PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
Bunyan Characters (1st Series)
Whyte, Alexander, 1836-1921 · 79,334 words · 95 reading sections
Shame
And I will tell you two other things, said sharp-sighted and plain-spoken Shame, that your present religion will compel you to do if you adhere to it. It will compel you from time to time to ask your neighbour's forgiveness even for petty faults, and it will insist with you that you make restitution when you have done …
736 wordsSECTION 62Talkative
And what did you say to all this, my brother? Say? I could not tell what to say at the first. I felt my blood coming up into my face at some of the things that Shame said and threatened. But, at last, I began to consider that that which is highly esteemed among men is often had in abomination with God. And I said to my…
874 wordsSECTION 63Talkative
Take detraction for an example, one of the commonest, and, surely, one of the most detestable of the sins of the tongue. And the etymology here, as in this whole region, is most instructive and most impressive. In detraction you _draw away_ something from your neighbour that is most precious and most dear to him. In de…
859 wordsSECTION 64Talkative
Now, it was all those vices of the tongue in full outbreak in the day of James the Just that made that apostle, half in sorrow, half in anger, demand of all his readers that they should henceforth begin to bridle their tongues. And, like all that most practical apostle's counsels, that is a most impressive and memorabl…
730 wordsSECTION 65Talkative
But of all the religiously-loquacious men of our day, your ministers are the chief. For your ministers must talk in public, and that often and at great length, whether they are truly religious men at home or no. It is their calling to talk to you unceasingly about religious matters. You chose them to be your ministers …
726 wordsSECTION 66Judge Hate-Good
'Hear, O heads of Jacob, and ye princes of the house of Israel . . . who hate the good and love the evil.'--Micah. The portrait of Judge Hate-good in _The Pilgrim's Progress_ is but a poor replica, as our artists say, of the portrait of Judge Jeffreys in our English history books. I am sure you have often read, with …
1,266 wordsSECTION 67Judge Hate-Good
HATE-GOOD is an awful enough name for any human being to bear. Those who really know what goodness is, and then, what hatred is,--they will feel how awful a thing it is for any man to hate goodness. But there is something among us sinful men far more awful than even that, and that is to hate God. The carnal mind, write…
950 wordsSECTION 68Judge Hate-Good
Now, though they will never be many, yet there must be some men among us, one here and another there, who have so looked at and found out themselves. I can well believe that some men here came up to this house to-night trembling in their heart all the way. They felt the very advertisement go through them like a knife: …
643 wordsSECTION 69Faithful In Vanity Fair {2}
'Be thou faithful.'--Rev. 2. 10. The breadth of John Bunyan's mind, the largeness of his heart, and the tolerance of his temper all come excellently out in his fine portrait of Faithful. New beginners in personal religion, when they first take up _The Pilgrim's Progress_ in earnest, always try to find out something in…
1,308 wordsSECTION 70Faithful In Vanity Fair {2}
Now, I cannot tell you how it was, I cannot account for it to myself, but it is nevertheless absolutely true that as I was reading my author last week and was meditating my present exposition, it came somehow into my mind, and I could not get it out of my mind, that there is a great and a close similarity between John …
1,024 wordsSECTION 71Faithful In Vanity Fair {2}
'We buy the truth and we sell it not again for anything,' was the reply of the two pilgrims to every stall-keeper as they passed up the fair, and this it was that made them to be so hated and hunted down by the men of the fair. And, in like manner, there is nothing more difficult to get hold of at an election time than…
698 wordsSECTION 72Faithful In Vanity Fair {2}
A general election is a trying time to all kinds of public men, but it is perhaps most trying of all to Christian ministers. Unless they are to disfranchise themselves and are to detach and shut themselves in from all interest in public affairs altogether, an election time is to our ministers, beyond any other class of…
818 wordsSECTION 73By-Ends
'Ye seek Me, not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves.'--Our Lord. In no part of John Bunyan's ingenious book is his strong sense and his sarcastic and humorous vein better displayed than just in his description of By-ends, and in the full and particular account he gives of the kinsfolk a…
832 wordsSECTION 74By-Ends
By-ends was so called because he was full of low, mean, selfish motives, and of nothing else. All that this wretched creature did, he did with a single eye to himself. The best things that he did became bad things in his self-seeking hands. His very religion stank in those men's nostrils who knew what was in his heart.…
732 wordsSECTION 75By-Ends
But it is not those who bear the sacred character of the ministry alone who are full of by-ends. We all are. You all are. And there is not one all-reaching, all-exposing, and all-humbling way of salvation appointed for ministers, and another, a more external, superficial, easy, and self- satisfied way for their people.…
762 wordsSECTION 76By-Ends
You must all have heard the name of a book that has helped many a saint now in glory to the examination and the keeping of his own heart. I refer to Jeremy Taylor's _Holy Living and Dying_. Take two or three of Taylor's excellent rules with you as you go down from God's house to-night. 'If you would really live a holy …
603 wordsSECTION 77Giant Despair
'A wounded spirit who can bear?'--Solomon. Every schoolboy has Giant Despair by heart. The rough road after the meadow of lilies, the stile into By-Path-Meadow, the night coming on, the thunder and the lightning and the waters rising amain, Giant Despair's apprehension of Christian and Hopeful, their dreadful bed in h…
792 wordsSECTION 78Giant Despair
Behold ye how these crystal streams do glide To comfort pilgrims by the highway side; The meadows green, besides their fragrant smell, Yield dainties for them: And he that can tell What pleasant fruits, yea leaves, these trees do yield, Will soon sell all that he may buy this field. Thus the two pilgrims sang: on…
773 wordsSECTION 79Giant Despair
The Pilgrims now, to gratify the flesh, Will seek its ease; but oh! how they afresh Do thereby plunge themselves new grieves into: Who seek to please the flesh themselves undo. 3. The two transgressors had not gone far on their own way when night came on and with the night a very great darkness. But what soon added…
1,044 wordsSECTION 80Giant Despair
5. 'I will,' says Paul to Timothy, 'that men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands without doubting.' And, just as Paul would have it, Christian and Hopeful began to lift up their hands even in the dungeon of Doubting Castle. 'Well,' we read, 'on Saturday night about midnight they began to pray, and continued in praye…
1,054 wordsSECTION 81Knowledge
Such were some of the many keys by the use of which God let John Bunyan so often out of despair into full assurance and out of darkness into light. Which of the promises have been of such help to you? Over what Scriptures have you ever cried out: Oh, how good a thing it is for God to send me His word! Which are the big…
902 wordsSECTION 82Knowledge
Now, in all this John Bunyan speaks as a child to children; but, of such children as John Bunyan and his readers is the kingdom of heaven. My very youngest hearer here to-night knows quite well, or, at any rate, shrewdly suspects, that Knowledge was not a shepherd going about with his staff among woolly sheep; nor woul…
1,007 wordsSECTION 83Knowledge
But, then, there is, nowadays, so much sound knowledge to be gained, not to speak of so many books and papers of mere pastime and amusement, that it may well be asked by a young man who is to be a minister whether he is indeed called to be like that great student who took all knowledge for his province. Yes, indeed, he…
1,012 wordsSECTION 84Knowledge
2. And your second danger in connection with your minister is, that you have, and may have long had, a good minister, but that you still remain yourself a bad man. My brethren, be you all sure of it, there is a special and a fearful danger in having a specially good minister. Think twice, and make up your mind well, be…
398 wordsSECTION 85Experience
'My heart had great experience.'--The Preacher. 'I will give them pastors after Mine own heart.' Experience, the excellent shepherd of the Delectable Mountains, had a brother in the army, and he was an equally excellent soldier. The two brothers--they were twin-brothers--had been brought up together till they were gr…
1,292 wordsSECTION 86Experience
His children thus most dear to Him, Their heavenly Father trains, Through all the hard experience led Of sorrows and of pains. And if His children, then ten times more the tutors and governors of His children,--the pastors and the preachers He prepares for His people. 2. Again, though I will not put those two coll…
696 wordsSECTION 87Experience
Their years but young, but their experience old, Their heads unmellowed, but their judgment ripe. It is quite true, that, as my old minister shrewdly said to me, even the Holy Ghost cannot inspire an experience. No. But a class of genuine experimental divinity would surely help to foster and develop an experience. An…
988 wordsSECTION 88Experience
4. Now, my brethren, in closing, we must all keep it clearly before our minds, and that too every day we live, that God orders and overrules this whole world, and, indeed, keeps it going very much just that He may by means of it make unceasing experiment upon His people. Experiment, you know, results in experience. The…
445 wordsSECTION 89Watchful
'Son of man, I have made thee a watchman unto the house of Israel.'--The word of the Lord to Ezekiel. 'They watch for your souls.'--The Apostle to the Hebrews. There were four shepherds who had the care of Immanuel's sheep on the Delectable Mountains, and their names were Knowledge, Experience, Watchful, and Sincere…
751 wordsSECTION 90Watchful
2. Pastoral visitation, combined with personal dealing, is by far the best way of watching for souls. I well remember when I first began my ministry in this congregation, how much I was impressed with what one of the ablest and best of our then ministers was reported to have testified on his deathbed. Calling back to h…
1,216 wordsSECTION 91Watchful
3. Our young communicants' classes, and still more, those private interviews that precede and finish up our young communicants' classes, are by far our best opportunities as pastors. I remember Dr. Moody Stuart telling me long ago that he had found his young communicants' classes to be the most fruitful opportunities o…
1,081 wordsSECTION 92Sincere
'In all things showing sincerity.'--Paul to Titus. Charles Bennett has a delightful drawing of Sincere in Charles Kingsley's beautiful edition of _The Pilgrim's Progress_. You feel that you could look all day into those clear eyes. Your eyes would begin to quail before you had looked long into the fourth shepherd's de…
1,085 wordsSECTION 93Sincere
And, then, this simplicity and purity of intention gives a minister that fine combination of candour and considerateness which we saw to exist together so harmoniously in the character of Sincere. Such a minister is not tongue-tied with sinister and selfish intentions. His sincerity toward God gives him a masterful pos…
1,177 wordsSECTION 94Sincere
Now, my good friends, we have kept all this time to the fourth shepherd and to his noble name, but let us look in closing at some of his sheep,--that is to say, at ourselves. For is it not said in the prophet: Ye my flock, the flock of my pasture, are men, and I am your God, saith the Lord God. All, therefore, that has…
656 wordsSECTION 95*** End Of The Project Gutenberg Ebook Bunyan Characters (1St Series) ***
'O Eternal God, Who hast made all things for man, and man for Thy glory, sanctify my body and my soul, my thoughts and my intentions, my words and my actions, that whatsoever I shall think or speak or do may be by me designed to the glory of Thy name. O God, turn my necessities into virtue, and the works of nature into…
320 wordsSource & rights
Public domain in the USA; original historical text digitized by Project Gutenberg.
Project Gutenberg source record →
Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.