Part 8 (1/2)

Under the other aspect the struggle is still unfinished; the last act of the drama has still to be played, and we know not what the conclusion is to be.

To attempt to represent it, therefore, as a work of art, with a beginning, a middle, and an end, is necessarily a failure. The mysteries and contradictions which the Christian revelation leaves unsolved are made tolerable to us by Hope. We are prepared to find in religion many things which we cannot understand; and difficulties do not perplex us so long as they remain in a form to which we are accustomed. To emphasise the problem by offering it to us in an allegory, of which we are presumed to possess a key, serves only to revive Man Friday's question, or the old dilemma which neither intellect nor imagination has ever dealt with successfully. 'Deus aut non vult tollere mala, aut nequit. Si non vult non est bonus. Si nequit non est omnipotens.' It is wiser to confess with Butler that 'there may be necessities in the nature of things which we are not acquainted with.'

CHAPTER IX.

THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS.

If the 'Holy War' is an unfit subject for allegorical treatment, the 'Pilgrim's Progress' is no less perfectly adapted for it. The 'Holy War' is a representation of the struggle of human nature with evil, and the struggle is left undecided. The 'Pilgrim's Progress' is a representation of the efforts of a single soul after holiness, which has its natural termination when the soul quits its mortal home and crosses the dark river. Each one of us has his own life battle to fight out, his own sorrows and trials, his own failures or successes, and his own end. He wins the game, or he loses it. The account is wound up, and the curtain falls upon him. Here Bunyan had a material as excellent in itself as it was exactly suited to his peculiar genius; and his treatment of the subject from his own point of view--that of English Protestant Christianity--is unequalled and never will be equalled. I may say never, for in this world of change the point of view alters fast, and never continues in one stay. As we are swept along the stream of time, lights and shadows s.h.i.+ft their places, mountain plateaus turn to sharp peaks, mountain ranges dissolve into vapour. The river which has been gliding deep and slow along the plain, leaps suddenly over a precipice and plunges foaming down a sunless gorge. In the midst of changing circ.u.mstances the central question remains the same--What am I? what is this world in which I appear and disappear like a bubble? who made me? and what am I to do?

Some answer or other the mind of man demands and insists on receiving.

Theologian or poet offers at long intervals explanations which are accepted as credible for a time. They wear out, and another follows, and then another. Bunyan's answer has served average English men and women for two hundred years, but no human being with Bunyan's intellect and Bunyan's sincerity can again use similar language; and the 'Pilgrim's Progress' is and will remain unique of its kind--an imperishable monument of the form in which the problem presented itself to a person of singular truthfulness, simplicity, and piety, who after many struggles accepted the Puritan creed as the adequate solution of it. It was composed exactly at the time when it was possible for such a book to come into being; the close of the period when the Puritan formula was a real belief, and was about to change from a living principle into an intellectual opinion. So long as a religion is fully alive, men do not talk about it or make allegories about it. They a.s.sume its truth as out of reach of question, and they simply obey its precepts as they obey the law of the land. It becomes a subject of art and discourse only when men are unconsciously ceasing to believe, and therefore the more vehemently think that they believe, and repudiate with indignation the suggestion that doubt has found its way into them. After this religion no longer governs their lives. It governs only the language in which they express themselves, and they preserve it eagerly, in the shape of elaborate observances or in the agreeable forms of art and literature.

The 'Pilgrim's Progress' was written before the 'Holy War,' while Bunyan was still in prison at Bedford, and was but half conscious of the gifts which he possessed. It was written for his own entertainment, and therefore without the thought--so fatal in its effects and so hard to be resisted--of what the world would say about it. It was written in compulsory quiet, when he was comparatively unexcited by the effort of perpetual preaching, and the shapes of things could present themselves to him as they really were, undistorted by theological narrowness. It is the same story which he has told of himself in 'Grace Abounding,' thrown out into an objective form.

He tells us himself, in a metrical introduction, the circ.u.mstances under which it was composed:--

When at the first I took my pen in hand, Thus for to write, I did not understand That I at all should make a little book In such a mode. Nay, I had undertook To make another, which when almost done, Before I was aware I this begun.

And thus it was.--I writing of the way And race of saints in this our Gospel day, Fell suddenly into an Allegory About the journey and the way to glory In more than twenty things which I set down.

This done, I twenty more had in my crown, And these again began to multiply, Like sparks that from the coals of fire do fly.

Nay then, thought I, if that you breed so fast I'll put you by yourselves, lest you at last Should prove _ad Infinitum_, and eat out The book that I already am about.

Well, so I did; but yet I did not think To show to all the world my pen and ink In such a mode. I only thought to make, I knew not what. Nor did I undertake Merely to please my neighbours; no, not I.

I did it mine own self to gratify.

Neither did I but vacant seasons spend In this my scribble; nor did I intend But to divert myself in doing this From worser thoughts which make me do amiss.

Thus I set pen to paper with delight, And quickly had my thoughts in black and white; For having now my method by the end, Still as I pulled it came; and so I penned It down: until at last it came to be For length and breadth the bigness which you see.

Well, when I had thus put my ends together, I showed them others, that I might see whether They would condemn them or them justify.

And some said, Let them live; some, Let them die; Some said, John, print it; others said, Not so; Some said it might do good; others said, No.

Now was I in a strait, and did not see Which was the best thing to be done by me.

At last I thought, since you are thus divided, I print it will; and so the case decided.

The difference of opinion among Bunyan's friends is easily explicable.

The allegoric representation of religion to men profoundly convinced of the truth of it might naturally seem light and fantastic, and the breadth of the conception could not please the narrow sectarians who knew no salvation beyond the lines of their peculiar formulas. The Pilgrim though in a Puritan dress is a genuine man. His experience is so truly human experience, that Christians of every persuasion can identify themselves with him; and even those who regard Christianity itself as but a natural outgrowth of the conscience and intellect, and yet desire to live n.o.bly and make the best of themselves, can recognise familiar foot-prints in every step of Christian's journey.

Thus the 'Pilgrim's Progress' is a book, which, when once read, can never be forgotten. We too, every one of us, are pilgrims on the same road, and images and ill.u.s.trations come back upon us from so faithful an itinerary, as we encounter similar trials, and learn for ourselves the accuracy with which Bunyan has described them. There is no occasion to follow a story minutely which memory can so universally supply. I need pause only at a few spots which are too charming to pa.s.s by.

How picturesque and vivid are the opening lines:

'As I walked through the wilderness of this world I lighted on a certain place where there was a den,[10] and I laid me down in that place to sleep, and as I slept I dreamed a dream. I dreamed, and behold I saw a man, a man clothed in rags, standing with his face from his own home with a book in his hand, and a great burden upon his back.'

[Footnote 10: The Bedford Prison.]

The man is Bunyan himself as we see him in 'Grace Abounding.' His sins are the burden upon his back. He reads his book and weeps and trembles. He speaks of his fears to his friends and kindred. They think 'some frenzy distemper has got into his head.' He meets a man in the fields whose name is Evangelist. Evangelist tells him to flee from the City of Destruction. He shows him the way by which he must go, and points to the far-off light which will guide him to the wicket-gate.

He sets off, and his neighbours of course think him mad. The world always thinks men mad who turn their backs upon it. Obstinate and Pliable (how well we know them both!) follow to persuade him to return. Obstinate talks practical common sense to him, and as it has no effect, gives him up as a fantastical fellow. Pliable thinks that there may be something in what he says, and offers to go with him.

Before they can reach the wicket-gate, they fall into a 'miry slough.'