ss. When
Napoleon awoke, a long knife was lying at his feet; but he heeded it
not, and little dreamt that a few minutes ago it had been pointed at his
heart.

Ah, Rohan Gwenfern had done well to leave the mighty emperor in the
hands of God, and go back, a wild, tattered, mad beggar to his
sweetheart Marcelle, in the little Breton village of Kromlaix. For as
Napoleon came out of the farmhouse, and looked at the dawning sky, there
rose up, clouding the lurid star of his destiny, the blood-red shadow--
WATERLOO!

* * * * *

JOHN BUNYAN

The Holy War

John Bunyan was born at Elstow, near Bedford, England, in
1628. After receiving a scanty education at the village
school, he worked hard at the forge with his father. In his
sixteenth year he lost his mother, and soon after he joined
the army, then engaged in the Civil War; but his military
experience lasted only a few months. Returning to Elstow, he
again worked at the forge, and married. After various
alternating religious experiences, in 1655 he became a member
of the Baptist congregation at Bedford, of which he was ere
long chosen pastor. His success was extraordinary; but after
five years his ministry was prohibited, and he was
incarcerated in Bedford Gaol, his imprisonment lasting for
twelve years. There he wrote his immortal "Pilgrim's
Progress." Released under the Act of Indulgence, he resumed
his ministry, and ultimately his pastoral charge in Bedford.
He took fever when on a visit to London, and died on August
31, 1688. The "Holy War" is considered by critics even
superior to the "Pilgrim," inasmuch as it betrays a finer
literary workmanship. It was written in 1682, after
molestation of Bunyan as a preacher had ceased, and when he
was known widely as the author of the first part of the
"Pilgrim's Progress," the second part of which was published
two years later. Macaulay held that if there had been no
"Pilgrim's Progress," "Holy War" would have been the first of
religious allegories. No doubt its popularity has been due in
some degree to its kinship to that work; but the vigour of its
style overcomes the minute elaboration of an almost impossible
theme, and the book lives, alike as literature and theology,
by its own vitality. An elaborate analysis of it may be found
in