WROTE OF DEFEAT AS VICTORY

Southland Times, Issue 23675, 25 November 1938, Page 13

WROTE OF DEFEAT AS VICTORY

Bunyan Was Inspired Tinker FIGHT FOR SPIRITUAL FREEDOM Two hundred and fifty years ago a youth knocked at the door of a pastor in the English town of Bedford. The young man had come from Reading to seek advice; he had quarrelled with Ins father; he knew that the pastor had a great reputation as a peacemaker. The lad’s quest was not in vain, writes P. W. Wilson in The New York Times Magazine. The man and the boy returned to Reading, a reconciliation was effected, and the pastor rode off on his horse for London, 35 miles distant. That was John Bunyans last journey. He was drenched by rain and he was ill when he reached the home of a friend, a grocer named Strudwick, in Holborn. There he died on August 31, 1688, and Strudwick buried his friend in his family tomb. Two facts about John Bunyan are generally remembered today: He wrote “Pilgrim’s Progress,” and he wrote it in prison. And two questions arise: Why did this gentle man arouse such vitriolic animosity among his persecutors? How was it that, at the age of 48, his unsuspected genius was able to achieve one of the masterpieces of literature? For “Pilgrim’s Progress” alone lives among the more than 60 books and pamphlets, mostly theological treatises, which came from Bunyan’s prolific pen. The answer to these questions may be found in the temper of the times in which he lived and in the nature of the man himself.

John Bunyan’s period was one in which few Englishmen could see life whole. Their country was split into two nations; there were the Cavaliers and there were the Puritans and the contrast between them was fundamental. Each party had its own idea of the State. Cavaliers acclaimed‘the King as executive; Puritans declared for Parliament as the stronghold of public opinion. Each party had its own idea of worship. Cavaliers were “High Church,” Puritans were “Low Church” or no church at all, only “conventicle.” Each party had its culture. Cavaliers wrote plays. Puritans closed the theatres and substituted prayer meetings. Each party was known by its dress and speech. Cavaliers appeared in silks and satins and velvets, with feathers, frills and furbelows; they laughed over broad jests and swore their lusty oaths. Puritans affected a severe simplicity, never dancing around the maypole or eating mince pies at Christmas. They called each other by Scriptural names —for instance, Praise-God Barebones, Serjeant Bind-Their-Kings-in-Chains or Captain Hew-Agag-in-Pieces-Be-fore-the-Lord.

Cavaliers and Puritanj did not see how they could live side by side as citizens in the same country. Even if it cost civil war, one party must obliterate the other party and so become the entire community. Throughout the life of John Bunyan the pendulum swung to and fro, each side in turn persecuting the other. • In 1649 the Puritans gained the upper hand and cut off the head of King Charles I. In 1660 King Charles II was restored to the throne and the regicides were hunted over land and sea. In 1688 King James H -was driven into exile and the long struggle ended in a policy of live and let live. There was nothing in Bunyan’s appearance to reflect the turbulence of flie times or of his own life. His complexion was swarthy but smooth and serene. His moustache was clipped with military precision. His eyes were alert with interest in life. His whimsical smile radiated sympathetic humour. His hair,, once dark, fell in masses over a soft linen collar. His heavy broadcloth coat was buttoned close to the neck and flapped its ample folds around his black knee-breeches. Thick woollen stockings and stout buckled shoes completed a workaday costume. He lived to be 60 and put on weight. This man of the people did-not seem to have an enemy in the world. But from the record and from his writing it is obvious that, while the charge of persecuting opponents could not be brought against him, he suffered both from the actions of others and from his own conscience. SUFFERED FROM EMOTIONS Bunyan was bom in 1628 and baptized in Elstow Church near Bedford. There are hints that he had gipsy blood in his veins. Certainly he suffered in his young days from surging emotions. But he was never a nomad. His was always a settled, home. By inherited trade, he was a tinker or tinsmith who called at houses and sold or mended pots and pans. As a young man he fought briefly in the civil war, and, it is believed, against the King. But he was not a Puritan as that word is understood, let us say, in Massachusetts, where Puritanism was in effect the religion of the colony. He was an Independent who, believing in complete religious equality, would have followed Roger Williams into Rhode Island. Bunyan was not bred an Independent —far from it. As a boy he liked ceremonials in church, was interested in bell-ringing, danced with other boys and girls and even played tip-cat on the village green with a bat and ball. Young Bunyan was just another fellow and, on occasion, could use the same language as the rest. The bride of his early manhood brought him “not so much as a dish or a spoon.” But the young girl told Bunyan of what the Puritan faith had meant in her home and she handed him two books—“ The Plain Man’s Pathway to Heaven” and “The Practice of Piety”—and Bunyan took to serious reading. Suddenly he was plunged into an agony of soul that almost cost him his reason. He prayed to trees, to a broomstick, to the parish bull. He tried to work miracles, ordering the puddles in the road to dry up and staking his salvation on the result. However, it is to be explained, whether in terms of psychology or mysticism, Bunyan emerged from these dark breedings into the light of day. During the Commonwealth Bunyan had no public difficulties. He could preach when, where and what he liked. At the Restoration the Cavaliers ordered him to be silent. He refused to surrender his right as a citizen, to evade his duty to a compelling conscience. He went on preaching as before. PAPERS ON THEOLOGY During the earlier and longer of these terms the rigour of the imprisonment was relaxed and Bunyan received the consideration accorded to a “trusty. But the thought of his family in privation —especially a blind daughter—haunted him day and night. Not for an instant did he allow himself to be idle. His artisan’s hands made many gross of long-tagged laces which medlars sold on his behalf. He wrote for money 60 or more discussions of theology. In 1675 Bunyan was again arrested, and for the same offence—that is, preaching. Tradition locates the scene of his second imprisonment. Through

the town of Bedford runs the River Ouse. On a bridge stood a toll bar that also served as a kind of police station. Here was “the den,” as Bunyan called his dungeon, where he lay down on many a miserable night to dream the dreams that he immortalized in writing as “Pilgrim’s Progress. Thus we arrive at the second question concerning Bunyan—how did he achieve such a masterpiece? And there is no adequate answer. All we can say is that the allegory unfolds an autobiography. The book explains the man and the man explains the book. Out of his own inner turmoil and in the majestic yet musical style of the King James version of the Bible, which he had absorbed from cover to cover, he told his story. The hero of the prose epic is Christian. His home is in the City of Destruction and he has a burden—a sense of guilt—on his back. Instructed by Evangelist, he leaves the city to proceed along a straight and narrow path from which he will turn aside at his peril. But it is no easy way. He falls first into the Slough of Despond, symbolic of Bunyan’s religious melancholia. He struggles out and Mr Worldly Wiseman directs him to the town of Morality, which he never reaches. But he finds his way to the Cross, where his burden falls from his shoulders and angels clothe him , with a garment of righteousness. He is now converted, but that is-only the beginning. Up Hill Difficulty he clambers, past chained lions, to the House Beautiful. Three sisters—Piety Prudence and Charity—provide him with armour, which leaves his back unprotected, and he descends into the Valley of Humiliation, where Apollyon straddles across the way and has to be fought off with the Scriptural sword. Then through the Valley of the Shadow, full of dreadful noises and hobgoblins, snares, traps, gins and nets, he arrives with a companion called Faithful at the City of Vanity, where a Fair is in progress. Christian arid Faithful are seized by soldiers, chained and beaten, exhibited in a cage. In the account of their mock trial Bunyan relieved years of pent-up feelings. The judge is Lord Hategood. His friends are Lord Old-Man, Lord' Car-nal-Delight, Lord Luxurious, Lord Desire-of-Vain-Glory, Lord Lechery and Sir Having Greedy. The witnesses for the Crown are Envy, Superstition and Pickthank, and the names of the jury are carefully chosen. They arrived at their verdict thus: And first, 1 ' among themselves Mr Blindman, the foreman, said, I see clearly that this man is a heretic. Then said Mr No-good, away with such a fellow from the earth. Ay, said Mr Malice, for I hate the very looks of him. Then, said Mr Love-lust, I could never endure him. Nor I, said Mr Liveloose, for he would always be condemning my way. Hang him, hang him! said Mr Heady. A sorry scrub, said Mr High-mind. My heart rises against him, said Mr Enmity. He is a rogue, said Mr Liar. Hanging is too good for him, said Mr Cruelty. Let us despatch him out of the way, said Mr Hate-light. Then said Mr Implacable, Might I have all the world given to me, I could not be reconciled to him; therefore let us forthwith bring him in guilty of death. And so they did. BURNED ALIVE Faithful was burned alive. Christian lived to continue the tale. Straying with his next companion, Hopeful, into Bypath Meadow, he is imprisoned in Doubting Castle, owned by Giant Despair and his good lady, Mrs Diffidence. But the two escape and reach the River without a bridge beyond which is visible the Celestial City. Here Bunyan’s eloquence reached its climax: Now just as the Gates were opened to let in the men, I looked in after them, and behold, the City shone like the sun; the streets also were paved with gold, and in them walked many men with crowns upon their heads, palms in their hands, and golden harps to sing praise withal. There were also of them that had wings; and they answered one another without intermission, saying, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord.” And after that they shut up the Gates; which when I had seen, I wished myself among them. The sale of “Pilgrim’s Progress” in the original English and in translations has been beyond all calculation. Before Bunyan’s death, 10 editions, or 100,000 copies, had been disposed of, and so modest was the author that his effects were valued at no more than £lOO. With comparatively few emendations—the piquant passage about Giant Pagan and Giant Pope were omitted—Catholics printed the allegory. During the eighteenth century it was the custom to deprecate the literary value of the book by treating it as a popular tract written by a lowbrow for other lowbrows who could understand nothing more learned. Macaulay and later critics revised this sophisticated judgment, and today “Pilgrim’s Progress,” judged by secular standards, ranks as a triumph of the imagination with “Don Quixote” and the “Arabian Nights” and “Gulliver’s travels.” “Pilgrim’s Progress” no longer enjoys what used to be a kind of Puritan monopoly in the realm of fiction. It is not known to the present generation as it was known to parents and grandparents but many phrases and allusions common ir our language today can be

traced to it. The sale of the book does not seem to have kept pace with the growth of population. Yet it has still an astonishing sale—said to exceed 20,000 copies a year in the United States alone. It is the story itself, not the moral emphasized by Bunyan, that grips attention—the story of a man who challenged his environment and dared to call his soul his own. In temporal matters this man obeyed the law. But the spirit within him was surrendered to a higher authority than the State. Whatever view be taken of Bunyan’s evangelism, he is himself a man of our own time —a dauntless champion of those rights of the individual without which no life can be lived that is worth living. Multitudes are suffering the oppression that he endured, and essentially for the same reason. His especial glory was that, with a contemptuous world of nower and fashion against him, he dared to write of his defeat as a victory