himself up to serve Christ and his church in that charge, and received of the elders the right hand of fellowship. It will be proper in this place to refer to Bunyan's most extraordinary production, his "Pilgrim's Progress." In a memoir of Bunyan, attached to a recent edition of the "Pilgrim's Progress," Dr. Southey ob serves, 66 "It is not known in what year this work was first published, no copy of the first edition having as yet been discovered: the second is in the British Museum; it is with additions, and its date is 1678; but as the book is known to have been written during Bunyan's imprisonment, which terminated in 1672, it was probably published before his release, or, at latest, immediately after it. The earliest with which Mr. Major has been able to supply me, either by means of his own diligent inquiries, or the kindness of his friends, is the eighth edition, printed for Nathaniel Ponder, at the Peacock, in the Poultry, near the church, in 1682; for whom also the ninth was published, in 1684; and the tenth, in 1685. All these, no doubt, were large impressions. "One passage of considerable length was added after the second edition-the whole scene between Mr. By-Ends and his three friends, and their subsequent discourse with Christian and Faithful. The rapidity with which editions succeeded one another, and the demand for pictures to illustrate them, are not the only proofs of the popularity which the Pilgrim's Progress' obtained before the second part was published. In the verses prefixed to that part, Bunyan complains of dishonest imitators. Some have of late, to counterfeit My Pilgrim, to their own my title set; Have stitched to their books, to make them do.' "These interlopers may have very likely given Bunyan an additional inducement to prepare a second part himself. It appeared in 1684, with this notice on the back of the title-page: 'I appoint Mr. Nathaniel Ponder, but no other, to print this book. John Bunyan, Jan. 1, 1684.' No additions or alterations were made in this part, though the author lived more than four years after its publication. "If this work is not a well of English undefiled, it is a clear stream of current English, the vernacular speech of his age: sometimes, indeed, in its rusticity and coarseness, but always in its plainness and its strength. To this natural style Bunyan is in some degree beholden for his general popularity: his language is everywhere level to the most ignorant reader, and to the meanest capacity; there is a homely reality about it; a nursery tale is not more intelligible in its manner of narration to a child. Another cause of his popularity is, that he taxes the imagination as little as the understanding. The vividness of his own imagination is such, that he saw the things of which he was writing as distinctly with his mind's eye, as if they were indeed passing before him in a dream. And the reader, perhaps, sees them more satisfactorily to himself, because the outline only of the picture is presented to him; and the author having made no attempt to fill up the details, every reader supplies them according to the measure and scope of his own intellectual and imaginative powers." This work has been translated into almost all the modern European languages; and, next to the Bible, is one of the most popular books in the world. Mr. Grainger expresses the public opinion, as well as his own, of Mr. Bunyan, when he says, "His masterpiece is his Pilgrim's Progress,' one of the most popular, and I will add, one of the most ingenious books in the English language." Dr. Johnson greatly commends the "Pilgrim's Progress," as a work of original genius, and reckons it one of the very few books which every reader wishes had been longer. The late Rev. A. M. Toplady says he considers this "as the finest allegorical book extant; describing every stage of a believer's experience, from his conversion to his glorification, in the most artless simplicity of language; yet peculiarly rich with spiritual unction, glowing with the most vivid, just, and wellconducted machinery throughout. It is, in short, a masterpiece of piety and genius; and will, we doubt not, be of standing use to the people of God, so long as the sun and moon endure. It has been affirmed, and I believe with truth, that no book in the English tongue has gone through so many editions, the Bible and Common Prayer-book alone excepted." Mr. Ivimey remarks, "The plan of this work is admirable, being drawn from the circumstances of his own life, as a stranger and pilgrim who had left the City of Destruction upon a journey towards the Celestial Country. The difficulties he met with in his determination to serve Jesus Christ suggested the many circumstances of danger through which this pilgrim passed. The versatile conduct of some professors of religion suggested the different characters which Christian met with in his way; these, most probably, were persons whom he well knew, and who, perhaps, could be individually read at the time. His deep and trying experience, arising from convictions of sin, drew the picture of a man with a heavy burden upon his back, crying, as he fled from destruction, but going he knew not whither, Life! life! eternal life!"' Mr. Ivimey then points out various other passages in Christian's pilgrimage which he thinks were suggested from Bunyan's own history; the following are further specimens: "The sentiments he entertained of the world, as to its riches, honours, and pleasures, and his superior regard to truth, are well related in the description of Vanity Fair, where persons of all countries trade in everything which can gratify 'the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life.' "The interruption he met with in his progress, being seized by the warrant of the magistrate, his sham trial at the assizes, his sentence and subsequent imprisonment, are finely illustrated in the trial of Christian and Faithful before Judge Hategood, who convicts him on no better evidence than the testimony of Envy, Superstition, and Pickthank. His being sentenced to perpetual banishment, without trial by jury, is seen in the names of the pilgrim's jury, Mr. Blindman, the foreman, and eleven others of a similar description, to show the want of justice and equity in his prosecution. The death of Faithful is emblematical of the many Christians who have gone to heaven in fiery chariots; and the escape of Christian, and his immediately meeting with Hopeful, shows the impossibility of exterminating Christianity, as the blood of the martyrs has always been the seed of the church, others having risen up, like the phoenix, from their ashes. "The account Bunyan gives, in his experience, of his fears of death, and the manner in which he was delivered by faith in the promises, represents to us the pilgrims in Doubting Castle, beaten and advised to self-murder by giant Despair. "The unspeakable pleasures he describes in his life are the Delectable Mountains, from whence his pilgrims saw the Celestial City, through a glass, darkly. These joys were not delusive, as they were accompanied by Knowledge, Experience, Watchfulness, and Sincerity. The distress he had felt from erroneous views of truth, led him to see the necessity of great 'Caution,' regulated by these principles. "I do not recollect any instance in Bunyan's life of his being led away by any smooth-tongued erroneous preacher, whose sentiments had puffed him up with a vain opinion of himself: if so, and he had felt corrected for pride by the mistakes consequent on such folly, nothing can better represent it than the story of the Flatterer; for when the pilgrims were asked if the shepherds Knowledge, Experience, Watchfulness, and Sincere, had not all united in bidding them beware of the Flatterer, they replied with shame and confusion, 'We did not imagine this fine-spoken man had been he.' "The River of Death he describes from his observations on the deaths of Christians, so vastly different in their circumstances, that a weak believer says, 'I find the bottom, and it is good; cheer up, brother!' while another, strong in faith at other times, now sinks almost in despair, and the billows of distress go over his head; but however they felt and talked while passing the river, they both got over safe, were immediately received by guardian spirits, and conducted to the city of God, where they were cheerfully welcomed, and made eternally happy. "With the account of his experience and imprisonment before us, we cease to wonder that Bunyan's fine |