for the devil's promised secret; and we have all inherited
our first mother's miserable curiosity. How eager, how restless, how
importunate, we all are to hear that new thing that does not at all
concern us; or only concerns us to our loss and our shame. And the more
forbidden that secret is to us, and the more full of inward evil to
us--insane sinners that we are--the more determined we are to get at it.
Let any forbidden secret be in the keeping of some one within earshot of
us and we will give him no rest till he has shared the evil thing with
us. Let any specially evil page be published in a newspaper, and we will
take good care that that day's paper is not thrown into the waste-basket;
we will hide it away, like a dog with a stolen bone, till we are able to
dig it up and chew it dry in secret. The devil has no need to blockade
or besiege the gate of our ear if he has any of his good things to offer
us. The gate that can only be opened from within will open at once of
itself if he or any of his newsmongers but squat down for a moment before
it. Shame on us, and on all of us, for our itching ears.

3. Isaiah speaks of some men in his day whose ears were 'heavy' and
whose hearts were fat, and the Psalmist speaks of some men in his day
whose ears were 'stopped' up altogether. And there is not a better thing
in Bunyan at his very best than that surly old churl called Prejudice, so
ill-conditioned and so always on the edge of anger. By the devil's plan
of battle old Prejudice was appointed to be warder of Ear-gate, and to
enable him to keep that gate for his master he had sixty deaf men put
under him, men most advantageous for that post, forasmuch as it mattered
not to them what Emmanuel and His officers said. There could be no
manner of doubt who composed that inimitable passage. There is all the
truth and all the humour and all the satire in Old Prejudice that our
author has accustomed us to in his best pieces. The common people always
get the best literature along with the best religion in John Bunyan.
'They are like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear, and which will not
hearken to the voice of charmers charming never so wisely,' says the
Psalmist, speaking about some bad men in his day. Now, I will not stand
upon David's natural history here, but his moral and religious meaning is
evident enough. David is not concerned about adders and their ears, he
is wholly taken up with us and our adder-like animosi