e lions. We
have in _The Pilgrim's Progress_ almost every property of romantic
adventure and terror. We want only a map in order to bring home to us the
fact that it belongs to the same school of fiction as _Treasure Island_.
There may be theological contentions here and there that interrupt the
action of the story as they interrupt the interest of _Grace Abounding_.
But the tedious passages are extraordinarily few, considering that the
author had the passions of a preacher. No doubt the fact that, when he
wrote _The Pilgrim's Progress_, he was not definitely thinking of the
edification of his neighbours, goes far towards explaining the absence of
commonplace arguments and exhortations. "I did it mine own self to
gratify," he declared in his rhymed "apology for his book." Later on, in
reply to some brethren of the stricter sort who condemned such dabbling in
fiction, he defended his book as a tract, remarking that, if you want to
catch fish,

They must be groped for, and be tickled too,
Or they will not be catch't, whate'er you do.

But in its origin _The Pilgrim's Progress_ was not a tract, but the
inevitable image of the experiences of the writer's soul. And what wild
adventures those were every reader of _Grace Abounding_ knows. There were
terrific contests with the Devil, who could never charm John Bunyan as he
charmed Eve. To Bunyan these contests were not metaphorical battles, but
were as struggles with flesh and blood. "He pulled, and I pulled," he
wrote in one place; "but, God be praised, I overcame him--I got sweetness
from it." And the Devil not only fought him openly, but made more subtle
attempts to entice him to sin. "Sometimes, again, when I have been
preaching, I have been violently assaulted with thoughts of blasphemy, and
strongly tempted to speak the words with my mouth before the
congregation." Bunyan, as he looked back over the long record of his
spiritual torments, thought of it chiefly as a running fight with the
Devil. Outside the covers of the Bible, little existed save temptations
for the soul. No sentence in _The Pilgrim's Progress_ is more suggestive
of Bunyan's view of life than that in which the merchandise of Vanity Fair
is described as including "delights of all sorts, as whores, bawds, wives,
husbands, children, masters, servants, lives, blood, bodies, souls,
silver, gold, pearls, precious stones, and what not." It is no wonder
that one to whom so much of the common life of man was s