seems to have designated in these men the characters of base, arrant cheats, and hypocrites. Their conversation with one another is a most amusing piece of satire, developing the sheer worldliness and selfishness of their principles, and the arguments by which such men justify the service of God and Mammon. The speech of Mr. Hold-the-World is admirably characteristic, and for its string of earthly proverbs, with the selfish sagacity of which they are all the exponent, it rivals all the delineations of Sancho Panza, by Cervantes. Hold-the-World is indeed the very essence and personification of low worldly wisdom, and what is worse, he carries it all under the guise of piety; in this, it is to be feared, constituting an example of the real character of many who would not be willing to acknowledge such principles, either to themselves or others.

"For my own part," said he, "I can count him but a fool, who, having the liberty to keep what he has, shall be so unwise as to lose it. Let us be wise as serpents; it is best to make hay while the sun shines: you see how the bee lieth still in winter, and bestirs her only when she can have profit with pleasure. God sends sometimes rain and sometimes sunshine: if they be such fools to go through the first, yet let us be content to take fair weather along with us. For my part, I like that religion best that will stand with the security of God's good blessings unto us; for who can imagine, that is ruled by his reason, since God has bestowed upon us the good things of this life, but that he would have us keep them for his sake? Abraham and Solomon grew rich in religion; and Job says that a good man shall lay up gold as dust.' But he must not be such as Christian and Hopeful, added Hold-the-World, if they be such rigid simpletons as you have described them."

Then By-ends proposed this question: Suppose a man, a minister or a tradesman, &c., should have an advantage lie before him to get the good blessings of this life, yet so as that he can by no means come by them, except, in appearance at least, he becomes extraordinarily zealous in some points of religion that he meddled not with before; may he not use these means to obtain this end, and yet be a right honest man?

Mr. Money-Love undertook to answer this question, and the crooked policy of his conclusions jumped well, you may be sure, with the minds of his companions, first concerning ministers, second concerning tradesmen. Dr. Paley would have done well to have read over this chapter in Bunyan before composing some of the chapters in his Moral Philosophy, and his sermon on the Utility of Distinctions in the Ministry. The philosophy of Money-Love and By-ends is that which the god of this world teaches all his votaries, and, alas, when motives come to be scrutinized, as they will be, at the bar of God, how much of our apparent good will be found to be evil, because in the root that nourished both the branches and the fruit, there was found to be nothing but self-interest carefully concealed! You seek me, not because of the miracles to be witnessed, or the grace to be gained, but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled.

"Suppose a minister," said Mr. Money-Love, "a very worthy man, possessed but of a very small benefice, and has in his eye a greater, more plump and fat by far: he has also now an opportunity of getting it, yet, so as by being more studious, by preaching more frequent and zealously, and because the temper of the people requires it, by altering of some of his principles: for my part, I see no reason why a man may not do this, provided he has a call, yea, and more a great deal besides, and yet be an honest man. For why?

1. His desire of a greater benefice is lawful; this cannot be contradicted, since it is set before him by Providence; so then he may get it if he can, making no question for conscience' sake.

2. Because his desire after that benefice makes him more studious, a more zealous preacher, &c., and so makes him a better man, yea, makes him better improve his parts; which is according to the mind of God.

3. Now, as to his complying with the temper of his people, by deserting, to serve them, some of his principles, this argueth: (1.) that he is of a self-denying temper; (2.) of a sweet and winning deportment; and (3.) so more fit for the ministerial function.

I conclude, then, that a minister who changes a small for a great, should not, for so doing, be judged as covetous; but rather, since he is improved in his parts, and industry thereby, be counted as one that pursues his call, and the opportunity put into his hands to do good.

And now to the second part of the question, which concerns the tradesman you mentioned; suppose such an one to have but a poor employ in the world, but by becoming

religious he may mend his market, perhaps get a rich wife, or more and far better customers to his shop; for my part, I see no reason but this may be lawfully done; for why? 1. To become religious is a virtue, by what means soever a man becomes so. 2. Nor is it unlawful to get a rich wife, or better customers to my shop.

1. Besides, the man that gets these by becoming religious, gets that which is good, of them that are good, by becoming good himself; so then, here is a good wife, and good customers, and good gain, and all this by becoming religious, which is good; therefore, to become religious, to get all these, is a good and profitable design."

Now is not this logic of Money-Love very barefaced? And yet these men considered it perfectly triumphant, and an argument that Christian and Hopeful could not possibly contradict. Whereupon they resolved to propound the same question to them, and so puzzle and defeat them. But to their astonishment, Christian declared at once that none others than heathens, hypocrites, devils, and witches could be of their opinion, and then he went on to prove this so clearly and powerfully out of scripture, with instances in point, that the men were completely staggered, and stood staring one upon another, unable to answer a word. What, said Christian to Hopeful, will these men do with the sentence of God, if they cannot stand before the sentence of men?

This passage in the pilgrimage is full of instruction, and we might dwell long upon it, and upon the danger of evil motives under the guise of a good cause, or of unholy motives in a holy cause. The motive is every thing; it makes the man, An eye single makes a single-minded man: an eye double makes a double-minded man. An eye single is good in whatever a man undertakes, considered even merely in reference to the things of this life, and as requisite to decision of character. In this view the children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light; what they do for this world they do with energy and whole-heartedness, which is just what, as pilgrims, we want for Christ. We want, in all things, an eye single for God, for his approbation, for his glory, and this is the precious motive that excludes every other, or keeps every other subordinate, and turns every thing to gold. "Whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men. The very drudgery and toilsomeness of our pilgrimage is turned into a divine and holy service, by this precious singleness of heart for Christ! Oh how desirable is this in every thing! This is the body of that beautiful composition by Herbert, which is perhaps the best series of stanzas he ever wrote, entitled, The Elixir. It is good to drink this on our pilgrimage, especially after such a conversation with By-ends and Money-Love. By-ends are almost always bad ends, but love to Christ, singleness of heart for Christ, sets them at a distance, and shows them at once in their native hypocrisy and deformity.

Teach me, my God and King,

In all things Thee to see,
And what I do in any thing,

To do it as for Thee.

Not rudely, as a beast,

To run into an action;

But still to make Thee prepossest,

And give it Thy perfection.

A man that looks on glass

On it may stay his eye;

And if it pleaseth, through it pass,

And then the heaven espy.

All may of Thee partake;
Nothing can be so mean,

Which with this tincture for thy sake
Will not grow bright and clean.

A servant with this clause,

Makes drudgery divine:

Who sweeps a room as for thy laws,

Makes that and the action fine.

This is the famous stone,

That turneth all to gold;

For that which God doth touch and own

Cannot for less be told.

Now we must go on with our Pilgrims. They had now a short interval of pleasant going, over a plain called Ease, but it was soon passed, and again they entered into danger. Bunyan has put in the margin, "The ease that Pilgrims have in this life is short."

S

The temptation which they now encountered was that of filthy lucre, for they came to a silver mine in the side of a hill, and were invited by a very gentlemanly man, Demas, to turn aside for a little, and examine this mine, and perhaps undertake a small speculation for themselves. Hopeful was for going, but Christian held him back, while he examined Demas, who declared that the working in this mine was not very dangerous except to those who were careless. There are many pilgrims who reason thus, or are ensnared by such reasoning. They think that if other men have perished by the love of money, it was because they went too far; but for themselves, they mean just to enter the mine, dig a little, and then come out again, satisfied to have neither poverty nor riches. But this is a temptation, where one step draws on another, so that no man can tell how far he is going; and the damps in this mine are such, that the further men go in, the greater danger they encounter, and the more incapacitated they are for turning back. "For they that will be rich, fall into temptation, and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil; which, while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

In our day there are many such hills Lucre, and such men Demas, to be encountered in our pilgrimage. But the air of the mines, it is observable, is in all those regions, and the pilgrims who turn aside, generally get so infected with it that they are ever after either greatly hindered and weakened in their course, or entirely disabled from pursuing their pilgrimage. There are also certain wild lands stretching off behind the hill Lucre, where some pilgrims wandering in search of treasure have lost their way, and never been heard of more. By divine grace the vigilance of Christian carried him and Hopeful past this danger, though By-ends and all his company went into the mine at the first invitation from Demas, and these men were never more seen on their pilgrimage. The habits of conformity to the world in Christians, and the love of money in the church of Christ, are the two forms of sin and danger especially brought to view in this portion of the Pilgrim's Progress. There are certain passages of Scripture, certain declarations of our blessed Lord, which are 66 sharp arrows in the hearts of the King's enemies" on these subjects. "What shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?' This is a sum in profit and loss, which it will take eternity to cipher out. Therefore let no man try it; leave it to the Saviour. Turn you to him and say, Lord, thou knowest; thou knowest perfectly what the soul is, and what eternity is, and I do not know either; and what it is to lose the soul, God grant I may never know. Lord, keep me from making this experiment. And yet, there are multitudes who are making it, multitudes who are playing at this game, working at this sum in arithmetic, What shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? This is the arithmetic of a great part of the world in Vanity Fair. Now you may gain the world if you seek it. Its comforts, luxuries, sinful pleasures, may be yours, if you be willing to barter your soul for them; they almost always come at that price; so you may gain the world, you may know what that part of the sum is; but what it is to lose the soul, that computation you are to make, that column you are to add up, in eternity; and that is an experiment which you cannot make but by making it for ever. Then there is that other passage, "Ye cannot serve God and Mammon! Cannot ! Yea, cannot; it is an absolute impossibility. Then the life of a great many persons is a perpetual strife after what is impossible, for many are striving to serve God and Mammon. Hard-working people they are; there are no greater drudges in the world, than those By-ends and Money-Loves and Demases, who, in the Christian church, are working away at this problem, to serve God and Mammon. That also is a tremendous sentence, "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven." "Often as the motley reflexes of my experience move in long processions of manifold groups before me," says a great writer, and certainly not a cynical man, Mr. Coleridge, "the distinguished and world-honoured company of Christian Mammonists appear to the eye of my imagination as a drove of camels heavily laden, yet all at full speed, and each in the confident expectation of passing through the eye of the needle, without stop or halt, both beasts and baggage!" From such sad and fearful madness may the grace of our God deliver us!

Fulness to such a burden is

Who go on pilgrimage;
Here little, and hereafter bliss,
Is best from age to age.

LECTURE XII.

DOUBTING CASTLE AND GIANT DESPAIR.

Beauty and wisdom of this delineation. Many ways of getting into this Castle. Only one way to get out.-By-Path Meadow, and its Allurements.-Enjoyment of Christian and Hopeful before they went into it. Their discontent with the roughness of the King's highway. Their four errors. Their sleep amidst the storm, and the discovery of them by Giant Despair. Their treatment and behaviour in the Castle. A Sabbath-morning in prayer.-Discovery of the Key of Promise.-Their escape.-The mercy and faithfulness of God in Christ.-Consequences of the hiding of God's countenance.-Misery of being without God in eternity.—Solemn Realities of this Allegory.

We are coming now upon a scene in this pilgrimage, which is drawn from the experience of all travellers towards the Celestial City, and is in a greater or less degree familiar to them all. What pilgrim does not know Doubting Castle, kept by Giant Despair? Its huge keeps and moss-grown frowning battlements rise before us almost as familiar as the Wicket Gate; and what pilgrims are there, that have not, at some time or another, seen the inside of the Castle? They may not all have seen Giant Despair in person, but his wife Diffidence they have met with, and the underkeepers of his prison. They may not all have been thrown into the same horrible dungeon where Christian and Hopeful were confined, nor visited by the Giant with temptations to make away with themselves in their misery; but in some cell or another they have had to bewail their sins, and to groan and suffer by reason of unbelieving doubts and fears. So, though the Dreamer, in the second part of his Pilgrim's Progress, gives an account of the destruction of the Castle, and thẻ death of the Giant, yet no man believes that he is dead, and still from day to day the pilgrims are straying into his grounds, and finding to their cost the depth and terror of his prisons. Giant Despair will never die, so long as unpardoned sin remains, or a sense of it burdens the conscience; nor is there any security against falling into his hands, but in the care and mercy of One who is mightier than he, even Christ Jesus.

The personification of Despair is one of the most instructive and beautiful portions of Bunyan's Allegory. It appeals either to every man's experience, or to every man's prophetic sense of what may come upon him on account of sin. It is at once in some respects the very gloomiest and very brightest part of the Pilgrim's Progress; for it shows at once to what a depth of misery sin may plunge the Christian, and also to what a depth the mercy of God in Christ may reach. The colouring of the picture is extremely vivid, the remembrance of it can never pass from the mind; and as in a gallery of beautiful paintings, there may often be one that so strongly reminds you of your own experience, and carries you back into past life with such power, or that in itself is so remarkably beautiful, as to chain you before it in admiration, and keep you dwelling upon it with unabated interest, so it is with this delineation of Giant Despair, among the many admirable sketches of Bunyan's piety and genius. It is so full of deep life and meaning that you cannot exhaust it, and it is of such exquisite propriety and beauty that you are never tired with examining it.

It is easy for fallen beings to get into Doubting Castle; conviction of sin, unaccompanied by a sense of the mercy of Christ, will take any man there at once; and the last possession and abode of the soul hardened in sin and abandoned of God must be DESPAIR. There are many ways in which even a Christian may come there. Some men enter by unbelief, and whatever state of mind or habit of sin shuts out the Saviour, is sure to bring a man there at once. Some men enter by pride and self-righteousness; if a man trust in his own merits, instead of the blood and righteousness of Christ, for justification,

he may seem for a time to be at large; but when he comes to know his own state, the bars of the prison will be round about him, and Giant Despair will be his keeper.

Some men enter this Castle by habits of self-indulgence, some by particular cherished sins, some by dallying with temptations, some by sudden falling into deep sins, some by neglect of watchfulness and prayer, some by a gradual creeping coldness and stupor in the things of religion, the dangerous spirit of slumber not being guarded against and resisted. Some get into this prison by natural gloom and despondency of mind, of which Satan takes an advantage; others by brooding over the threatenings, and neglecting the promises; others by going to penances and duties for the relief of conscience, and not to Christ. Neglect of duty takes most men to prison, but duties themselves may bring us there if we trust in duties for acceptance, and not in Christ. Neglect of God's Word will take men to this prison, and leaning to one's own understanding. Distorted views. of divine truth, speculative error, and the habit of speculation rather than of faith and life in divine things may shut up the soul in darkness. Some get into this prison by spiritual sins, others by sensual; some by the lusts of the flesh, some by the lust of the eyes, some by the pride of life; some by conformity to the world, and obedience to fashion; some by the pressure of business, others by the cares of life and the deceitfulness of riches; they that will be rich are always on the way to this Castle, if not in it.

There is a way to this Castle from the Arbour on the Hill Difficulty, and also from the Enchanted Ground, if a man sleeps there and loses his roll, and then, instead of going to Christ, pursues his journey without it. And if a Christian, when he has sinned against God, stays away from him, and keeps silence towards him, then he will be so shut up and beaten in this prison, that his bones will wax old through his roaring all the day long. This was once the case with David. David fell into this Castle by gross sin, and fearfully was he handled by Giant Despair. Asaph fell into this Castle by doubting and complaining of God's unequal dealings with the righteous and the wicked, so that he was as a beast before God. Job fell into this Castle by taking a wrong view of God's chastisements, and he only got out by this saying: I know that my Redeemer liveth." A child of God may fall into this Castle by making a wrong use, or rather by not making a right use, of trials, by not receiving them as a child should receive the corrections of a father. A repining disposition will very quickly bring the soul into this prison. Jonah fell into this prison by running away from known duty, and preferring his own will to God's will. He went down to the bottoms of the mountains, so that he had to cry out of the belly of hell; and God heard his voice. Thomas fell into the Castle by obstinate unbelief, so that all the prayers and tears of his fellow-disciples could not bring him out, and he came out only by that gracious voice of the Saviour, "Be not faithless, but believing!" Peter fell into this Castle, about the same time, and wept bitterly, and it was nothing but the mercy of the same Saviour that brought him out. Satan would have kept him there, had it not been for that wonderful prayer of the Saviour beforehand, I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not."

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Alas! alas! how many ways there are of getting into this gloomy prison! Oh, if Christ be not always with the soul, or if at any time it go astray from him, or if its reliance be on any thing whatever but his mercy, his blood, his grace, then is it near the gloom of this Dungeon; then may Giant Despair be heard walking in his grounds, and verily the echo of his footsteps oftentimes falls upon the soul before the grim form rises on the vision. And some who have once entered the Castle have staid there a great while, because they have tried many other means of escape, than by the blood of Christ; because they have used picklocks, and penances, and stratagems, and the help of friends outside the Castle, but not the Key of Promise, or not aright, not throwing themselves on the Saviour alone for pardon, peace, and justification. A man who gets into difficulty through sin, will never get out by self-righteousness; nor are past sins, nor the burden of them, to be ever removed by present morality; nothing but faith, nothing but the precious blood of Christ, can take away sin, can remove the stain of it, can deliver the soul from its condemnation.

Perhaps, notwithstanding there are so many examples of great sins bringing men into his power, yet, with the majority of Christians, it is little sins neglected, and sins of omission, and duties undone, that shut them up in Doubting Castle, kept by Giant Despair. Duties undone are in reality great sins, but they do not strike the conscience with such immediate terror as open sins, and therefore perhaps they are the more dangerous. The soul gets sadly accustomed to such neglects, and there is always some plausible ex