PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
Bunyan Characters (2nd Series)
Whyte, Alexander, 1836-1921 · 86,217 words · 109 reading sections
Feeble-Mind
"Comfort the feeble-minded."--_Paul_. Feeble-mind shall first tell you his own story in his own words, and then I shall perhaps venture a few observations upon his history and his character. "I am but a sickly man, as you see," said Feeble-mind to Greatheart, "and because Death did usually knock once a day at my door…
687 wordsSECTION 62Feeble-Mind
1. In the first place, a single word as to Feeble-mind's family tree. Thackeray says that _The Peerage_ is the Family Bible of every true-born Englishman. Every genuine Englishman, he tells us, teaches that sacred book diligently to his children. He talks out of it to them when he sits in the house and when he walks b…
1,038 wordsSECTION 63Feeble-Mind
And we see this very same intellectual laziness, this very same downright dislike at divine truth, in our own people every day. There are in every congregation people who take up their lodgings at the gate and refuse to go one step farther on the way. A visit to the Interpreter's House always upsets them. It turns thei…
691 wordsSECTION 64Feeble-Mind
4. The Hill Difficulty, which might have helped to make a man of Feeble- mind, saw a laughable, if it had not been such a lamentable, spectacle. For it saw this poor creature hanging as limp as wet linen on the back of one of the Interpreter's sweating servants. Your little boy will explain the parable to you. Shall I …
697 wordsSECTION 65Feeble-Mind
7. The first thing that did Mr. Feeble-mind any real good was his being made military guard over the women and the children while the men went out to demolish Doubting Castle. _Quis custodiet_? you will smile and say when you hear that. Who shall protect the protector? you will say. But wait a little. Greatheart knew h…
475 wordsSECTION 66Great-Heart
"--when thou shalt enlarge my heart."--_David_. On Sabbath, the 12th December 1886, I heard the late Canon Liddon preach a sermon in St. Paul's Cathedral, in which he classed Oliver Cromwell with Alexander the Sixth and with Richard the Third. I had taken my estimate of the great Protector's character largely from Car…
735 wordsSECTION 67Great-Heart
3. Now I saw in my dream that they went on, and Greatheart went before them, so they came to the place where Christian's burden fell off his back and tumbled into a sepulchre. Here, then, they made a pause, and here also they blessed God. "Now," said Christiana, "it comes to my mind what was said to us at the gate; to …
934 wordsSECTION 68Great-Heart
Now, what with the House Beautiful, so full of the most delightful company; what with music in the house and music in the heart; what with Mr. Brisk's courtship of Mercy, Matthew's illness, Mr. Skill's cure of the sick man, and what not--a whole month passed by like a day in that so happy house. But at last Christiana …
800 wordsSECTION 69Great-Heart
"He that will kill, must first be overcome; Who live abroad would, first must die at home. 6. Greatheart again and again at the river-side, Greatheart sending pilgrim after pilgrim over the river with rapture, and he himself still summoned to turn his back on the Celestial City, and to retrace his steps through the l…
977 wordsSECTION 70Mr. Ready-To-Halt
"Shalt hang thy trumpet in the hall And study war no more." "For I am ready to halt."--_David_. Mr. Ready-to-halt is the Mephibosheth of the pilgrimage. While Mephibosheth was still a child in arms, his nurse let the young prince fall, and from that day to the day of his death he was lame in both his feet. Mephibosh…
1,250 wordsSECTION 71Mr. Ready-To-Halt
2. And now, after all that, would you think it going too far if I were to say that in making Himself like unto all His brethren, our Lord made Himself like Mr. Ready-to-halt too? Indeed He did. And it was because his Lord did this, that Mr. Ready-to-halt so loved his Lord as to follow Him upon crutches. It would not be…
861 wordsSECTION 72Mr. Ready-To-Halt
3. Among all the devout and beautiful fables of the "dispensation of paganism," there is nothing finer than the fable of blind Tiresias and his staff. By some sad calamity this old prophet had lost the sight of his eyes, and to compensate their servant for that great loss the gods endowed him with a staff with eyes. As…
1,067 wordsSECTION 73Valiant-For-Truth
6. "He whom thou hast loved and followed, though upon crutches, expects thee at His table the next day after Easter." Take comfort, cripples! Had it been said that the King so expects Greatheart, or Standfast, or Valiant-for-truth, that would have been after the manner of the kings of this world. But to insist on havin…
1,729 wordsSECTION 74Valiant-For-Truth
3. Inconsiderate, again, is the shallow creature he is, and does the endless mischief that he does, largely for lack of imagination. He never thinks--neither before he speaks nor after he has spoken. He never put himself in another man's place all his days. He is incapable of doing that. He has neither the head nor the…
710 wordsSECTION 75Valiant-For-Truth
5. The first time we see Valiant-for-truth he is standing at the mouth of Dead-man's-lane with his sword in his hand and with his face all bloody. "They have left upon me, as you see," said the bleeding man, "some of the marks of their valour, and have also carried away with them some of mine." And, in like manner, we …
858 wordsSECTION 76Valiant-For-Truth
7. "Sir," said the widow indeed to Valiant-for-truth, "sir, you have in all places shown yourself true-hearted." The first time she ever saw this man that she is now seeing for the last time on this side the river, his own mother would not have known him, he was so hacked to pieces with the swords of his three assailan…
488 wordsSECTION 77Standfast
"So stand fast in the Lord, my dearly beloved."--_Paul_. In his supplementary picture of Standfast John Bunyan is seen at his very best, both as a religious teacher and as an English author. On the Enchanted Ground Standfast is set before us with extraordinary insight, sagacity, and wisdom; and then in the terrible ri…
959 wordsSECTION 78Standfast
"The arrow seen beforehand slacks its flight." 2. But, musing alone, the arrow seen beforehand, and all, Standfast would have been a lost man on that lonely road that day had he not instantly betaken himself to his knees. And it was while Standfast was still on his knees that the ascending pilgrims heard that concerne…
803 wordsSECTION 79Standfast
3. "Was it," asked Valiant-for-truth, in a holy curiosity, "was it some special mercy that brought thee to thy knees even now?" Yes; Valiant-for- truth had exactly hit it. Gracious wits, like great wits, jump together. "Yes," confessed Standfast, "I continue to give thanks for my great deliverance." My brethren, you al…
768 wordsSECTION 80Standfast
5. Lord Rosebery knows books and loves books, and he has called attention to the surpassing beauty of the English in the deathbed scenes of the _Pilgrim's Progress_. And every lover of pure, tender, and noble English must, like the Foreign Secretary, have all those precious pages by heart. Were it not that we all have …
1,094 wordsSECTION 81Madam Bubble
"Vanity of vanities, all is vanity."--_Solomon_. "I have overcome the world."--_Our Lord_. "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passet…
975 wordsSECTION 82Madam Bubble
2. "I am the mistress of the world," she says, "and men are made happy by me."--I would like to see one of them. I have seen many men to whom Madam Bubble had said that if they would be ruled by her she would make them great and happy. But though I have seen not a few who have believed her and let themselves be ruled b…
752 wordsSECTION 83Madam Bubble
"The grey-haired saint may fail at last, The surest guide a wanderer prove; Death only binds us fast To the bright shore of love." 4. "She highly commends the rich," the guide goes on about Madam Bubble, "and if there be one cunning to get money in any place she will speak well of him from house to house." "The wor…
921 wordsSECTION 84Madam Bubble
6. "'Twas she," so the guide at last wound up, "that set Absalom against his father, and Jeroboam against his master. 'Twas she that persuaded Judas to sell his Lord, and that prevailed with Demas to forsake the godly pilgrim's life. None can tell all the mischief that Madam Bubble does. She makes variance between rule…
438 wordsSECTION 85Gaius
"Gaius, mine host."--_Paul_. Goodman Gaius was the head of a hostel that stood on the side of the highway well on to the Celestial City. The hostess of the hostel was no more, and the old hostel-keeper did all her once well-done work and his own proper work into the bargain. Every day he inspected the whole house with…
684 wordsSECTION 86Gaius
"Dining in company is a divine institution," says Mr. Edward White, in his delightful _Minor Moralities of Life_. "Let Soyer's art be honoured among all men," he goes on. "Cookery distinguishes mankind from the beasts that perish. Happy is the woman whose daily table is the result of forethought. Her husband shall rise…
744 wordsSECTION 87Gaius
"Apples were they by which we were beguiled, Yet sin, not apples, hath our souls defiled. Apples forbid, if eat, corrupt the blood. To eat such, when commanded, does us good. Drink of His flagons then, thou Church, His Dove, And eat His apples who are sick of love." Then said Matthew, "I make the scruple because …
699 wordsSECTION 88Gaius
Now, this is another of the good qualities of a good host, to know the best and the most suitable people in the town, and to be on such terms with them that on short notice they will step across to help to entertain such travellers as had come to Mr. Mnason's table. And it is an excellent thing to be sure that when we …
736 wordsSECTION 89Christian
"The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch."--_Luke_. "Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian."--_King Agrippa_. "Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity."--_Paul_. All the other personages in the Pilgrim's Progress come and go; they all ascend the stage for a longer or sh…
942 wordsSECTION 90Christian
2. In the second place, and as to his burden. We are supplied with no particulars as to the first beginnings, the gradual make-up, and at last the terrible size of Christian's burden. What this pilgrim's youthful life must have been in such a city as his native city was, and while he was still a young man of such a nam…
979 wordsSECTION 91Christian
"Then I saw in my dream that Christian asked the Gatekeeper further if he could not help him off with his burden that was upon his back, for as yet he had not got rid of it, nor could he by any means get it off without help. He told him, 'As to thy burden, be content to bear it until thou comest to the place of deliver…
1,080 wordsSECTION 92Christiana
"Honour widows that are widows indeed."--_Paul_. We know next to nothing of Christiana till after she is a widow indeed. The names of her parents, and what kind of parents they were, the schools and the boarding-schools to which they sent their daughter, her school companions, the books she read, if she ever read any …
802 wordsSECTION 93Christiana
A minister's widow once told me that she had gone home after hearing a sermon of mine on the text, "What profit is there in my blood?" and had destroyed a paper of poison she had purchased in her despair on the previous Saturday night. It was not a sermon from her unconscious minister, but it was far better; it was a c…
1,068 wordsSECTION 94Christiana
But with all this, you must not suppose that this good woman, this mother in Israel, had forgotten her grandchildren. She would sooner have forgotten her own children. But she was too good a woman to forget either. For long ago, away back at the river on this side the Delectable Mountains, she had said to her four daug…
683 wordsSECTION 95Christiana
2. Her heart, her deep, strong, tender heart, is present on every page of Christiana's noble history. Her heart keeps her often silent when the water in her eyes becomes all the more eloquent. When she does let her heart utter itself in words, her words are fine and memorable. As, for one instance, after Greatheart's d…
638 wordsSECTION 96The Enchanted Ground
"Surely there is no enchantment against Jacob, neither is there any divination against Israel."--_Balaam_. "I saw then in my dream that they went till they came into a certain country whose air naturally tended to make one drowsy if he came a stranger to it. And here Hopeful began to be very dull and heavy of sleep, …
1,143 wordsSECTION 97The Enchanted Ground
"When Saints do sleepy grow, let them come hither And hear how these two pilgrims talk together; Yea, let them hear of them, in any wise, Thus to keep ope their drowsy slumb'ring eyes; Saints' fellowship, if it be managed well, Keeps them awake, and that in spite of hell." 2. But far worse than all its briars and…
1,156 wordsSECTION 98The Enchanted Ground
4. Listen to Samson, shorn of his locks, as he shakes himself off a soft and sweetly-worked couch in The Sensual Man's Arbour: "No, no; It fits not; thou and I long since are twain; Nor think me so unwary or accurst To bring my feet again into the snare Where once I have been caught; I know thy trains, Though dea…
738 wordsSECTION 99The Enchanted Ground
Now, would you know for yourself, like the communicant who came to me in my sleep, how you are ever to get past all those arbours, and settles, and seats, and couches, with all their sweet sorceries and intoxicating enchantments--would you in earnest know that? Then study well the case of one Standfast. Especially the …
302 wordsSECTION 100The Land Of Beulah
"Thou shalt be called Hephzibah, and thy land Beulah."--_Isaiah_. The first thing that John Bunyan tells us about the land of Beulah is this--that the shortest and the best way to the Celestial City lies directly through that land. The land of Beulah has its own indigenous inhabitants indeed. Old men dwell in the stre…
1,109 wordsSECTION 101The Land Of Beulah
2. "They solaced themselves." Now, solace is just the Latin _solatium_, which, again, is just a soothing, an assuaging, a compensation, an indemnification. Well, that land into which the pilgrims had now come was very soothing to their ruffled spirits and to their weary hearts. It assuaged their many and sore griefs al…
818 wordsSECTION 102The Land Of Beulah
4. "In this land also the contract between the bride and the bridegroom is renewed." Now, there is no other day so bitter in any man's life as that day is on which his bridal contract is broken off. And it is the very perfection and last extremity of bitterness when his contract is broken off because of his own past li…
659 wordsSECTION 103The Land Of Beulah
6. Now, as they walked in this land they had more rejoicing than in parts more remote from the kingdom to which they were bound. And still drawing nigh to that city they had yet a more perfect view thereof. It was builded of pearls and precious stones, also the street thereof was paved with gold, so that by reason of t…
967 wordsSECTION 104The Swelling Of Jordan
"More I would speak: but all my words are faint; Celestial Love, what eloquence can paint? No more, by mortal words, can be expressed, But all Eternity shall tell the rest." "The swelling of Jordan."--_Jeremiah_. "Fore-fancy your deathbed," says Samuel Rutherford. "Take an essay," he says in his greatest book, tha…
699 wordsSECTION 105The Swelling Of Jordan
3. When Mr. Fearing came to the river where was no bridge, there again he was in a heavy case. Now, he said, he should be drowned for ever and never see that Face with comfort he had come so many miles to behold. And here also I took notice of what was very remarkable; the water of that river was lower at this time tha…
820 wordsSECTION 106The Swelling Of Jordan
8. Standfast was the last of the pilgrims to go over the river. Standfast was left longest on this side the river because his Master could best trust him here. His Master had to take away many of His other servants from the evil to come, but He could trust Standfast. You can safely trust a man who takes to his knees in…
1,068 wordsSECTION 107The Swelling Of Jordan
2. Who will be your most welcome minister during your last days on earth? For whom would you send to-night if the post were suddenly to sound his horn at your side on your way home from church? I can well believe it would not be your own minister. I have known fathers and mothers in this congregation to send for other …
710 wordsSECTION 108The Swelling Of Jordan
4. And then, pray often to God for a clear mind between Him and you, and for a quick, warm, and heaven-hungry heart at the last. And take a promise from those who watch beside your bed that they will not drug and stupefy you even though you should ask for it. Whatever your pain, and it is all in God's hand, make up you…
272 wordsSECTION 109*** End Of The Project Gutenberg Ebook Bunyan Characters (2Nd Series) ***
{1} Delivered November 27th, 1892. {2} January 1st, 1893. Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will be renamed. Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy …
150 wordsSource & rights
Public domain in the USA; original historical text digitized by Project Gutenberg.
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Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.