John 13unyan—II. The Light Within
THE commonest criticism made against Bunyan is THE he was a child of his own era, and that consequently his idea of religion was narrow and individual. With our best modernists, who aim at establishing the Kingdorri of Heaven Upon - earth, he is sometimes contrasted as having been exclusively cOncewed with personal salvation in a world to come. Such criticism; however, is not merely superficial ; it is ignorant. - It is certainly not based upon a real knowledge of Bunyan's life and work. The whole wonder of Bunyan's career lies in the fact 'that, starting with every disadvantage, this Bedford tinker—little educated, of strong natural passions, and prisoned spiritually by a rigid and ruthless theology—not only became 'one of the boldest and sanest preachers and- pamphleteers of his day; but wrote, - in an exceptional 'flush of inspiration, one of the- most universal and enduring books in the world.
Bunyan's best preaching was done in his later years. But as an author he reached his climax with-The Pilgrim's Progress. Of his total of sixty books, four represent his permanent legacy to literature ; and it is true that:Of these four works, two were written after The Pilgrim's Progress. But neither Mr. Badman nor The Holy War reaches the supreme imaginative level: Mr. Badman, though vivid enough as the study of a typical seventeenth- century scoundrel, is too discursive and lacks high inventiveness ; while The Holy War suffers froth' a slight disharmony between theme and method. The Progress deals largely with the external circumstances of the Christian pilgrimage, and the conception lent. itself naturally enough to allegory. The- Holy War, on the other hand, is Concerned with the inner struggles of the human heart—symbolized by the city of Mansoul, with city of its five gates representing the five Senses-.. The book reflects the intensified spirituality of Bunyan's later phase.. But to describe a man's inward Objectively, in terms of actual sm-renteenth-century warfare, presented difficulties which Bunyan did not alWays overcome; though we can still agree with .111aCaulay that The Holy War would be our best religious allegory if its great forerunner had not been written.
Bunyan was forty-Seven when- be lightly (almost gaily) tossed off The Pilgrim's Progress. He himself tells us how, setting out to write a very different kind of work, he "fell suddenly into.an allegory," of which the characters and incidents leapt unbidden to his mind, " like sparks that from the. coals of -fire do fly.", The book„ to change the _metaphor, fell like ripe fruit from his mind. -But, as with :fruit, wind and rain, no -less than sunshine, had contributed-to its maturing. Never was it truer than in Bunyan's case that the poet learns in sorrow what he tells in song : and if we would understand The .k'ilgrim's Progress we must turn to the earlier Grace -,Abounding,' which probably holds second place in the hearts of most Bunyan loVers. Here, in this autobiography, alniOst comparable with St. Augustine's Confessions. we see the crucible of spiritual agony-in which the gold of the later BmiYan was refined.
Half of Bunyan must always have belonged to the CeleStialCity. But the other half was, to begin with, very much an inhabitant of seventeenth-century Bedford. Stern enough in itself was the fight which he had to wage with his own passionate nature. The almOst Quaker-like gentleness and patience of his maturity were not donned without effort. But far grimmer was the conflict between his innate charity and catholicity of outlook and the. crabbed theology to which he was heir. Grace Abounding is, the poignant reflection of a naturally bird-like spirit caged within the iron bars of the law, and struggling frantically to be free. In all the record of torturing doubts and fears that make up this wonderful book, nothing to our mind is more pathetic than the passage in which Bunyan describes how, vaguely recalling a text that seemed to offer him the hope that he was not after all irreparably damned, he sought that text through the Scriptures for weeks, only to find of last that it was in the - Apocrypha----and therefore of doubtful validity ! For intensely "sensitive soulS there are only two possible consequences of this kind of religious literalism. Either it will lead to insanity, or it. must be discarded. Happily, Bunyan was not merely sensitive.: He was also inherently vigorous, sane, and Courageous. With one magnificent gesture of strength and heroism, he finally snapped the fetters that bound him. " Sink or swim, come heaven, . come hell." he emerged into the light, for which his natively joyous soul had longed increasingly since the day when he had fallen into conversation with the good women of Gifford's church, in which he himself was soon to find peace. In all Bunyan's work there is, perhaps, no passage more charmingly self-revealing than that which tells how " the state -and -happiness " -Of these Bedford women was presented to him in " a kind of vision " : " I saw as if they were on the sunny side of some high mountain, there refrdshing themselves with pleasant bethika of the sun, While I was shivering. and shrinking in the cold, afflicted with -frost, snow, and dark clouds • methought also, betwixt me and them, I'saW a wall that did -compass about this mountain, and through this wall my soul did greatly desire to pass ; concluding, that if I could, I would even, go into the midst of them, and there also comfoit myself with the heat of their sun."
The. _latter part. of Grace Abounding describes how Runyan did indeed pass through the wall. Incidentally, it reveals an honesty .that was always a match for his courage. Referring, for example, to his early ministry, he says " I preached what I felt, what I smartingly did feCl. . . . I went myself in chains to them in chains, and carried that fire in my conscience, that I persuaded them to be aware of." But he tells us that some years later. ".the Lord came in upon my soul, with such staid peace and comfort through Christ . wherefore now I altered my preaching (for still I preached what I saw and felt) ; now therefore_ did much labour to hold. forth Jesus Christ in all His offices, relations, and benefits unto the. world ; and did strive also to discover, to. condemn, and remove. those false supports and props on which the world doth both lean, and by them fall and perish." Many of Bunyan's lesser-read books—such as The Holy City, Christian Behaviour, and The Heavenly Footman-- further testify to the fact that he escaped from formalism into a radiant spirituality, and that his religion became social as well as personal. Mr. Badman, with that finely restrained ending which proves Bunyan to be' as good an artist as he is a teacher, may show no foreknow- ledge of modern economic intricacies. But it reflects vividly_ enough those principles of sound and honest commerce which no science of economics can ever invalidate. The nearer Bunyan drew to the Celestial City, the more practical he became. It is always the way with the true dreamer.
There are, of course, things even in The Pilgrim's Progress itself that Bunyan, had he been living to-day, would have seen differently. He would not have pictured the Man in the Iron Cage as doomed by God Himself to eternal punishment. He would have made Christian attempt to help Vain-Confidence from the pit ; and he would have been more lenient with Ignorance, who, to our own way of thinking, is sometimes wiser than his ridiculers. On the contrary, there are ample evidences in the book that Bunyan was not merely other-worldly. Most significant of all, there is the whole episode of Vanity Fair. Not only did Bunyan make this a town that no pilgrim could by any chance avoid, but he causes his pilgrims to cry out against its abuses ; and Faithful, who might (had he been so minded) have scuttled safely through the Fair, actually pays with his life the penalty • of reforming zeal. Here again, incidentally, Bunyan's sanity should be noted. The pilgrims, in their defence, are careful to insist that they have uttered no word of sedition, but have merely attacked such customs as are flatly opposed to the eternal laws of God. Bunyan himself, though he went to prison for conscience sake, always remained a constitutionalist, and was at pains before Sir John Kelynge (presiding Justice at Bedford in 1661, and obviously the original of Lord Hategood in the trial of Faithful at Vanity Fair) to dissociate himself from other dissenting sects like the Ranters, who used religion merely as a cloak for rebellion against all authority, To criticize The Pilgrim's Progress in pedantic detail is as Mr. Gwilym Griffith says, " to show that he has managed his allegory so realistically that his amateur critics have largely forgotten that it is an allegory. For obviously, to object to Christ- ian's forsaking his starting-point is to disallow the figure of a pilirimage altogether, while to suppose that the City of Destruction stands .for an actual community which a man may stay in and reform is simply to be deceived by the vividness of Bunyan's symbolism." No allegory can have a logical precision. It must be taken as 'a whole ; and, so judged, The Pilgrim's Progres8 passes the supreme test of universality.. No one could tell, from internal evidence, to what religious persuasion the _writer belonged. So undenominational, indeed, is the book that, next to the Bible, it has been the treasure of every sect of Protestant faith in almost every language, and has, despite its uncomplimentary references to Giant Pope, been adapted even for Roman Catholic use. Passing shadows of Puritan theology fall upon its pages ; but the full gospel light, _embracing earth as well as Heaven, repeatedly . shines out. As for Bunyan's characters, created with unconscious but consummate art, who will say that these.are out of date ? Mr. Pliable, Mr. Heady, Lord Timeserver, and a hundred others : they are all recognizable human beings, with us to-day, . and likely to people the world so long as it endures.
Bunyan was, in a double sense, a.man of. the road.. As. !tinker and Ainerant preacher, he knew and _loved the . Midland highways and lanes. As .a .pilgrim to the Celestial City, he knew and Understodd, as few Men have ever done, the human heart. The roads of England haVe altered since his day. He would look askance at our hustling traffic and our petrol-pumps. Equally he would be perplexed by our modern problems and, interpretations. But change, after all, is only superficial. Macadam may replace mud, and the motor car succeed the lumbering wagon. But the same sun still shines ; the same wind still blows ; and the same stars still blink their inscrutable mystery. Similarly, religious ideas undergo modification. Yet the essential problem of Christianity—the spiritualiza- tion of man—remains. The way for us all is still a pilgrim's way, beset with difficulties, sorrows, and" dangers ; and three centuries of Progress have not produced a better companion for the adventure than that Greatheart—John Bunyan.
GILBERT. THOMAS..
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