.  I wish I had to-\nnight, what I have not, the ear of the conductors of our public journals.\nFor, what an omnipotence in God's providence to this generation for good\nor evil is theirs!  If they would only all consider well at election\ntimes, and at all times, who they put into their cages and for what\nreason; if they would only all ask what can that man's motives be for\nthrowing such dirt at his neighbour; if they would only all set aside all\nthe letters they will get during the next fortnight that are avowedly\ncomposed on the old principle of calumniating boldly in the certainty\nthat some of it will stick, what a service they would do to the cause of\nlove and truth and justice, which is, surely, after all, their own cause\nalso!  The very best papers sin sadly in this respect when their\nconductors are full for the time of party passion.  And it is\ninexpressibly sad when a reader sees great journals to which he owes a\nlifelong debt of gratitude absolutely poisoned under his very eyes with\nthe malignant spirit of untruthful partisanship.  But so long as our\npublic cages are so kept, let those who are exposed in them resolve to\nimitate Christian and Faithful, who behaved themselves amid all their ill-\nusage yet more wisely, and received all the ignominy and shame that was\ncast upon them with so much meekness and patience that it actually won to\ntheir side several of the men of the fair.\n\nMy brethren, this is the last time this season that I shall be able to\nspeak to you from this pulpit; and, perhaps, the last time altogether.\nBut, if it so turns out, I shall not repent that the last time I spoke to\nyou, and that, too, immediately after the communion table, the burden of\nmy message was the burden of my Master's message after the first\ncommunion table.  'If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.  A\nnew commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another.  By this shall\nall men know that ye are My disciples, if ye have love one to another.\nHerein is My Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit, so shall ye be My\ndisciples.  These things have I spoken unto you that in Me ye might have\npeace.  In the world ye shall have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I\nhave overcome the world.  Know ye what I have done unto you?  Ye call Me\nMaster and Lord, and ye say well, for so I am.'\n\n\n\n\nBY-ENDS\n\n\n   'Ye seek Me, not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat\n   of the loaves.'--Our Lord.\n\nIn no part of John Bunyan's ingenious book is his strong sense and his\nsarcastic and humorous vein better displayed than just in his description\nof By-ends, and in the full and particular account he gives of the\nkinsfolk and affinity of By-ends.  Is there another single stroke in all\nsacred literature better fitted at once to teach the gayest and to make\nthe gravest smile than just John Bunyan's sketch of By-ends'\ngreat-grandfather, the founder of the egoistical family of Fairspeech,\nwho was, to begin with, but a waterman who always looked one way and\nrowed another?  By-ends' wife also is a true helpmate to her husband.  She\nwas my Lady Feigning's favourite daughter, under whose nurture and\nexample the young lady had early come to a quite extraordinary pitch of\ngood breeding; and now that she was a married woman, she and her husband\nhad, so their biographer tells us, two firm points of family religion in\nwhich they were always agreed and according to which they brought up all\ntheir children, namely, never to strive too much against wind and tide,\nand always to watch when Religion was walking on the sunny side of the\nstreet in his silver slippers, and then at once to cross over and take\nhis arm.  But abundantly amusing and entertaining as John Bunyan is at\nthe expense of By-ends and his family and friends, he has far other aims\nin view than the amusement and entertainment of his readers.  Bunyan uses\nall his great gifts of insight and sense and humour and scorn so as to\nmark unmistakably the road and to guide the progress of his reader's soul\nto God, his chiefest end and his everlasting portion.\n\nIt was no small part of our Lord's life of humiliation on the earth,--much\nmore so than His being born in a low condition and being made under the\nlaw,--to have to go about all His days among men, knowing in every case\nand on every occasion what was in man.  It was a real humiliation to our\nLord to see those watermen of the sea of Tiberias sweating at their oars\nas they rowed round and round the lake after Him; and His humiliation\ncame still more home to Him as often as He saw His own disciples\ndisputing and pressing who should get closest to Him while for a short\nseason He walked in the sunshine; just as it was His estate of exaltation\nalready begun, when He could enter into Himself and see to the bottom of\nHis own heart, till He was able to say that it was His very meat and\ndrink to do His father's will, and to finish the work His Father had\ngiven Him to do.  The men of Capernaum went out after our Lord in their\nboats because they had eaten of the multiplied loaves and hoped to do so\nagain.  Zebedee's children had forsaken all and followed our Lord,\nbecause they counted to sit the one on His right hand and the other on\nHis left hand in His soon-coming kingdom.  The pain and the shame all\nthat cost our Lord, we can only remotely imagine.  But as for Himself,\nour Lord never once had to blush in secret at His own motives.  He never\nonce had to hang down His head at the discovery of His own selfish aims\nand by-ends.  Happy man!  The thought of what He should eat or what He\nshould drink or wherewithal He should be clothed never troubled His head.\nThe thought of success, as His poor-spirited disciples counted success,\nthe thought of honour and power and praise, never once rose in His heart.\nAll these things, and all things like them, had no attraction for Him;\nthey awoke nothing but indifference and contempt in him.  But to please\nHis Father and to hear from time to time His Father's voice saying that\nHe was well pleased with His beloved Son,--that was better than life to\nour Lord.  To find out and follow every new day His Father's mind and\nwill, and to finish every night another part of His Father's appointed\nwork,--that was more than His necessary food to our Lord.  The great\nschoolmen, as they meditated on these deep matters, had a saying to the\neffect that all created things take their true goodness or their true\nevil from the end they aim at.  And thus it was that our Lord, aiming\nonly at His Father's ends and never at His own, both manifested and\nattained to a Divine goodness, just as the greedy crowds of Galilee and\nthe disputatious disciples, as long and as far as they made their belly\nor their honour their end and aim, to that extent fell short of all true\ngoodness, all true satisfaction, and all true acceptance.\n\nBy-ends was so called because he was full of low, mean, selfish motives,\nand of nothing else.  All that this wretched creature did, he did with a\nsingle eye to himself.  The best things that he did became bad things in\nhis self-seeking hands.  His very religion stank in those men's nostrils\nwho knew what was in his heart.  By-ends was one of our Lord's whited\nsepulchres.  And so deep, so pervading, and so abiding is this corrupt\ntaint in human nature, that long after a man has had his attention called\nto it, and is far on to a clean escape from it, he still--nay, he all the\nmore--languishes and faints and is ready to die under it.  Just hear what\ntwo great servants of God have said on this humiliating and degrading\nmatter.  Writing on this subject with all his wonted depth and solemnity,\nHooker says, 'Even in the good things that we do, how many defects are\nthere intermingled!  For God in that which is done, respecteth especially\nthe mind and intention of the doer.  Cut off, then, all those things\nwherein we have regarded our own glory, those things which we do to\nplease men, or to satisfy our own liking, those things which we do with\nany by-respect, and not sincerely and purely for the love of God, and a\nsmall score will serve for the number of our righteous deeds.  Let the\nholiest and best things we do be considered.  We are never better\naffected to God than when we pray; yet, when we pray, how are our\naffections many times distracted!  How little reverence do we show to\nthat God unto whom we speak!  How little remorse of our own miseries!  How\nlittle taste of the sweet influence of His tender mercy do we feel!  The\nlittle fruit we have in holiness, it is, God knoweth, corrupt and\nunsound; we put no confidence at all in it, we challenge nothing in the\nworld for it, we dare not call God to a reckoning as if we had Him in our\ndebt-books; our continued suit to Him is, and must be, to bear with our\ninfirmities, and to pardon our offences.'  And Thomas Shepard, a divine\nof a very different school, as we say, but a saint and a scholar equal to\nthe best, and indeed with few to equal him, thus writes in his _Spiritual\nExperiences_:--'On Sabbath morning I saw that I had a secret eye to my\nown name in all that I did, for which I judged myself worthy of death.  On\nanother Sabbath, when I came home, I saw the deep hypocrisy of my heart,\nthat in my ministry I sought to comfort and quicken others, that the\nglory might reflect on me as well as on God.  On the evening before the\nsacrament I saw that mine own ends were to procure honour, pleasure, gain\nto myself, and not to the Lord, and I saw how impossible it was for me to\nseek the Lord for Himself, and to lay up all my honour and all my\npleasures in Him.  On Sabbath-day, when the Lord had given me some\ncomfortable enlargements, I searched my heart and found my sin.  I saw\nthat though I did to some extent seek Christ's glory, yet I sought it not\nalone, but my own glory too.  After my Wednesday sermon I saw the pride\nof my heart acting thus, that presently my heart would look out and ask\nwhether I had done well or ill.  Hereupon I saw my vileness to make men's\nopinions my rule.  The Lord thus gave me some glimpse of myself and a\ngood day that was to me.'  One would think that this was By-ends himself\nclimbed up into the ministry.  And so it was.  And yet David Brainerd\ncould write on his deathbed about Thomas Shepard in this way.  'He valued\nnothing in religion that was not done to the glory of God, and, oh! that\nothers would lay the stress of religion here also.  His method of\nexamining his ends and aims and the temper of his mind both before and\nafter preaching, is an excellent example for all who bear the sacred\ncharacter.  By this means they are like to gain a large acquaintance with\ntheir own hearts, as it is evident he had with his.'\n\nBut it is not those who bear the sacred character of the ministry alone\nwho are full of by-ends.  We all are.  You all are.  And there is not one\nall-reaching, all-exposing, and all-humbling way of salvation appointed\nfor ministers, and another, a more external, superficial, easy, and self-\nsatisfied way for their people.  No.  Not only must the ambitious and\ndisputing disciples enter into themselves and become witnesses and judges\nand executioners within themselves before they can be saved or be of any\nuse in the salvation of others--not only they, but the fishermen of the\nLake of Tiberias, they also must open their hearts to these stabbing\nwords of Christ, and see how true it is that they had followed Him for\nloaves and fishes, and not for His grace and His truth.  And only when\nthey had seen and submitted to that humiliating self-discovery would\ntheir true acquaintance with Christ and their true search after Him\nbegin.  Come, then, all my brethren, and not ministers only, waken up to\nthe tremendous importance of that which you have utterly neglected, it\nmay be ostentatiously neglected, up to this hour,--the true nature, the\ntrue character, of your motives and your ends.  Enter into yourselves.  Be\nnot strangers and foreigners to yourselves.  Let not the day of judgment\nbe any surprise to you.  Witness against, judge, and execute yourselves,\nand that especially because of your by-aims and by-ends.  Take up the\ntouchstone of truth and lay it upon your most secret heart.  Do not be\nafraid to discover how double-minded and deceitful your heart is.  Hunt\nyour heart down.  Track it to its most secret lair.  Put its true name,\nand continue to put its true name, upon the main motive of your life.\nExtort an answer by boot and by wheel, only extort an answer from the\ninner man of the heart, to the torturing question as to what is his\ntreasure, his hope, his deepest wish, his daily dream.  Watch not against\nany outward enemy, keep all your eyes and all your ears to your own\nthoughts.  God keeps His awful eye on your thoughts.  His eye goes at\nevery glance to that great depth in you.  Even His all-seeing eye can go\nno deeper into you than to your secret thoughts.  Go you as deep as God\ngoes, and you will be a wise man; go as deep and as often as He does, and\nthen you will soon come to see eye to eye with God, not only about your\nown thoughts, but about His thoughts too, and about everything else.  Till\nyou begin to watch your own thoughts, and to watch them especially in\ntheir aims and their ends, you will have no idea what that moral and\nspiritual life is that all God's saints live; that life that Christ\nlived, and which He this night summons you all to enter henceforth upon.\n\nIt is such a happy fact that it cannot be too often told, that in the\nthings of the soul really and truly to know and feel the disease is to\nhave already entered on the remedy.  You will not feel, indeed, that you\nhave entered on the remedy; but that does not much matter so long as you\nreally have.  And there is nothing more certain among all the certainties\nof divine things than that he who feels himself to be in death and hell\nwith his heart so full of by-ends is all the time as far from death and\nhell as any one can be who is still on this side of heaven.  When a man's\nwhole will and desire is set on God, as is now and then the case, that\nman is perilously near a sudden and an abundant entrance into that life\nand that presence where his heart has for so long been.  When a man is\nhalf mad with his own heart, as Thomas Shepard for one was, that stranger\non the earth is at last within a step of that happy coast where all\nwishes end.  Watch that man.  Take a last look at that man.  He will soon\nbe taken out of your sight.  Ere ever he is himself aware, he will be\nrapt up into that life where saints and angels seek not their own will,\nlabour not for their own profit or promotion, listen not for their own\npraises, but find their blessedness, the half of which had not here been\ntold them, in glorifying God and in enjoying Him for ever.\n\nYou must all have heard the name of a book that has helped many a saint\nnow in glory to the examination and the keeping of his own heart.  I\nrefer to Jeremy Taylor's _Holy Living and Dying_.  Take two or three of\nTaylor's excellent rules with you as you go down from God's house\nto-night.  'If you would really live a holy life and die a holy death,'\nsays Taylor, 'learn to reflect in your every action on your secret end in\nit; consider with yourself why you do it, and what you propound to\nyourself for your reward.  Pray importunately that all your purposes and\nall your motives may be sanctified.  Renew and rekindle your purest\npurposes by such ejaculations as these: \"Not unto us, O God, not unto us,\nbut to Thy name be all the praise.  I am in this Thy servant; let all the\ngain be Thine.\"  In great and eminent actions let there be a special and\npeculiar act of resignation or oblation made to God; and in smaller and\nmore frequent actions fail not to secure a pious habitual intention.'  And\nso on.  And above all, I will add, labour and pray till you feel in your\nheart that you love God with a supreme and an ever-growing love.  And,\nfar as that may be above you as yet, impress your heart with the\nassurance that such a love is possible to you also, and that you can\nnever be safe or happy till you attain to that love.  Other men once as\nfar from the supreme love of God as you are have afterwards attained to\nit; and so will you if you continue to set it before yourself.  Think\noften on God; read the best books about God; call continually upon God;\nhold an intimate communion with God, till you feel that you also actually\nand certainly love God.  And though you begin with loving God because He\nfirst loved you, you will, beginning with that, rise far above that till\nyou come to love Him for what He is in Himself as well as for what He has\ndone for you.  'I have done this in order to have a seat in the Academy,'\nsaid a young man, handing the solution of a problem to an old\nphilosopher.  'Sir,' was the reply, 'with such dispositions you will\nnever earn a seat there.  Science must be loved for its own sake, and not\nfor any advantage to be derived from it.'  And much more is that true of\nthe highest of all the sciences, the knowledge and the love of God.  Love\nHim, then, till you arrive at loving Him for Himself, and then you shall\nbe for ever delivered from all self-love and by-ends, and shall both\nglorify and enjoy God for ever.  As all they now do who engaged their\nhearts on earth to the service and the love and the enjoyment of God is\nsuch psalms and prayers as these: 'Whom have I in heaven but Thee? and\nthere is no one on earth that I desire beside Thee.  How excellent is Thy\nloving-kindness, O God!  The children of men shall put their trust under\nthe shadow of Thy wings.  For with Thee is the fountain of life, and in\nThy light shall we see light.  As for me, I will behold Thy face in\nrighteousness: I shall be satisfied when I awake with Thy likeness.  Thou\nwilt show me the path of life; in Thy presence is fullness of joy, and at\nThy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.'\n\n\n\n\nGIANT DESPAIR\n\n\n   'A wounded spirit who can bear?'--Solomon.\n\nEvery schoolboy has Giant Despair by heart.  The rough road after the\nmeadow of lilies, the stile into By-Path-Meadow, the night coming on, the\nthunder and the lightning and the waters rising amain, Giant Despair's\napprehension of Christian and Hopeful, their dreadful bed in his dungeon\nfrom Wednesday morning till Saturday night, how they were famished with\nhunger and beaten with a grievous crab-tree cudgel till they were not\nable to turn, with many other sufferings too many and too terrible to be\ntold which they endured till Saturday about midnight, when they began to\npray, and continued in prayer till almost break of day;--John Bunyan is\nsurely the best story-teller in all the world.  And, then, over and above\nthat, as often as a boy reads Giant Despair and his dungeon to his father\nand mother, the two hearers are like Christian and Hopeful when the\nDelectable shepherds showed them what had happened to some who once went\nin at By-Path stile: the two pilgrims looked one upon another with tears\ngushing out, but yet said nothing to the shepherds.\n\nJohn Bunyan's own experience enters deeply into these terrible pages.  In\ncomposing these terrible pages, Bunyan writes straight and bold out of\nhis own heart and conscience.  The black and bitter essence of a whole\nblack and bitter volume is crushed into these four or five bitter pages.\nLast week I went over _Grace Abounding_ again, and marked the passages in\nwhich its author describes his own experiences of doubt, diffidence, and\ndespair, till I gave over counting the passages, they are so many.  I had\nintended to illustrate the passage before us to-night out of the kindred\nmaterials that I knew were so abundant in Bunyan's terrible\nautobiography, but I had to give up that idea.  It would have taken two\nor three lectures to itself to tell all that Bunyan suffered all his life\nlong from an easily-wounded spirit.  The whole book is just Giant Despair\nand his dungeon, with a gleam here and there of that sunshiny weather\nthat threw the giant into one of his fits, in which he always lost for\nthe time the use of his limbs.  Return often, my brethren, to that\nmasterpiece, _Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners_.  I have read it a\nhundred times, but last week it was as fresh and powerful and consoling\nas ever to my sin-wounded spirit.\n\nLet me select some of the incidents that offer occasion for a comment or\ntwo.\n\n1.  And, in the first place, take notice, and lay well to heart, how\nsudden, and almost instantaneous, is the fall of Christian and Hopeful\nfrom the very gate of heaven to the very gate of hell.  All the Sabbath\nand the Monday and the Tuesday before that fatal Wednesday, the two\npilgrims had walked with great delight on the banks of a very pleasant\nriver; that river, in fact, which David the King called the river of God,\nand John, the river of the water of life.  They drank also of the water\nof the river, which was pleasant and enlivening to their weary spirits.\nOn either side of the river was there a meadow curiously beautified with\nlilies, and it was green all the year long.  In this meadow they lay down\nand slept, for here they might lie down and sleep safely.  When they\nawoke they gathered again of the fruits of the trees, and drank again of\nthe water of the river, and then lay down again to sleep.  Thus they did\nseveral days and nights.  Now, could you have believed it that two such\nmen as our pilgrims were could be in the enjoyment of all that the first\nhalf of the week, and then by their own doing should be in Giant\nDespair's deepest dungeon before the end of the same week?  And yet so it\nwas.  And all that is written for the solemn warning of those who are at\nany time in great enlargement and refreshment and joy in their spiritual\nlife.  It is intended for all those who are at any time revelling in a\nseason of revival: those, for example, who are just come home from\nKeswick or Dunblane, as well as for all those who at home have just made\nthe discovery of some great master of the spiritual life, and who are\nalmost beside themselves with their delight in their divine author.  If\nthey are new beginners they will not take this warning well, nor will\neven all old pilgrims lay it aright to heart; but there it is as plain as\nthe plainest, simplest, and most practical writer in our language could\nput it.\n\n   Behold ye how these crystal streams do glide\n   To comfort pilgrims by the highway side;\n   The meadows green, besides their fragrant smell,\n   Yield dainties for them: And he that can tell\n   What pleasant fruits, yea leaves, these trees do yield,\n   Will soon sell all that he may buy this field.\n\nThus the two pilgrims sang: only, adds our author in a parenthesis, they\nwere not, as yet, at their journey's end.\n\n2.  'Now, I beheld in my dream that they had not journeyed far when the\nriver and the way for a time parted.  At which the two pilgrims were not\na little sorry.'  The two pilgrims could not perhaps be expected to break\nforth into dancing and singing at the parting of the river and the way,\neven though they had recollected at that moment what the brother of the\nLord says about our counting it all joy when we fall into divers\ntemptations.  But it would not have been too much to expect from such\nexperienced pilgrims as they by this time were, that they should have\nsuspected and checked and commanded their sorrow.  They should have said\nsomething like this to one another: Well, it would have been very\npleasant had it been our King's will and way with us that we should have\nfinished the rest of our pilgrimage among the apples and the lilies and\non the soft and fragrant bank of the river; but we believe that it must\nin some as yet hidden way be better for us that the river and our road\nshould part from one another at least for a season.  Come, brother, and\nlet us go on till we find out our Master's deep and loving mind.  But,\ninstead of saying that, Christian and Hopeful soon became like the\nchildren of Israel as they journeyed from Mount Hor, their soul was much\ndiscouraged because of the way.  And always as they went on they wished\nfor a softer and a better way.  And it was so that they very soon came to\nthe very thing they so much wished for.  For, what is that on the left\nhand of the hard road but a stile, and over the stile a meadow as soft to\nthe feet as the meadow of lilies itself?  ''Tis just according to my\nwish,' said Christian; 'here is the easiest going.  Come, good Hopeful,\nand let us go over.'  Hopeful: 'But how if the path should lead us out of\nthe way?'  'That's not like,' said the other; 'look, doth it not go along\nby the wayside?'  So Hopeful, being persuaded by his fellow, went after\nhim over the stile.\n\nCall to mind, all you who are delivered and restored pilgrims, that same\nstile that once seduced you.  To keep that stile ever before you is at\nonce a safe and a seemly occupation of mind for any one who has made your\nmistakes and come through your chastisements.  Christian's eyes all his\nafter-days filled with tears, and he turned away his face and blushed\nscarlet, as often as he suddenly came upon any opening in a wall at all\nlike that opening he here persuaded Hopeful to climb through.  It is too\nmuch to expect that those who are just mounting the stile, and have just\ncaught sight of the smooth path beyond it, will let themselves be pulled\nback into the hard and narrow way by any persuasion of ours.  Christian\nput down Hopeful's objection till Hopeful broke out bitterly when the\nthunder was roaring over his head and he was wading about among the dark\nwaters: 'Oh that I had kept myself in my way!'  Are you a little sorry to-\nnight that the river and the way are parting in your life?  Is your soul\ndiscouraged in you because of the soreness of the way?  And as you go do\nyou still wish for some better way than the strait way?  And have you\njust espied a stile on the left hand of your narrow and flinty path, and\non looking over it is there a pleasant meadow?  And does your companion\npoint out to your satisfaction, and, almost to your good conscience, that\nthe soft road runs right along the hard road, only over the stile and\noutside the fence?  Then, good-bye.  For it is all over with you.  We\nshall meet you again, please God; but when we meet you again, your mind\nand memory will be full of shame and remorse and suffering enough to keep\nyou in songs of repentance for all the rest of your life on earth.\nFarewell!\n\n   The Pilgrims now, to gratify the flesh,\n   Will seek its ease; but oh! how they afresh\n   Do thereby plunge themselves new grieves into:\n   Who seek to please the flesh themselves undo.\n\n3.  The two transgressors had not gone far on their own way when night\ncame on and with the night a very great darkness.  But what soon added to\nthe horror of their condition was that they heard a man fall into a deep\npit right before them, and it sounded to them as if he was dashed to\npieces by his fall.  So they called to know the matter, but there was\nnone to answer, only they heard a groaning.  Then said Hopeful: Where are\nwe now?  Then was his fellow silent, as mistrusting that he had led\nHopeful out of the way.  Now, all that also is true to the very life, and\nhas been taken down by Bunyan from the very life.  We have all heard men\nfalling and heard them groaning just a little before us after we had left\nthe strait road.  They had just gone a little farther wrong than we had\nas yet gone,--just a very little farther; in some cases, indeed, not so\nfar, when they fell and were dashed to pieces with their fall.  It was\nwell for us at that dreadful moment that we heard the same voice saying\nto us for our encouragement as said to the two trembling transgressors:\n'Let thine heart be toward the highway, even the way that thou wentest;\nturn again.'  Now, what is it in which you are at this moment going off\nthe right road?  What is that life of disobedience or self-indulgence\nthat you are just entering on?  Keep your ears open and you will hear\nhundreds of men and women falling and being dashed to pieces before you\nand all around you.  Are you falling of late too much under the power of\nyour bodily appetites?  It is not one man, nor two, well known to you,\nwho have fallen never to rise again out of that horrible pit.  Are you\nwell enough aware that you are being led into bad company?  Or, is your\ncompanion, who is not a bad man in anything else, leading you, in this\nand in that, into what at any rate is bad for you?  You will soon, unless\nyou cut off your companion like a right hand, be found saying with\nmisguided and overruled Hopeful: Oh that I had kept me to my right way!\nAnd so on in all manner of sin and trespass.  Those who have ears to hear\nsuch things hear every day one man after another falling through lust or\npride or malice or idleness or infidelity, till there is none to answer.\n\n4.  'All hope abandon' was the writing that Dante read over the door of\nhell.  And the two prisoners all but abandoned all hope when they found\nthemselves in Giant Despair's dungeon.  Only, Christian, the elder man,\nhad the most distress because their being where they now were lay mostly\nat his door.  All this part of the history also is written in Bunyan's\nvery heart's blood.  'I found it hard work,' he tells us of himself, 'to\npray to God because despair was swallowing me up.  I thought I was as\nwith a tempest driven away from God.  About this time I did light on that\ndreadful story of that miserable mortal, Francis Spira, a book that was\nto my troubled spirit as salt when rubbed into a fresh wound; every groan\nof that man with all the rest of his actions in his dolours, as his\ntears, his prayers, his gnashing of teeth, his wringing of hands, was as\nknives and daggers in my soul, especially that sentence of his was\nfrightful to me: \"Man knows the beginning of sin, but who bounds the\nissues thereof?\"'  We never read anything like Spira's experience and\n_Grace Abounding_ and Giant Despair's dungeon in the books of our day.\nAnd why not, do you think?  Is there less sin among us modern men, or did\nsuch writers as John Bunyan overdraw and exaggerate the sinfulness of\nsin?  Were they wrong in holding so fast as they did hold that death and\nhell are the sure wages of sin?  Has divine justice become less fearful\nthan it used to be to those who rush against it, or is it that we are so\nmuch better men?  Is our faith stronger and more victorious over doubt\nand fear?  Is it that our hope is better anchored?  Whatever the reason\nis, there can be no question but that we walk in a liberty that our\nfathers did not always walk in.  Whether or no our liberty is not\nrecklessness and licentiousness is another matter.  Whether or no it\nwould be a better sign of us if we were better acquainted with doubt and\ndejection and diffidence, and even despair, is a question it would only\ndo us good to put to ourselves.  When we properly attend to these matters\nwe shall find out that, the holier a man is, the more liable he is to the\nassaults of doubt and fear and even despair.  We have whole psalms of\ndespair, so deep was David's sense of sin, so high were his views of\nGod's holiness and justice, and so full of diffidence was his wounded\nheart.  And David's Son, when our sin was laid upon Him, felt the curse\nand the horror of His state so much that His sweat was in drops of blood,\nand His cry in the darkness was that His God had forsaken Him.  And when\nour spirits are wounded with our sins, as the spirits of all God's great\nsaints have always been wounded, we too shall feel ourselves more at home\nwith David and with Asaph, with Spira even, and with Bunyan.  Despair is\nnot good, but it is infinitely better than indifference.  'It is a common\nsaying,' says South, 'and an observation in divinity, that where despair\nhas slain its thousands, presumption has slain its ten thousands.  The\nagonies of the former are indeed more terrible, but the securities of the\nlatter are far more fatal.'\n\n5.  'I will,' says Paul to Timothy, 'that men pray everywhere, lifting up\nholy hands without doubting.' And, just as Paul would have it, Christian\nand Hopeful began to lift up their hands even in the dungeon of Doubting\nCastle.  'Well,' we read, 'on Saturday night about midnight they began to\npray, and continued in prayer till almost break of day.  Now, before it\nwas day, good Christian, as one half amazed, broke out in this passionate\nspeech: \"What a fool,\" quoth he, \"am I thus to lie in a stinking dungeon\nwhen I may as well walk at liberty; I have a key in my bosom, called\nPromise, that will, I am persuaded, open any lock in all Doubting\nCastle.\"  Then said Hopeful: \"That's good news, good brother; pluck it\nout of thy bosom and try.\"'  Then Christian pulled the key out of his\nbosom and the bolt gave back, and Christian and Hopeful both came out,\nand you may be sure they were soon out of the giant's jurisdiction.\n\nNow, I do not know that I can do better at this point, and in closing,\nthan just to tell you about some of that bunch of keys that John Bunyan\nfound from time to time in his own bosom, and which made all his prison\ndoors one after another fly open at their touch.  'About ten o'clock one\nday, as I was walking under a hedge, full of sorrow and guilt, God knows,\nand bemoaning myself for my hard hap, suddenly this sentence bolted in\nupon me: The blood of Christ remits all guilt.  Again, when I was fleeing\nfrom the face of God, for I did flee from His face, that is, my mind and\nspirit fled before Him; for by reason of His highness I could not endure;\nthen would the text cry: Return unto Me; it would cry with a very great\nvoice: Return unto me, for I have redeemed thee.  And this would make me\nlook over my shoulder behind me to see if I could discern that this God\nof grace did follow me with a pardon in His hand.  Again, the next day,\nat evening, being under many fears, I went to seek the Lord, and as I\nprayed, I cried, with strong cries: O Lord, I beseech Thee, show me that\nThou hast loved me with an everlasting love.  I had no sooner said it\nbut, with sweetness, this returned upon me as an echo or sounding-again,\nI have loved thee with an everlasting love.  Now, I went to bed at quiet;\nalso, when I awaked the next morning it was fresh upon my soul and I\nbelieved it . . . Again, as I was then before the Lord, that Scripture\nfastened on my heart: O man, great is thy faith, even as if one had\nclapped me on the back as I was on my knees before God . . . At another\ntime I remember I was again much under this question: Whether the blood\nof Christ was sufficient to save my soul?  In which doubt I continued\nfrom morning till about seven or eight at night, and at last, when I was,\nas it were, quite worn out with fear, these words did sound suddenly\nwithin my heart: He is able.  Methought this word _able_ was spoke so\nloud unto me and gave such a justle to my fear and doubt as I never had\nall my life either before that or after . . . Again, one morning, when I\nwas at prayer and trembling under fear, that piece of a sentence dashed\nin upon me: My grace is sufficient.  At this, methought: Oh, how good a\nthing it is for God to send His word! . . . Again, one day as I was in a\nmeeting of God's people, full of sadness and terror, for my fears were\nagain strong upon me, and as I was thinking that my soul was never the\nbetter, these words did with great power suddenly break in upon me: My\ngrace is sufficient for thee, My grace is sufficient for thee, three\ntimes together; and, oh! methought that every word was a mighty word unto\nme; as _My_, and _grace_, and _sufficient_, and _for thee_.  These words\nwere then, and sometimes still are, far bigger words than others are.\nAgain, one day as I was passing in the field, and that, too, with some\ndashes in my conscience, suddenly this sentence fell upon my soul: Thy\nrighteousness is in heaven.  And methought withal I saw, with the eyes of\nmy soul, Jesus Christ at God's right hand.  I saw also, moreover, that it\nwas not my good frame of heart that made my righteousness better, nor my\nbad frame that made my righteousness worse, for my righteousness was\nJesus Christ Himself, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever . . .\nAgain, oh, what did I see in that blessed sixth of John: Him that cometh\nto Me I will in nowise cast out.  I should in those days often flounce\ntoward that promise as horses do toward sound ground that yet stick in\nthe mire.  Oh! many a pull hath my heart had with Satan for this blessed\nsixth of John . . . And, again, as I was thus in a muse, that Scripture\nalso came with great power upon my spirit: Not by works of righteousness\nwhich we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us.  Now was I\ngot on high: I saw my self within the arms of Grace and Mercy, and though\nI was before afraid to think of a dying hour, yet now I cried: Let me\ndie.  Now death was lovely and beautiful in my sight; for I saw that we\nshall never live indeed till we be gone to the other world.  Heirs of\nGod, methought, heirs of God!  God himself is the portion of His saints.\nThis did sweetly revive my spirit, and help me to hope in God; which when\nI had with comfort mused on a while, that word fell with great weight\nupon my mind: Oh Death, where is thy sting?  Oh Grave, where is thy\nvictory?  At this I became both well in body and mind at once, for my\nsickness did presently vanish, and I walked comfortably in my work for\nGod again.'\n\nSuch were some of the many keys by the use of which God let John Bunyan\nso often out of despair into full assurance and out of darkness into\nlight.  Which of the promises have been of such help to you?  Over what\nScriptures have you ever cried out: Oh, how good a thing it is for God to\nsend me His word!  Which are the biggest words in all the Bible to you?\nTo what promise did you ever flounce as a horse flounces when he is\nsticking in the mire?  And has any word of God so made God your God that\neven death itself, since it alone separates you from His presence, is\nlovely and beautiful in your eyes?  Have you a cluster of such keys in\nyour bosom?  If you have, take them all out to-night and go over them\nagain with thanksgiving before you sleep.\n\n\n\n\nKNOWLEDGE\n\n\n   'I will give you pastors after Mine own heart, which shall feed you\n   with knowledge and understanding.'\n\nThe Delectable Mountains rise out of the heart of Immanuel's Land.  This\nfine range of far-rolling hills falls away on the one side toward the\nplain of Destruction, and on the other side toward the land of Beulah and\nthe Celestial City, and the way to the Celestial City runs like a bee-\nline over these well-watered pastures.  Standing on a clear day on the\nhighest peak of the Delectable Mountains, if you have good eyes you can\nsee the hill Difficulty in the far-back distance with a perpetual mist\nclinging to its base and climbing up its sides, which mist the shepherds\nsay to you rises all the year round off the Slough of Despond, while,\nbeyond that again the heavy smoke of the city of Destruction and the town\nof Stupidity shuts in the whole horizon.  And then, when you turn your\nback on all that, in favourable states of the weather you can see here\nand there the shimmer of that river over which there is no bridge; and,\nthen again, so high above the river that it seems to be a city standing\nin heaven rather than upon the earth, you will see the high towers and\nshining palace roofs and broad battlements of the New Jerusalem itself.\nThe two travellers should have spent the past three days among the sights\nof the Delectable Mountains; and they would have done so had not the\nelder traveller misled the younger.  But now that they were set free and\nfairly on the right road again, the way they had spent the past three\ndays and three nights made the gardens and the orchards and the pastures\nthat ran round the bottom and climbed up the sides of the Delectable\nMountains delectable beyond all description to them.\n\nNow, there were on the tops of those mountains certain shepherds feeding\ntheir flocks, and they stood by the highway side.  The two travellers\ntherefore went up to the shepherds, and leaning upon their staves (as is\ncommon with weary travellers when they stand to talk with any by the\nway), they asked: Whose delectable mountains are these? and whose be the\nsheep that feed upon them?  These mountains, replied the shepherds, are\nImmanuel's Land, and they are within sight of the city; the sheep also\nare His, and He laid down His life for them.  After some more talk like\nthis by the wayside, the shepherds, being pleased with the pilgrims,\nlooked very lovingly upon them and said: Welcome to the Delectable\nMountains.  The shepherds then, whose names were Knowledge, Experience,\nWatchful, and Sincere, took them by the hand to lead them to their tents,\nand made them partake of what was ready at present.  They said, moreover:\nWe would that you should stay with us a while to be acquainted with us,\nand yet more to solace yourselves with the cheer of these Delectable\nMountains.  Then the travellers told them they were content to stay; and\nso they went to rest that night because it was now very late.  The four\nshepherds lived all summer-time in a lodge of tents well up among their\nsheep, while their wives and families had their homes all the year round\nin the land of Beulah.  The four men formed a happy fraternity, and they\nworked among and watched over their Master's sheep with one united mind.\nWhat one of those shepherds could not so well do in the tent or in the\nfold or out on the hillside, some of the others better did.  And what one\nof them could do to any perfection all the others by one consent left\nthat to him to do.  You would have thought that they were made by a\nperfect miracle to fit into one another, so harmoniously did they live\nand work together, and such was the bond of brotherly love that held them\ntogether.  At the same time, there was one of the happy quaternity who,\nfrom his years on the hills, and his services in times of trial and\ndanger, and one thing and another, fell always, and with the finest\nhumility too, into the foremost place, and his name, as you have already\nheard, was Knowledge.  Old Mr. Know-all the children in the villages\nbelow ran after him and named him as they clustered round his staff and\nhid in the great folds of his shepherd's coat.\n\nNow, in all this John Bunyan speaks as a child to children; but, of such\nchildren as John Bunyan and his readers is the kingdom of heaven.  My\nvery youngest hearer here to-night knows quite well, or, at any rate,\nshrewdly suspects, that Knowledge was not a shepherd going about with his\nstaff among woolly sheep; nor would the simplest-minded reader of John\nBunyan's book go to seek the Delectable Mountains and Immanuel's Land in\nany geographer's atlas, or on any schoolroom map.  Oh, no.  I do not need\nto stop to tell the most guileless of my hearers that old Knowledge was\nnot a shepherd whose sheep were four-footed creatures, but a minister of\nthe gospel, whose sheep are men, women, and children.  Nor are the\nDelectable Mountains any range of hills and valleys of grass and herbs in\nEngland or Scotland.  The prophet Ezekiel calls them the mountains of\nIsrael; but by that you all know that he had in his mind something far\nbetter than any earthly mountain.  That prophet of Israel had in his mind\nthe church of God with its synagogues and its sacraments, with all the\ngrace and truth that all these things conveyed from God to the children\nof Israel.  As David also sang in the twenty-third Psalm: 'The Lord is my\nShepherd, I shall not want.  He maketh me to lie down in green pastures;\nHe leadeth me beside the still waters.'\n\nKnowledge, then, is a minister; but every congregation has not such a\nminister set over it as Knowledge is.  All our college-bred and ordained\nmen are not ministers like Knowledge.  This excellent minister takes his\nexcellent name from his great talents and his great attainments.  And\nwhile all his great talents are his Master's gift to him, his great\nattainments are all his own to lay out in his Master's service.  To begin\nwith, his Master had given His highly-favoured servant a good\nunderstanding and a good memory, and many good and suitable\nopportunities.  Now, a good understanding is a grand endowment for a\nminister, and his ministerial office will all his days afford him\nopportunity for the best understanding he can bring to it.  The Christian\nministry, first and last, has had a noble roll of men of a strong\nunderstanding.  The author of the book now open before us was a man of a\nstrong understanding.  John Bunyan had a fine imagination, with great\ngifts of eloquent, tender, and most heart-winning utterance, but in his\ncase also all that was bottomed in a strong English understanding.  Then,\nagain, a good memory is indispensable to a minister of knowledge.  You\nmust be content to take a second, a third, or even a lower place still if\nyour Master has withheld from you a good memory.  Dr. Goodwin has a\npassage on this point that I have often turned up when I had again\nforgotten it.  'Thou mayest have a weak memory, perhaps, yet if it can\nand doth remember good things as well and better than other things, then\nit is a sanctified memory, and the defilement of thy memory is healed\nthough the imperfection of it is not; and, though thou art to be humbled\nfor it as a misery, yet thou art not to be discouraged; for God doth not\nhate thee for it, but pities thee; and the like holds good and may be\nsaid as to the want of other like gifts.'  You cannot be a man of a\ncommanding knowledge anywhere, and you must be content to take a very\nsubordinate and second place, even in the ministry, unless you have both\na good understanding and a good memory; but then, at the last day your\nMaster will not call you and your congregation to an account for what He\nhas not committed to your stewardship.  And on that day that will be\nsomething.  But not only must ministers of knowledge have a good mind and\na good memory; they must also be the most industrious of men.  Other men\nmay squander and kill their time as they please, but a minister had as\ngood kill himself at once out of the way of better men unless he is to\nhoard his hours like gold and jewels.  He must read only the best books,\nand he must read them with the 'pain of attention.'  He must read nothing\nthat is not the best.  He has not the time.  And if he is poor and remote\nand has not many books, he will have Butler, and let him read Butler's\nPreface to his Sermons till he has it by heart.  The best books are\nalways few, and they must be read over and over again when other men are\nreading the 'great number of books and papers of amusement that come\ndaily in their way, and which most perfectly fall in with their idle way\nof reading and considering things.'  And, then, such a minister must\nstore up what he reads, if not in a good memory, then in some other\npigeon-hole that he has made for himself outside of himself, since his\nMaster has not seen fit to furnish him with such a repository within\nhimself.  And, then, after all that,--for a good minister is not made\nyet,--understanding and memory and industry must all be sanctified by\nsecret prayer many times every day, and then laid out every day in the\ninstruction, impression, and comfort of his people.  And, then, that\nprivileged people will be as happy in possessing that man for their\nminister as the sheep of Immanuel's Land were in having Knowledge set\nover them for their shepherd.  They will never look up without being fed.\nThey will every Sabbath-day be led by green pastures and still waters.\nAnd when they sing of the mercies of the Lord to them and to their\nchildren, and forget not all His benefits, among the best of their\nbenefits they will not forget to hold up and bless their minister.\n\nBut, then, there is, nowadays, so much sound knowledge to be gained, not\nto speak of so many books and papers of mere pastime and amusement, that\nit may well be asked by a young man who is to be a minister whether he is\nindeed called to be like that great student who took all knowledge for\nhis province.  Yes, indeed, he is.  For, if the minister and interpreter\nof nature is to lay all possible knowledge under contribution, what must\nnot the minister of Jesus Christ and the interpreter of Scripture and\nprovidence and experience and the human heart be able to make the\nsanctified use of?  Yes, all kinds and all degrees of knowledge, to be\ncalled knowledge, belong by right and obligation to his office who is the\nminister and interpreter of Him Who made all things, Who is the Heir of\nall things, and by Whom all things consist.  At the same time, since the\nhuman mind has its limits, and since human life has its limits, a\nminister of all men must make up his mind to limit himself to the best\nknowledge; the knowledge, that is, that chiefly concerns him,--the\nknowledge of God so far as God has made Himself known, and the knowledge\nof Christ.  He must be a student of his Bible night and day and all his\ndays.  If he has not the strength of understanding and memory to read his\nBible easily in the original Hebrew and Greek, let him all the more make\nup for that by reading it the oftener and the deeper in English.  Let him\nnot only read his Bible deeply for his sermons and prayers, lectures and\naddresses, let him do that all day every day of the week, and then read\nit all night, and every night of the week, for his own soul.  Let every\nminister know his Bible down to the bottom, and with his Bible his own\nheart.  He who so knows his Bible and with it his own heart has almost\nbooks enough.  All else is but ostentatious apparatus.  When a minister\nhas neither understanding nor memory wherewith to feed his flock, let him\nlook deep enough into his Bible and into his own heart, and then begin\nout of them to write and speak.  And, then, for the outside knowledge of\nthe passing day he will read the newspapers, and though he gives up all\nthe morning to the newspapers, and returns to them again in the evening,\nhis conscience will not upbraid him if he reads as Jonathan Edwards read\nthe newsletters of his day,--to see how the kingdom of heaven is\nprospering in the earth, and to pray for its prosperity.  And, then, by\nthat time, and when he has got that length, all other kinds of knowledge\nwill have fallen into its own place, and will have taken its own proper\nproportion of his time and his thought.  He was a man of a great\nunderstanding and a great memory and great industry who said that he had\ntaken all knowledge for his province.  But he was a far wiser man who\nsaid that knowledge is not our proper happiness.  Our province, he went\non to say, is virtue and religion, life and manners: the science of\nimproving the temper and making the heart better.  This is the field\nassigned us to cultivate: how much it has lain neglected is indeed\nastonishing.\n\nNow, my brethren, two dangers, two simply terrible dangers, arise to\nevery one of you out of all this matter of your ministers and their\nknowledge.  1. The first danger is,--to be frank with you on this\nsubject,--that you are yourselves so ignorant on all the matters that a\nminister has to do with, that you do not know one minister from another,\na good minister from one who is really no minister at all.  Now, I will\nput it to you, on what principle and for what reason did you choose your\npresent minister, if, indeed, you did choose him?  Was it because you\nwere assured by people you could trust that he was a minister of\nknowledge and knew his own business?  Or was it that when you went to\nworship with him for yourself you have not been able ever since to tear\nyourself away from him, nor has any one else been able to tear you away,\nthough some have tried?  When you first came to the city, did you give,\ncan you remember, some real anxiety, rising sometimes into prayer, as to\nwho your minister among so many ministers was to be?  Or did you choose\nhim and your present seat in his church because of some real or supposed\nworldly interest of yours you thought you could further by taking your\nletter of introduction to him?  Had you heard while yet at home, had your\nfather and mother talked of such things to you, that rich men, and men of\nplace and power, political men and men high in society, sat in that\nchurch and took notice of who attended it and who did not?  Do you, down\nto this day, know one church from another so far as spiritual and soul-\nsaving knowledge is concerned?  Do you know that two big buildings,\ncalled churches, may stand in the same street, and have men, called\nministers, carrying on certain services in them from week to week, and\nyet, for all the purposes for which Christ came and died and rose again\nand gave ministers to His church, these two churches and their ministers\nare farther asunder than the two poles?  Do you understand what I am\nsaying?  Do you understand what I have been saying all night, or are you\none of those of whom the prophet speaks in blame and in pity as being\ndestroyed for lack of knowledge?  Well, that is your first danger, that\nyou are so ignorant, and as a consequence, so careless, as not to know\none minister from another.\n\n2.  And your second danger in connection with your minister is, that you\nhave, and may have long had, a good minister, but that you still remain\nyourself a bad man.  My brethren, be you all sure of it, there is a\nspecial and a fearful danger in having a specially good minister.  Think\ntwice, and make up your mind well, before you call a specially good\nminister, or become a communicant, or even an adherent under a specially\ngood minister.  If two bad men go down together to the pit, and the one\nhas had a good minister, as, God have mercy on us, sometimes happens, and\nthe other has only had one who had the name of a minister, the\nevangelised reprobate will lie in a deeper bed in hell, and will spend a\nmore remorseful eternity on it than will the other.  No man among you,\nminister or no minister, good minister or bad, will be able to sin with\nimpunity.  But he who sins on and on after good preaching will be beaten\nwith many stripes.  'Woe unto thee, Chorazin!  Woe unto thee, Bethsaida!\nFor if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Tyre and\nSidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.  But I\nsay unto you, it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of\njudgment than for you.'  'Thou that hast knowledge,' says a powerful old\npreacher, 'canst not sin so cheap as another that is ignorant.  Places of\nmuch knowledge'--he was preaching in the university pulpit of Oxford--'and\nplentiful in the means of grace are dear places for a man to sin in.  To\nbe drunken or unclean after a powerful sermon, and after the Holy Ghost\nhas enlightened thee, is more than to have so sinned twenty times before.\nThou mightest have sinned ten times more and been damned less.  For does\nnot Jesus Christ the Judge say to thee, This is thy condemnation, that so\nmuch light has come to thee?'  And, taking the then way of execution as a\nsufficiently awful illustration, the old Oxford Puritan goes on to say\nthat to sin against light is the highest step of the ladder before\nturning off.  And, again, that if there are worms in hell that die not,\nit is surely gospel light that breeds them.\n\n\n\n\nEXPERIENCE\n\n\n   'My heart had great experience.'--The Preacher.\n\n   'I will give them pastors after Mine own heart.'\n\nExperience, the excellent shepherd of the Delectable Mountains, had a\nbrother in the army, and he was an equally excellent soldier.  The two\nbrothers--they were twin-brothers--had been brought up together till they\nwere grown-up men in the same town of Mansoul.  All the Experience\nfamily, indeed, had from time immemorial hailed from that populous and\nimportant town, and their family tree ran away back beyond the oldest\nextant history.  The two brothers, while in all other things as like as\ntwo twin-brothers could be, at the same time very early in life began to\nexhibit very different talents and tastes and dispositions; till, when we\nmeet with them in their full manhood, the one is a soldier in the army\nand the other a shepherd on the Delectable Mountains.  The\nsoldier-brother is thus described in one of the military histories of his\nday: 'A man of conduct and of valour, and a person prudent in matters.  A\ncomely person, moreover, well-spoken in negotiations, and very successful\nin undertakings.  His colours were the white colours of Mansoul and his\nscutcheon was the dead lion and the dead bear.'\n\nThe shepherd-brother, on the other hand, is thus pictured out to us by\none who has seen him.  A traveller who has visited the Delectable\nMountains, and has met and talked with the shepherds, thus describes\nExperience in his excellent itinerary: 'Knowledge,' he says, 'I found to\nbe the sage of the company, spare in build, high of forehead, worn in\nage, and his tranquil gait touched with abstractedness.  While Experience\nwas more firmly knit in form and face, with a shrewd kindly eye and a\nhappy readiness in his bearing, and all his hard-earned wisdom evidently\non foot within him as a capability for work and for control.'  This,\nthen, was the second of the four shepherds, who fed Immanuel's sheep on\nthe Delectable Mountains.\n\nBut here again to-night, and in the case of Experience, just as last\nSabbath night and in the case of Knowledge, in all this John Bunyan\nspeaks to children,--only the children here are the children of the\nkingdom of heaven.  The veriest child who reads the Delectable Mountains\nbegins to suspect before he is done that Knowledge and Experience are not\nafter all two real and true shepherds going their rounds with their\nstaves and their wallets and their wheeling dogs.  Yes, though the little\nfellow cannot put his suspicions into proper words for you, all the same\nhe has his suspicions that he is being deceived by you and your Sabbath\nbook; and, ten to one, from that sceptical day he will not read much more\nof John Bunyan till in after-life he takes up John Bunyan never for a\nsingle Sabbath again to lay him down.  Yes, let the truth be told at\nonce, Experience is simply a minister, and not a real shepherd at all; a\nminister of the gospel, a preacher, and a pastor; but, then, he is a\npreacher and a pastor of no ordinary kind, but of the selectest and very\nbest kind.\n\n1.  Now, my brethren, to plunge at once out of the parable and into the\ninterpretation, I observe, in the first place, that pastors who are\nindeed to be pastors after God's own heart have all to pass into their\npastorate through the school of experience.  Preaching after God's own\nheart, and pastoral work of the same divine pattern, cannot be taught in\nany other school than the school of experience.  Poets may be born and\nnot made, but not pastors nor preachers.  Nay, do not all our best poets\nfirst learn in their sufferings what afterwards they teach us in their\nsongs?  At any rate, that is certainly the case with preachers and\npastors.  As my own old minister once said to me in a conversation on\nthis very subject, 'Even God Himself cannot inspire an experience.'  No.\nFor if He could He would surely have done so in the case of His own Son,\nto Whom in the gift of the Holy Ghost He gave all that He could give and\nall that His Son could receive.  But an experience cannot in the very\nnature of things be either bestowed on the one hand or received and\nappropriated on the other.  An experience in the unalterable nature of\nthe thing itself must be undergone.  The Holy Ghost Himself after He has\nbeen bestowed and received has to be experimented upon, and taken into\nthis and that need, trial, cross, and care of life.  He is not sent to\nspare us our experiences, but to carry us through them.  And thus it is\n(to keep for a moment in sight of the highest illustration we have of\nthis law of experience), thus it is, I say, that the apostle has it in\nhis Epistle to the Hebrews that though Christ Himself were a Son, yet\nlearned He obedience by the things that He suffered.  And being by\nexperience made perfect He then went on to do such and such things for\nus.  Why, for instance, for one thing, why do you think was our Lord able\nto speak with such extraordinary point, impressiveness, and assurance\nabout prayer; about the absolute necessity and certainty of secret,\nimportunate, persevering prayer having, sooner or later, in one shape or\nother, and in the best possible shape, its answer?  Why but because of\nHis own experience?  Why but because His own closet, hilltop, all-night,\nand up-before-the-day prayers had all been at last heard and better heard\nthan He had been able to ask?  We can quite well read between the lines\nin all our Lord's parables and in all the passages of His sermons about\nprayer.  The unmistakable traces of otherwise untold enterprises and\nsuccesses, agonies and victories of prayer, are to be seen in every such\nsermon of His.  And so, in like manner, in all that He says to His\ndisciples about the sweetness of submission, resignation, and\nself-denial, as also about the nourishment for His soul that He got out\nof every hard act of obedience,--and so on.  There is running through all\nour Lord's doctrinal and homiletical teaching that note of reality and of\ncertitude that can only come to any teaching out of the long and deep and\nintense experience of the teacher.  And as the Master was, so are all His\nministers.  When I read, for instance, what William Law says about the\nheart-searching and heart-cleansing efficacy of intercessory prayer in\nthe case of him who continues all his life so to pray, and carries such\nprayer through all the experiences and all the relationships of life, I\ndo not need you to tell me where that great man of God made that great\ndiscovery.  I know that he made it in his own closet, and on his own\nknees, and in his own evil heart.  And so, also, when I come nearer home.\nWhenever I hear a single unconventional, immediate, penetrating,\noverawing petition or confession in a minister's pulpit prayer or in his\nfamily worship, I do not need to be told out of what prayer-book he took\nthat.  I know without his telling me that my minister has been, all\nunknown to me till now, at that same school of prayer to which his Master\nwas put in the days of His flesh, and out of which He brought the\nexperiences that He afterwards put into the Friend at midnight, and the\nImportunate widow, as also into the Egg and the scorpion, the Bread and\nthe stone, the Knocking and the opening, the Seeking and the finding.\n\n   His children thus most dear to Him,\n   Their heavenly Father trains,\n   Through all the hard experience led\n   Of sorrows and of pains.\n\nAnd if His children, then ten times more the tutors and governors of His\nchildren,--the pastors and the preachers He prepares for His people.\n\n2.  Again, though I will not put those two collegiate shepherds against\none another, yet, in order to bring out the whole truth on this matter, I\nwill risk so far as to say that where we cannot have both Knowledge and\nExperience, by all means let us have Experience.  Yes, I declare to you\nthat if I were choosing a minister for myself, and could not have both\nthe book-knowledge and the experience of the Christian life in one and\nthe same man; and could not have two ministers, one with all the talents\nand another with all the experiences; I would say that, much as I like an\nable and learned sermon from an able and learned man, I would rather have\nless learning and more experience.  And, then, no wonder that such\npastors and preachers are few.  For how costly must a thoroughly good\nminister's experience be to him!  What a quantity and what a quality of\nexperience is needed to take a raw, light-minded, ignorant, and\nself-satisfied youth and transform him into the pastor, the tried and\ntrusted friend of the tempted, the sorrow-laden, and the shipwrecked\nhearts and lives in his congregation!  What years and years of the\nselectest experiences are needed to teach the average divinity student to\nknow himself, to track out and run to earth his own heart, and thus to\nlay open and read other men's hearts to their self-deceived owners in the\nlight of his own.  A matter, moreover, that he gets not one word of help\ntoward in all his college curriculum.  David was able to say in his old\nage that he fed the flock of God in Israel according to the integrity of\nhis heart, and guided them by the skilfulness of his hands.  But what\nyears and years of shortcoming and failure in private and in public life\nlie behind that fine word 'integrity'! as also what stumbles and what\nblunders behind that other fine word 'skilfulness'!  But, then, how a\nlightest touch of a preacher's own dear-bought experience skilfully let\nfall brightens up an obscure scripture!  How it sends a thrill through a\nprayer!  How it wings an arrow to the conscience!  How it sheds abroad\nbalm upon the heart!  Let no minister, then, lose heart when he is sent\nback to the school of experience.  He knows in theory that tribulation\nworketh patience, and patience experience, but it is not theory, but\nexperience, that makes a minister after God's own heart.  I sometimes\nwish that I may live to see a chair of Experimental Religion set up in\nall our colleges.  I fear it is a dream, and that it must have been\npronounced impracticable long ago by our wisest heads.  Still, all the\nsame, that does not prevent me from again and again indulging my dream.  I\nindulge my fond dream again as often as I look back on my own tremendous\nmistakes in the management of my own personal and ministerial life, as\nwell as sometimes see some signs of the same mistakes in some other\nministers.  In my dream for the Church of the future I see the programme\nof lectures in the Experimental Class and the accompanying examinations.\nI see the class library, and I envy the students.  I am present at the\nweekly book-day, and at the periodical addresses delivered to the class\nby those town and country ministers who have been most skilful in their\npastorate and most successful in the conversion and in the character of\ntheir people.  And, unless I wholly deceive myself, I see, not all the\nclass--that will never be till the millennium--but here and there twos\nand threes, and more men than that, who will throw their whole hearts\ninto the work of such a class till they come out of the hall in\nexperimental religion like Sir Proteus in the play:\n\n   Their years but young, but their experience old,\n   Their heads unmellowed, but their judgment ripe.\n\nIt is quite true, that, as my old minister shrewdly said to me, even the\nHoly Ghost cannot inspire an experience.  No.  But a class of genuine\nexperimental divinity would surely help to foster and develop an\nexperience.  And, till the class is established, any student who has the\nheart for it may lay in the best of the class library for a few\nshillings.  Mr. Thin will tell you that there is no literature that is\nsuch a drug in the market as the best books of Experimental Divinity.  No\nwonder, then, that we make such slow and short way in the skilfulness,\nsuccess, and acceptance of our preaching and our pastorate.\n\n3.  But, at the same time, my brethren, all your ministers' experience of\npersonal religion will be lost upon you unless you are yourselves\nattending the same school.  The salvation of the soul, you must\nunderstand, is not offered to ministers only.  Ministers are not the only\nmen who are, to begin with, dead in trespasses and sins.  The Son of God\ndid not die for ministers only.  The Holy Ghost is not offered to\nministers only.  A clean, humble, holy heart is not to be the pursuit of\nministers only.  It is not to His ministers only that our Lord says, Take\nup My yoke and learn of Me.  The daily cross is not the opportunity of\nministers only.  It is not to ministers only that tribulation worketh\npatience, and patience experience, and experience hope.  It was to all\nwho had obtained like precious faith with their ministers that Peter\nissued this exhortation that they were to give all diligence to add to\ntheir faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance,\nand to temperance patience,--and so on.  Now, my brethren, unless all\nthat is on foot in yourselves, as well as in your ministers, then their\nprogress in Christian experience will only every new Sabbath-day separate\nyou and your ministers further and further away from one another.  When a\nminister is really making progress himself in the life of religion that\nprogress must come out, and ought to come out, both in his preaching and\nin his prayers.  And, then, two results of all that will immediately\nbegin to manifest themselves among his people.  Some of his people will\nvisibly, and still more will invisibly, make corresponding progress with\ntheir minister; while some others, alas! will fall off in interest, in\nunderstanding, and in sympathy till at last they drop off from his\nministry altogether.  That is an old law in the Church of God: 'like\npeople like priest,' and 'like priest like people.'  And while there are\nvarious influences at work retarding and perplexing the immediate\noperation of that law, at the same time, he who has eyes to see such\nthings in a congregation and in a community will easily see Hosea's great\nlaw of congregational selection in operation every day.  Like people\ngradually gravitate to like preachers.  You will see, if you have the\neyes, congregations gradually dissolving and gradually being consolidated\nagain under that great law.  You will see friendships and families even\nbreaking up and flying into pieces; and, again, new families and new\nfriendships being built up on that very same law.  If you were to study\nthe session books of our city congregations in the light of that law, you\nwould get instruction.  If you just studied who lifted their lines, and\nwhy; and, again, what other people came and left their lines, and why,\nyou would get instruction.  The shepherds in Israel did not need to hunt\nup and herd their flocks like the shepherds in Scotland.  A shepherd on\nthe mountains of Israel had nothing more to do than himself pass up into\nthe pasture lands and then begin to sing a psalm or offer a prayer, when,\nin an instant, his proper sheep were all round about him.  The sheep knew\ntheir own shepherd's voice, and they fled from the voice of a stranger.\nAnd so it is with a true preacher,--a preacher of experience, that is.\nHis own people know no voice like his voice.  He does not need to bribe\nand flatter and run after his people.  He may have, he usually has, but\nfew people as people go in our day, and the better the preacher sometimes\nthe smaller the flock.  It was so in our Master's case.  The multitude\nfollowed after the loaves but they fled from the feeding doctrines, till\nHe first tasted that dejection and that sense of defeat which so many of\nHis best servants are fed on in this world.  Still, as our Lord did not\ntune His pulpit to the taste of the loungers of Galilee, no more will a\nminister worth the name do anything else but press deeper and deeper into\nthe depths of truth and life, till, as was the case with his Master, his\nfollowers, though few, will be all the more worth having.  The Delectable\nMountains are wide and roomy.  They roll far away both before and behind.\nImmanuel's Land is a large place, and there are many other shepherds\namong those hills and valleys besides Knowledge and Experience and\nWatchful and Sincere.  And each several shepherd has, on the whole, his\nown sheep.  Knowledge has his; Experience has his; Watchful has his; and\nSincere has his; and all the other here unnamed shepherds have all theirs\nalso.  For, always, like shepherd like sheep.  Yes.  Hosea must have been\nsomething in Israel somewhat analogous to a session-clerk among\nourselves.  'Like priest like people' is certainly a digest of some such\nexperience.  Let some inquisitive beginner in Hebrew this winter search\nout the prophet upon that matter, consulting Mr. Hutcheson and Dr. Pusey,\nand he will let me hear the result.\n\n4.  Now, my brethren, in closing, we must all keep it clearly before our\nminds, and that too every day we live, that God orders and overrules this\nwhole world, and, indeed, keeps it going very much just that He may by\nmeans of it make unceasing experiment upon His people.  Experiment, you\nknow, results in experience.  There is no other way by which any man can\nattain to a religious experience but by undergoing temptation, trial,\ntribulation:--experiment.  And it gives a divine dignity to all things,\ngreat and small, good and bad, when we see them all taken up into God's\nhand, in order that by means of them He may make for Himself an\nexperienced people.  Human life on this earth, when viewed under this\naspect, is one vast workshop.  And all the shafts and wheels and pulleys;\nall the crushing hammers, and all the whirling knives; all the furnaces\nand smelting-pots; all the graving tools and smoothing irons, are all so\nmany divinely-designed and divinely-worked instruments all directed in\nupon this one result,--our being deeply experienced in the ways of God\ntill we are for ever fashioned into His nature and likeness.  Our faith\nin the unseen world and in our unseen God and Saviour is at one time put\nto the experiment.  At another time it is our love to Him; the reality of\nit, and the strength of it.  At another time it is our submission and our\nresignation to His will.  At another time it is our humility, or our\nmeekness, or our capacity for self-denial, or our will and ability to\nforgive an injury, or our perseverance in still unanswered prayer; and so\non the ever-shifting but never-ceasing experiment goes.  I do beseech\nyou, my brethren, take that true view of life home with you again this\nnight.  This true view of life, namely, that experience in the divine\nlife can only come to you through your being much experimented upon.  Meet\nall your trials and tribulations and temptations, then, under this\nassurance, that all things will work together for good to you also if you\nare only rightly exercised by means of them.  Nothing else but this\ngrowing experience and this settling assurance will be able to support\nyou under the sudden ills of life; but this will do it.  This, when you\nbegin by experience to see that all this life, and all the good and all\nthe ill of this life, are all under this splendid divine law,--that your\ntribulations also are indeed working within you a patience, and your\npatience an experience, and your experience a hope that maketh not\nashamed.\n\n\n\n\nWATCHFUL\n\n\n   'Son of man, I have made thee a watchman unto the house of\n   Israel.'--The word of the Lord to Ezekiel.\n\n   'They watch for your souls.'--The Apostle to the Hebrews.\n\nThere were four shepherds who had the care of Immanuel's sheep on the\nDelectable Mountains, and their names were Knowledge, Experience,\nWatchful, and Sincere.  Now, in that very beautiful episode of his great\nallegory, John Bunyan is doing his very utmost to impress upon all his\nministerial readers how much there is that goes to the making of a good\nminister, and how much every good minister has to do.  Each several\nminister must do all that in him lies, from the day of his ordination to\nthe day of his death, to be all to his people that those four shepherds\nwere to Immanuel's sheep.  He is to labour, in season and out of season,\nto be a minister of the ripest possible knowledge, the deepest and widest\npossible experience, the most sleepless watchfulness, and the most\nabsolute and scrupulous sincerity.  Now, enough has perhaps been said\nalready about a minister's knowledge and his experience; enough,\ncertainly, and more than enough for some of us to hope half to carry out;\nand, therefore, I shall at once go on to take up Watchful, and to supply,\nso far as I am able, the plainest possible interpretation of this part of\nBunyan's parable.\n\n1.  Every true minister, then, watches, in the words of the apostle, for\nthe souls of his people.  An ordinary minister's everyday work embraces\nmany duties and offers many opportunities, but through all his duties and\nthrough all his opportunities there runs this high and distinctive duty\nof watching for the souls of his people.  A minister may be a great\nscholar, he may have taken all sacred learning for his province, he may\nbe a profound and a scientific theologian, he may be an able church\nleader, he may be a universally consulted authority on ecclesiastical\nlaw, he may be a skilful and successful debater in church courts, he may\neven be a great pulpit orator, holding thousands entranced by his\nimpassioned eloquence; but a true successor of the prophets of the Old\nTestament and of the apostles of the New Testament he is not, unless he\nwatches for the souls of men.  All these endowments, and all these\noccupations, right and necessary as, in their own places, they all\nare,--great talents, great learning, great publicity, great\npopularity,--all tend, unless they are taken great care of, to lead their\npossessors away from all time for, and from all sympathy with, the\nwatchfulness of the New Testament minister.  Watching over a flock brings\nto you none of the exhilaration of authority and influence, none of the\nintoxication of publicity and applause.  Your experiences are the quite\nopposite of all these things when you are watching over your flock.  Your\nwork among your flock is all done in distant and lonely places, on\nhillsides, among woods and thickets, and in cloudy and dark days.  You\nspend your strength among sick and dying and wandering sheep, among\nwolves and weasels, and what not, of that verminous kind.  At the same\ntime, all good pastors are not so obscure and forgotten as all that.  Some\nexceptionally able and exceptionally devoted and self-forgetful men\nmanage to combine both extremes of a minister's duties and opportunities\nin themselves.  Our own Sir Henry Moncreiff was a pattern pastor.  There\nwas no better pastor in Edinburgh in his day than dear Sir Henry was; and\nyet, at the same time, everybody knows what an incomparable\necclesiastical casuist Sir Henry was.  Mr. Moody, again, is a great\npreacher, preaching to tens of thousands of hearers at a time; but, at\nthe same time, Mr. Moody is one of the most skilful and attentive pastors\nthat ever took individual souls in hand and kept them over many years in\nmind.  But these are completely exceptional men, and what I want to say\nto commonplace and limited and everyday men like myself is this, that\nwatching for the souls of our people, one by one, day in and day\nout,--that, above everything else, that, and nothing else,--makes any man\na pastor of the apostolic type.  An able man may know all about the\nhistory, the habitat, the various species, the breeds, the diseases, and\nthe prices of sheep, and yet be nothing at all of a true shepherd.  And\nso may a minister.\n\n2.  Pastoral visitation, combined with personal dealing, is by far the\nbest way of watching for souls.  I well remember when I first began my\nministry in this congregation, how much I was impressed with what one of\nthe ablest and best of our then ministers was reported to have testified\non his deathbed.  Calling back to his bedside a young minister who had\ncome to see him, the dying man said: 'Prepare for the pulpit; above\neverything else you do, prepare for the pulpit.  Let me again repeat it,\nshould it at any time stand with you between visiting a deathbed and\npreparing for the pulpit, prepare for the pulpit.'  I was immensely\nimpressed with that dying injunction when it was repeated to me, but I\nhave lived,--I do not say to put my preparation for the pulpit, such as\nit is, second to my more pastoral work in my week's thoughts, but--to put\nmy visiting in the very front rank and beside my pulpit.  'We never were\naccustomed to much visiting,' said my elders to me in their solicitude\nfor their young minister when he was first left alone with this whole\ncharge; 'only appear in your own pulpit twice on Sabbath: keep as much at\nhome as possible: we were never used to much visiting, and we do not look\nfor it.'  Well, that was most kindly intended; but it was much more kind\nthan wise.  For I have lived to learn that no congregation will continue\nto prosper, or, if other more consolidated and less exacting\ncongregations, at any rate not this congregation, without constant\npastoral attention.  And remember, I do not complain of that.  Far, far\nfrom that.  For I am as sure as I am of anything connected with a\nminister's life, that a minister's own soul will prosper largely in the\nmeasure that the souls of his people prosper through his pastoral work.\nNo preaching, even if it were as good preaching as the apostle's itself,\ncan be left to make up for the neglect of pastoral visitation and\npersonal intercourse.  'I taught you from house to house,' says Paul\nhimself, when he was resigning the charge of the church of Ephesus into\nthe hands of the elders of Ephesus.  What would we ministers not give for\na descriptive report of an afternoon's house-to-house visitation by the\nApostle Paul!  Now in a workshop, now at a sickbed, now with a Greek, now\nwith a Jew, and, in every case, not discussing politics and cursing the\nweather, not living his holidays over again and hearing of all the\napproaching marriages, but testifying to all men in his own incomparably\nwinning and commanding way repentance toward God and faith toward the\nLord Jesus Christ.  We city ministers call out and complain that we have\nno time to visit our people in their own houses; but that is all\nsubterfuge.  If the whole truth were told about the busiest of us, it is\nnot so much want of time as want of intention; it is want of set and\nindomitable purpose to do it; it is want of method and of regularity such\nas all business men must have; and it is want, above all, of laying out\nevery hour of every day under the Great Taskmaster's eye.  Many country\nministers again,--we, miserable men that we are, are never happy or well\nplaced,--complain continually that their people are so few, and so\nscattered, and so ignorant, and so uninteresting, and so unresponsive,\nthat it is not worth their toil to go up and down in remote places\nseeking after them.  It takes a whole day among bad roads and wet bogs to\nvisit a shepherd's wife and children, and two or three bothies and\npauper's hovels on the way home.  'On the morrow,' so runs many an entry\nin Thomas Boston's _Memoirs_, 'I visited the sick, and spent the\nafternoon in visiting others, and found gross ignorance prevailing.\nNothing but stupidity prevailed; till I saw that I had enough to do among\nmy handful.  I had another diet of catechising on Wednesday afternoon,\nand the discovery I made of the ignorance of God and of themselves made\nme the more satisfied with the smallness of my charge . . . Twice a year\nI catechised the parish, and once a year I visited their families.  My\nmethod of visitation was this.  I made a particular application of my\ndoctrine in the pulpit to the family, exhorted them all to lay all these\nthings to heart, exhorted them also to secret prayer, supposing they kept\nfamily worship, urged their relative duties upon them,' etc. etc.  And\nthen at his leaving Ettrick, he writes: 'Thus I parted with a people\nwhose hearts were knit to me and mine to them.  The last three or four\nyears had been much blessed, and had been made very comfortable to me,\nnot in respect of my own handful only, but others of the countryside\nalso.'  Jonathan Edwards called Thomas Boston 'that truly great divine.'\nI am not such a judge of divinity as Jonathan Edwards was, but I always\ncall Boston to myself that truly great pastor.  But my lazy and deceitful\nheart says to me: No praise to Boston, for he lived and did his work in\nthe quiet Forest of Ettrick.  True, so he did.  Well, then, look at the\npopulous and busy town of Kidderminster.  And let me keep continually\nbefore my abashed conscience that hard-working corpse Richard Baxter.\nAbsolutely on the same page on which that dying man enters diseases and\nmedicines enough to fill a doctor's diary after a whole day in an\nincurable hospital, that noble soul goes on to say: 'I preached before\nthe wars twice each Lord's Day, but after the wars but once, and once\nevery Thursday, besides occasional sermons.  Every Thursday evening my\nneighbours that were most desirous, and had opportunity, met at my house.\nTwo days every week my assistant and I myself took fourteen families\nbetween us for private catechising and conference; he going through the\nparish, and the town coming to me.  I first heard them recite the words\nof the Catechism, and then examined them about the sense, and lastly\nurged them, with all possible engaging reason and vehemency, to\nanswerable affection and practice.  If any of them were stalled through\nignorance or bashfulness, I forbore to press them, but made them hearers,\nand turned all into instruction and exhortation.  I spent about an hour\nwith a family, and admitted no others to be present, lest bashfulness\nshould make it burdensome, or any should talk of the weakness of others.'\nAnd then he tells how his people's necessity made him practise physic\namong them, till he would have twenty at his door at once.  'All these my\nemployments were but my recreations, and, as it were, the work of my\nspare hours.  For my writings were my chiefest daily labour.  And blessed\nbe the God of mercies that brought me from the grave and gave me, after\nwars and sickness, fourteen years' liberty in such sweet employment!'  Let\nall ministers who would sit at home over a pipe and a newspaper with a\nquiet conscience keep Boston's _Memoirs_ and Baxter's _Reliquiae_ at\narm's-length.\n\n3.  Our young communicants' classes, and still more, those private\ninterviews that precede and finish up our young communicants' classes,\nare by far our best opportunities as pastors.  I remember Dr. Moody\nStuart telling me long ago that he had found his young communicants'\nclasses to be the most fruitful opportunities of all his ministry; as,\nalso, next to them, times of baptism in families.  And every minister who\ntries to be a minister at all after Dr. Moody Stuart's pattern, will tell\nyou something of the same thing.  They get at the opening history of\ntheir young people's hearts before their first communion.  They make\nshorthand entries and secret memoranda at such a season like this: 'A. a\nrebuke to me.  He had for long been astonished at me that I did not speak\nto him about his soul.  B. traced his conversion to the singing of 'The\nsands of time are sinking' in this church last summer.  C. was spoken to\nby a room-mate.  D. was to be married, and she died.  Of E. I have great\nhope.  F., were she anywhere but at home, I would have great hopes of\nher,'--and so on.  But, then, when a minister takes boldness to turn over\nthe pages of his young communicants' roll for half a lifetime--ah me, ah\nme!  What was I doing to let that so promising communicant go so far\nastray, and I never to go after him?  And that other.  And that other.\nAnd that other.  Till we can read no more.  O God of mercy, when Thou\ninquirest after blood, let me be hidden in the cleft of that Rock so\ndeeply cleft for unwatchful ministers!\n\n4.  And then, as Dr. Joseph Parker says, who says everything so plainly\nand so powerfully: 'There is pastoral preaching as well as pastoral\nvisitation.  There is pastoral preaching; rich revelation of divine\ntruth; high, elevating treatment of the Christian mysteries; and he is\nthe pastor to me who does not come to my house to drink and smoke and\ngossip and show his littleness, but who, out of a rich experience, meets\nme with God's word at every turn of my life, and speaks the something to\nme that I just at that moment want.'  Let us not have less pastoral\nvisitation in the time to come, but let us have more and more of such\npastoral preaching.\n\n5.  But, my brethren, it is time for you, as John said to the elect lady\nand her children, to look to yourselves.  The salvation of your soul is\nprecious, and its salvation is such a task, such a battle, such a danger,\nand such a risk, that it will take all that your most watchful minister\ncan do, and all that you can do yourself, and all that God can do for\nyou, and yet your soul will scarcely be saved after all.  You do not know\nwhat salvation is nor what it costs.  You will not be saved in your\nsleep.  You will not waken up at the last day and find yourself saved by\nthe grace of God and you not know it.  You will know it to your bitter\ncost before your soul is saved from sin and death.  You and your minister\ntoo.  And therefore it is that He Who is to judge your soul at last says\nto you, as much as He says it to any of His ministers, Watch!  What I say\nunto one I say unto all, Watch.  Watch and pray, lest you enter into\ntemptation.  Look to yourself, then, sinner.  In Christ's name, look to\nyourself and watch yourself.  You have no enemy to fear but yourself.  No\none can hurt a hair of your head but yourself.  Have you found that out?\nHave you found yourself out?  Do you ever look in the direction of your\nown heart?  Have you begun to watch what goes on in your own heart?  What\nis it to you what goes on in the world around you compared with what goes\non in the world within you?  Look, then, to yourself.  Watch, above all\nwatching, yourself.  Watch what it is that moves you to do this or that.\nStop sometimes and ask yourself why you do such and such a thing.  Did\nyou ever hear of such a thing as a motive in a human heart?  And did your\nminister, watching for your soul, ever tell you that your soul will be\nlost or saved, condemned or justified at the last day according to your\nmotives?  You never knew that!  You were never told that by your\nminister!  Miserable pair!  What does he take up his Sabbaths with?  And\nwhat leads you to waste your Sabbaths and your soul on such a stupid\nminister?  But, shepherd or no shepherd, minister or no minister, look to\nyourself.  Look to yourself when you lie down and when you rise up; when\nyou go out and when you come in; when you are in the society of men and\nwhen you are alone with your own heart.  Look to yourself when men praise\nyou, and look to yourself when men blame you.  Look to yourself when you\nsit down to eat and drink, and still more when you sit and speak about\nyour absent brother.  Look to yourself when you meet your enemy or your\nrival in the street, when you pass his house, or hear or read his name.\nYes, you may well say so.  At that rate a man's life would be all\nwatching.  So it would.  And so it must.  And more than that, so it is\nwith some men not far from you who never told you how much you have made\nthem watch.  Did you never know all that till now?  Were you never told\nthat every Christian man, I do not mean every communicant, but every\ntruly and sincerely and genuinely Christian man watches himself in that\nway?  For as the one essential and distinguishing mark of a New Testament\nminister is not that he is an able man, or a studious man, or an eloquent\nman, but that he is a pastor and watches for souls, so it is the chiefest\nand the best mark, and to himself the only safe and infallible mark, that\nany man is a sincere and true Christian man, that he watches himself\nalways and in all things looks first and last to himself.\n\n\n\n\nSINCERE\n\n\n   'In all things showing sincerity.'--Paul to Titus.\n\nCharles Bennett has a delightful drawing of Sincere in Charles Kingsley's\nbeautiful edition of _The Pilgrim's Progress_.  You feel that you could\nlook all day into those clear eyes.  Your eyes would begin to quail\nbefore you had looked long into the fourth shepherd's deep eyes; but\nthose eyes of his have no cause to quail under yours.  This man has\nnothing to hide from you.  He never had.  He loves you, and his love to\nyou is wholly without dissimulation.  He absolutely and unreservedly\nmeans and intends by you and yours all that he has ever said to you and\nyours, and much more than he has ever been able to say.  The owner of\nthose deep blue eyes is as true to you when he is among your enemies as\nhe is true to the truth itself when he is among your friends.  Mark also\nthe unobtrusive strength of his mouth, all suffused over as it is with a\nmost winning and reassuring sweetness.  The fourth shepherd of the\nDelectable Mountains is one of the very best of Bennett's excellent\nportraits.  But Mr. Kerr Bain's pen-and-ink portrait of Sincere in his\n_People of the Pilgrimage_ is even better than Bennett's excellent\ndrawing.  'Sincere is softer in outline and feature than Watchful.  His\neye is full-open and lucid, with a face of mingled expressiveness and\nstrength--a lovable, lowly, pure-spirited man--candid, considerate,\nwilling, cheerful--not speaking many words, and never any but true\nwords.'  Happy sheep that have such a shepherd!  Happy people! if only\nany people in the Church of Christ could have such a pastor.\n\nIt is surely too late, too late or too early, to begin to put tests to a\nminister's sincerity after he has been licensed and called and is now\nstanding in the presence of his presbytery and surrounded with his\ncongregation.  It is a tremendous enough question to put to any man at\nany time: 'Are not zeal for the honour of God, love to Jesus Christ, and\ndesire of saving souls your great motives and chief inducement to enter\ninto the function of the holy ministry?'  A man who does not understand\nwhat it is you are saying to him will just make the same bow to these\nawful words that he makes to all your other conventional questions.  But\nthe older he grows in his ministry, and the more he comes to discover the\nincurable plague of his own heart, and with that the whole meaning and\nfull weight of your overwhelming words, the more will he shrink back from\nhaving such questions addressed to him.  Fools will rush in where Moses\nand Isaiah and Jeremiah and Peter and Paul feared to set their foot.  Paul\nwas to be satisfied if only he was let do the work of a minister all his\ndays and then was not at the end made a castaway.  And yet, writing to\nthe same church, Paul says that his sincerity among them had been such\nthat he could hold up his ministerial life like spotless linen between\nthe eye of his conscience and the sun.  But all that was written and is\nto be read and understood as Paul's ideal that he had honestly laboured\nafter, rather than as an actual attainment he had arrived at.  Great as\nPaul's attainments were in humility, in purity of intention, and in\nsimplicity and sincerity of heart, yet the mind of Christ was not so\ngiven even to His most gifted apostle, that he could seriously say that\nhe had attained to such utter ingenuity, simplicity, disengagement from\nhimself, and surrender to Christ, as to be able to face the sun with a\nspotless ministry.  All he ever says at his boldest and best on that\ngreat matter is to be read in the light of his universal law of personal\nand apostolic imperfection--Not that I have attained, either am already\nperfect; but I follow after.  And blessed be God that this is all that He\nlooks for in any of His ministers, that they follow all their days after\na more and more godly sincerity.  It was the apostle's love of absolute\nsincerity,--and, especially, it was his bitter hatred of all the\nremaining dregs of insincerity that he from time to time detected in his\nown heart,--it was this that gave him his good conscience before a God of\npity and compassion, truth and grace.  And with something of the same\nlove of perfect sincerity, accompanied with something of the same hatred\nof insincerity and of ourselves on account of it, we, too, toward this\nsame God of pity and compassion, will hold up a conscience that would\nfain be a good conscience.  And till it is a good conscience we shall\nhold up with it a broken heart.  And that genuine love of all sincerity,\nand that equally genuine hatred of all remaining insincerity, will make\nall our ministerial work, as it made all Paul's apostolic work, not only\nacceptable, but will also make its very defects and defeats both\nacceptable and fruitful in the estimation and result of God.  It so\nhappens that I am reading for my own private purposes at this moment an\nold book of 1641, Drexilius _On a Right Intention_, and I cannot do\nbetter at this point than share with you the page I am just reading.  'Not\nto be too much troubled or daunted at any cross event,' he says, 'is the\nhappy state of his mind who has entered on any enterprise with a pure and\npious intention.  That great apostle James gained no more than eight\npersons in all Spain when he was called to lay down his head under\nHerod's sword.  And was not God ready to give the same reward to James as\nto those who converted kings and whole kingdoms?  Surely He was.  For God\ndoes not give His ministers a charge as to what they shall effect, but\nonly as to what they shall intend to effect.  Wherefore, when his art\nfaileth a servant of God, when nothing goes forward, when everything\nturneth to his ruin, even when his hope is utterly void, he is scarce one\nwhit troubled; for this, saith he to himself, is not in my power, but in\nGod's power alone.  I have done what I could.  I have done what was fit\nfor me to do.  Fair and foul is all of God's disposing.'\n\nAnd, then, this simplicity and purity of intention gives a minister that\nfine combination of candour and considerateness which we saw to exist\ntogether so harmoniously in the character of Sincere.  Such a minister is\nnot tongue-tied with sinister and selfish intentions.  His sincerity\ntoward God gives him a masterful position among his people.  His words of\nrebuke and warning go straight to his people's consciences because they\ncome straight out of his own conscience.  His words are their own witness\nthat he is neither fearing his people nor fawning upon his people in\nspeaking to them.  And, then, such candour prepares the way for the\nutmost considerateness when the proper time comes for considerateness.\nSuch a minister is patient with the stupid, and even with the wicked and\nthe injurious, because in all their stupidity and wickedness and\ninjuriousness they have only injured and impoverished themselves.  And if\nGod is full of patience and pity for the ignorant and the evil and the\nout of the way, then His sincere-hearted minister is of all men the very\nman to carry the divine message of forgiveness and instruction to such\nsinners.  Yes, Mr. Bain must have seen Sincere closely and in a clear\nlight when he took down this fine feature of his character, that he is at\nonce candid and considerate--with a whole face of mingled expressiveness\nand strength.\n\nWriting about sincerity and a right intention in young ministers, old\nDrexilius says: 'When I turn to clergymen, I would have sighs and groans\nto speak for me.  For, alas! I am afraid that there be found some which\ncome into the ministry, not that they may obtain a holy office in which\nto spend their life, but for worse ends.  To enter the ministry with a\nnaughty intention is to come straight to destruction.  Let no minister\nthink at any time of a better living, but only at all times of a holier\nlife.  Wherefore, O ministers and spiritual men, consider and take heed.\nThere can be no safe guide to your office but a right, sincere, pure\nintention.  Whosoever cometh to it with any other conduct or companion\nmust either return to his former state of life, or here he shall\ncertainly perish . . . What is more commendable in a religious man than\nto be always in action and to be exercised one while in teaching the\nignorant, another while in comforting such as are troubled in mind,\nsometimes in making sermons, and sometimes in admonishing the sick?  But\nwith what secret malignity doth a wrong intention insinuate itself into\nthese very actions that are the most religious!  For ofttimes we desire\nnothing else but to be doing.  We desire to become public, not that we\nmay profit many, but because we have not learned how to be private.  We\nseek for divers employments, not that we may avoid idleness, but that we\nmay come into people's knowledge.  We despise a small number of hearers,\nand such as are poor, simple, and rustical, and let fly our endeavours at\nmore eminent chairs, though not in apparent pursuit; all which is the\nplain argument of a corrupt intention.  O ye that wait upon religion, O\nministers of God, this is to sell most transcendent wares at a very low\nrate--nay, this is to cast them, and yourselves too, into the fire.'\n\nThere are some outstanding temptations to insincerity in some ministers\nthat must be pointed out here.  (1) Ministers with a warm rhetorical\ntemperament are beset continually with the temptation to pile up false\nfire on the altar; to dilate, that is, both in their prayers and in their\nsermons, upon certain topics in a style that is full of insincerity.\nMinisters who have no real hold of divine things in themselves will yet\nfill their pulpit hour with the most florid and affecting pictures of\nsacred and even of evangelical things.  This is what our shrewd and\nsatirical people mean when they say of us that So-and-so has a great\n_sough_ of the gospel in his preaching, but the _sough_ only.  (2)\nAnother kindred temptation to even the best and truest of ministers is to\nmake pulpit appeals about the evil of sin and the necessity of a holy\nlife that they themselves do not feel and do not attempt to live up to.\nButler has a terrible passage on the heart-hardening effects of making\npictures of virtue and never trying to put those pictures into practice.\nAnd readers of Newman will remember his powerful application of this same\ntemptation to literary men in his fine sermon on Unreal Words.  (3)\nAnother temptation is to affect an interest in our people and a sympathy\nwith them that we do not in reality feel.  All human life is full of this\ntemptation to double-dealing and hypocrisy; but, then, it is large part\nof a minister's office to feel with and for his people, and to give the\ntenderest and the most sacred expression to that feeling.  And, unless he\nis a man of a scrupulously sincere, true, and tender heart, his daily\nduties will soon develop him into a solemn hypocrite.  And if he feels\nonly for his own people, and for them only when they become and as long\nas they remain his own people, then his insincerity and imposture is only\nthe more abominable in the sight of God.  (4) Archbishop Whately, with\nthat strong English common sense and that cultivated clear-headedness\nthat almost make him a writer of genius, points out a view of sincerity\nthat it behoves ministers especially to cultivate in themselves.  He\ntells us not only to act always according to our convictions, but also to\nsee that our convictions are true and unbiassed convictions.  It is a\nvery superficial sincerity even when we actually believe what we profess\nto believe.  But that is a far deeper and a far nobler sincerity which\nwatches with a strict and severe jealousy over the formation of our\nbeliefs and convictions.  Ministers must, first for themselves and then\nfor their people, live far deeper down than other men.  They must be at\nhome among the roots, not of actions only, but much more of convictions.\nWe may act honestly enough out of our present convictions and principles,\nwhile, all the time, our convictions and our principles are vitiated at\nbottom by the selfish ground they ultimately stand in.  Let ministers,\nthen, to begin with, live deep down among the roots of their opinions and\ntheir beliefs.  Let them not only flee from being consciously insincere\nand hypocritical men; let them keep their eye like the eye of God\ncontinually on that deep ground of the soul where so many men unknown to\nthemselves deceive themselves.  And, thus exercised, they shall be able\nout of a deep and clean heart to rise far above that trimming and hedging\nand self-seeking and self-sheltering in disputed and unpopular questions\nwhich is such a temptation to all men, and is such a shame and scandal in\na minister.\n\nNow, my good friends, we have kept all this time to the fourth shepherd\nand to his noble name, but let us look in closing at some of his\nsheep,--that is to say, at ourselves.  For is it not said in the prophet:\nYe my flock, the flock of my pasture, are men, and I am your God, saith\nthe Lord God.  All, therefore, that has been said about the sincerity and\ninsincerity of ministers is to be said equally of their people also in\nall their special and peculiar walks of life.  Sincerity is as noble a\nvirtue, and insincerity is as detestable a vice, in a doctor, or a\nlawyer, or a schoolmaster, or a merchant,--almost, if not altogether, as\nmuch so as in a minister.  Your insincerity and hypocrisy in your daily\nintercourse with your friends and neighbours is a miserable enough state\nof mind, but at the root of all that there lies your radical insincerity\ntoward God and your own soul.  In his _Christian Perfection_ William Law\nintroduces his readers to a character called Julius, who goes regularly\nto prayers, and there confesses himself to be a miserable sinner who has\nno health in him; and yet that same Julius cannot bear to be informed of\nany imperfection or suspected to be wanting in any kind or degree of\nvirtue.  Now, Law asks, can there be a stronger proof that Julius is\nwanting in the sincerity of his devotions?  Is it not as plain as\nanything can be that that man's confessions of sin are only words of\ncourse, a certain civility of sacred speech in which his heart has not a\nsingle atom of share?  Julius confesses himself to be in great weakness,\ncorruption, disorder, and infirmity, and yet he is mortally angry with\nyou if at any time you remotely and tenderly hint that he may be just a\nshade wrong in his opinions, or one hair's-breadth off what is square and\ncorrect in his actions.  Look to yourself, Julius, and to your insincere\nheart.  Look to yourself at all times, but above all other times at the\ntimes and in the places of your devotions.  Ten to one, my hearer of to-\nnight, you may never have thought of that before.  And what would you\nthink if you were told that this Sincere shepherd was appointed us for\nthis evening's discourse, and that you were led up to this house, just\nthat you might have your attention turned to your many miserable\ninsincerities of all kinds, but especially to your so Julius-like\ndevotions?  'And Nathan said unto David, Thou art the man.  And David\nsaid unto Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord.'\n\nWhat, then, my truly miserable fellow-sinner and fellow-worshipper, what\nare we to do?  Am I to give up preaching altogether because I am\ncontinually carried on under the impulse of the pulpit far beyond both my\nattainments and my intentions?  Am I to cease from public prayer\naltogether because when engaged in it I am compelled to utter words of\ncontrition and confession and supplication that little agree with the\neveryday temper and sensibility of my soul?  And am I wholly to eschew\npastoral work because my heart is not so absolutely clean and simple and\nsincere toward all my own people and toward other ministers' people as it\nought to be?  No!  Never!  Never!  Let me rather keep my heart of such\nearth and slag in the hottest place of temptation, and then, such\nhumiliating discoveries as are there continually being made to me of\nmyself will surely at last empty me of all self-righteousness and self-\nsufficiency, and make me at the end of my ministry, if not till then, the\npenitent pastor of a penitent people.  And when thus penitent, then\nsurely, also somewhat more sincere in my designs and intentions, if not\neven then in my attainments and performances.\n\n'O Eternal God, Who hast made all things for man, and man for Thy glory,\nsanctify my body and my soul, my thoughts and my intentions, my words and\nmy actions, that whatsoever I shall think or speak or do may be by me\ndesigned to the glory of Thy name.  O God, turn my necessities into\nvirtue, and the works of nature into the works of grace, by making them\norderly, regular, temperate, subordinate, and profitable to ends beyond\ntheir own proper efficacy.  And let no pride or self-seeking, no\ncovetousness or revenge, no impure mixtures or unhandsome purposes, no\nlittle ends and low imaginations, pollute my spirit or unhallow any of my\nwords or actions.  But let my body be the servant of my spirit, and both\nsoul and body servants of my Lord, that, doing all things for Thy glory\nhere, I may be made a partaker of Thy glory hereafter; through Jesus\nChrist, my Lord.  Amen.'\n\n\n\n\nFOOTNOTES\n\n\n{1}  Delivered on the Sabbath before Communion.\n\n{2}  Delivered June 26th, 1892, on the eve of a general election.","title":"Bunyan Characters (1st Series)","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":79117}