Evening Post SATURDAY, DECEMBER 15, 1928 BUNYAN AND THE BiBLE

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 132, 15 December 1928, Page 8

Evening Post SATURDAY, DECEMBER 15, 1928 BUNYAN AND THE BiBLE

Not the least wonderful thing about the book which has probably had more influence on English religion than any other book except the Bible, which has been translated into more foreign tongues than any other book except the Bible, and which, if it had no religious or moral significance at all, would nevertheless be assured of immortality as a unique model of English prose, is .that it was the work of an uneducated and illiterate man. John Bunyan was a tinker and the son of a tinker who suffered agonies from the state of his own soul, and having found salvation spent the rest of'his life in endeavouring to impart it to others. But neither in his years of doubt and imagined wickedness nor in ihose of victorious faith had ho five minutes to spare for the cultivation of the style which was to make "The Pilgrim's Progress" one of-the imperishable glories of English literature. In his spiritual autobiography, "Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners," Bunyan describes with characteristic candour the disadvantages of his rank and his education. For my Descent then, it was, as is well-known by many, of a low and inconsiderable Generation; my Father's House being of that Sank that is meanest, and most despised of all the Families in the Land. . . . But notwithstanding the Meanness aud Inconsidorabloness of my Parents, it pleased God to put it into their Hearts, to put me to School, to learn me both to road and write the which I also attained according to tho Kate of other poor Men's Children; though, to my. Shame, I confess I did soon lose that I had,learned, even almost utterly,, and that long bofore tho Lord did work his gracious Work of Conversion upon my soul. During those evil days when he was throwing away the benefits of his meagre education the profane character of his reading is perhaps indicated in the words which he puts into the mouth of one of his characters:— Give me a ballad, a news-book, George on horseback, or Bevis of Southampton. It may be that it was from the romance of Sir Bevis that Bunyan derived the idea of the imaginative form in" which "The Pilgrim's Progress" Avas cast, but it was in the Bible that he foiind at once the salvation of his soul and the perfection of his English style. The historical parts of the Bible were what first attracted Bunyan, Cor as for Paul's Epistles, and such like Scriptures, I could not away with them, being as yet ignorant, either of the Corruptions of my Nature, or of tho Want and Work,■of Jesus Christ to save us. '-I Even after he had mastered the whole j book he had, of course, his moods. As he says in a passage admirably illustrative of the simplicity and force of his style: I have sometimes scun more in a Line of tho Bible than I could well tell how to stand under, and yet at another Time the whole Bible hath been to me as dry as a Stick; or rather, my Heart hath been so dead and dry unto it, that I could not conceivo tho least Dram of Refreshment, though I have looked it all over. But we may suppose that in more normal moods Bunyan was, on the contrary, able to derive refreshment even from the catalogues of names and details of ceremonies which to the modern reader are often as "dry as a stick." It is, at any rate, certain that he was steeped in the Bible till its spirit, its imagery, and its language had become his very own. "All his methods being to keep close to the Scriptures," says his first biographer with an approval which was not shared by all Bunyan's contemporaries. The Quakers, who, Dr. John Brown tells us, were in those days very aggressive, actually invaded his church to complain that he trusted too much to the text and not enough to the inward light. A Quaker sister, says Bunyan, did bid me in. the audience of many "to throw away the Scriptures." To which I answered, "No, for then the Devil would be too hard for me." The devil would certainly have deprived us of "The Pilgrim's Progress" if Bunyan had "thrown away the Scriptures." Only a man equally versed in the spirit and in the letter of the Bible could have given us a book which was called by Dr. Arnold "a complete reflexion of the Scriptures," and by Coleridge j incomparably the best "Suiuma Theologiae Evangelicae" ever produced by a. writer not miraculously inspired. Hallam adds a striking testimony from a non-theological standpoint. There is, he says, scarcely a circumstance or a metaphor in the Old Testament which does not find a part bodily and literally in "Pilgrim's Progress," and this has made his imagination appear moro creative than it really was. This is an astonishing statement, and the man who sets out to prove or to disprove it would acquire such a knowledge of two of the greatest books in our language as is very rare to-day. It must even be admitted that Bunyan's addition to Biblical metaphor sometimes carries him too far. When Mercy falls down before the Keeper of the Gate she exclaims: Let my Lord accept of tho sacrifice which I now offer with the calves of my lips. , The imagery which Mercy here bor- j rows from Hosea does not suit the | genius of the English language, and as the Revisers have altered the rendering it perhaps did not suit the Hebrew genius either. Canon Beeching, to whom we owe this example, .sajjtplies nnotlier egua-llj good, Bun-

| yan's reference lo Emmanuel "leaping over the mountains" he condemns as a phrase which a verse in Canticles (U. S) may account for, but will not justify. But such trifles as these arc mere specks on the sun, and do not alter the fact that Bunyan has fused the simple speech of the Bedfordshire peasant of his day with the beautiful simplicity of ihc Aulhorised Version in a blend which is as near perfection as anything mortal can be. It is noteworthy that nobody has praised the style of "The Pilgrim's Progress" more highly than three masters of modern English — Macaulay, Froude, and Green—-who were all very far from sharing Bunyan's theological views. In no book, says Green, do we see more clearly tho new imaginative forco which had been given to the common life of Englishmen by their study of the Bible. Its English is tho simplest and the homeliest English which has ever been used by any great English writer; but it is the English of the Bible. The images of "The Pilgrim's Progress" are the images of prophet and evangelist; it borrows for its tenderer outbursts the very verse of the Song of Songs, and pictures the heavenly city in the words of the Apocalypse. But so completely has the Bible become Bunyan's life that one feels its phrases as the natural expression of his thoughts. He has lived in the Bible till its words have become his own. He has lived among its visions and .voices of heaven till all sense of possible unreality has died away. The testimony of Macaulay and Fronde is to much the same effect. Wo have observed several pages, the j former adds, whicli do not contain a single word of more than two syllables. Yet no writer lias said more exactly what he meant to say. Macaulay's test may be applied to , the opening paragraph of the book: As I walk'd through tho wilderness of this world, I lighted on a certain place whero was a Dcii, 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 clothed with Bags, standing in a certain place, with his face from his own house, a Book in his hand, and a great Burdon upon his back. I looked, and saw him open the Book, and read therein; and as he read, ho wept and trembled; and not being ablo longer to contain, ho brake out' with a lamentable cry,, saying, "What shall I do?" Even the dissyllables are in a small minority here, and of the two words of more than two syllables "wilderness" is a good old Saxon word and both are simple and easy. In the margin there are no less than six references to indicate the biblical passages either quoted in the text or present in solution. Having taken one illustration of Bunyan's style from the beginning of the First Part of "Pilgrim's Progress" we may, in conclusion, present another in the great passage — "Mr. Valiant Summoned"—which is almost at the very end of the Second Part:— ! - After this it was noised abroad that | Mr. Valiant-f or-truth was taken with a Summons by the same Post as tho other, and had this for a Token that the Summons was true, "That his Pitcher was broken at the Fountain." (Eceles. 12.6.) When he understood it, lie called for his Friends, and told them jof it. Then said he, I am going to niy Fathers, and tho' with groat difficulty I am got hither, yet now I do not repent mo of all the Trouble I have been at to arrive where I am. My Sword I give to him that shall succeed me in my Pilgrimage, and my Courage and Skill to him that can get it. My Marks and Scars I carry with me, to bo a witness for mo that I have fought his Battles who now will be my Bewarder. When the day that he must go honco was come, many accompanied him to the River-side, into which as ho went ho said, "Death,' where is thy Sting?" And as he went down deeper.ho said, "Grave, where is thy Victory?" So he passed over, and all the Trumpets sounded for him on the other side.