all that love of common fairness, and
that hatred of foul play, as a sure sign of some sympathy with the hated
truth itself. When an onlooker says 'Don't revile,' we are too ready to
set down that expression of civility as at least the first beginning of
true religion. But the religion of Jesus Christ cuts far deeper into the
heart of man than to the dividing asunder of justice and injustice,
civility and incivility, ribaldry and good manners. And it is always
found in the long-run that the cross of Christ and its crucifixion of the
human heart goes quite as hard with the gentlemanly-mannered man, the
civil and urbane man, as it does with the man of bad behaviour and of
brutish manners. 'Civil men,' says Thomas Goodwin, 'are this world's
saints.' And poor Pliable was one of them. 'My heart really inclines to
go with my neighbour,' said Pliable next. 'Yes,' he said, 'I begin to
come to a point. I really think I will go along with this good man. Yes,
I will cast in my lot with him. Come, good neighbour, let us be going.'

The apocalyptic side of some men's imaginations is very easily worked
upon. No kind of book sells better among those of our people who have no
root in themselves than just picture-books about heaven. Our
missionaries make use of lantern-slides to bring home the scenes in the
Gospels to the dull minds of their village hearers, and with good
success. And at home a magic-lantern filled with the splendours of the
New Jerusalem would carry multitudes of rootless hearts quite captive for
a time. 'Well said; and what else? This is excellent; and what else?'
Christian could not tell Pliable fast enough about the glories of heaven.
'There we shall be with seraphim and cherubim, creatures that will dazzle
your eyes to look on them. There also you shall meet with thousands and
ten thousands who have gone before us to that place. Elders with golden
crowns, and holy virgins with golden harps, and all clothed with
immortality as with a garment.' 'The hearing of all this,' cried
Pliable, 'is enough to ravish one's heart.' 'An overly faith,' says old
Thomas Shepard, 'is easily wrought.'

As if the text itself was not graphic enough, Bunyan's racy, humorous,
pathetic style overflows the text and enriches the very margins of his
pages, as every possessor of a good edition of _The Pilgrim_ knows.
'Christian and Obstinate pull for Pliable's soul' is the eloquent summary
set down on the side of the suffici