artaker
Of their derision: what is here in view
Of mine own knowledge, I dare say is true.

The characters in the _Holy War_ are not as a rule nearly so clear-cut or
so full of dramatic life and movement as their fellows are in the
_Pilgrim's Progress_, and Bunyan seems to have felt that to be the case.
He shows all an author's fondness for the children of his imagination in
the _Pilgrim's Progress_. He returns to and he lingers on their doings
and their sayings and their very names with all a foolish father's fond
delight. While, on the other hand, when we look to see him in his
confidential addresses to his readers returning upon some of the military
and municipal characters in the _Holy War_, to our disappointment he does
not so much as name a single one of them, though he dwells with all an
author's self-delectation on the outstanding scenes, situations, and
episodes of his remarkable book.

What, then, are some of the more outstanding scenes, situations, and
episodes, as well as military and municipal characters, in the book now
before us? And what are we to promise ourselves, and to expect, from the
study and the exposition of the _Holy War_ in these lectures? Well, to
begin with, we shall do our best to enter with mind, and heart, and
conscience, and imagination into Bunyan's great conception of the human
soul as a city, a fair and a delicate city and corporation, with its
situation, surroundings, privileges and fortunes. We shall then enter
under his guidance into the famous and stately palace of this
metropolitan city; a palace which for strength might be called a castle,
for pleasantness a paradise, and for largeness a place so copious as to
contain all the world. The walls and the gates of the city will then
occupy and instruct us for several Sabbath evenings, after which we shall
enter on the record of the wars and battles that rolled time after time
round those city walls, and surged up through its captured gates till
they quite overwhelmed the very palace of the king itself. Then we shall
spend, God willing, one Sabbath evening with Loth-to-stoop, and another
with old Ill-pause, the devil's orator, and another with Captain
Anything, and another with Lord Willbewill, and another with that
notorious villain Clip-promise, by whose doings so much of the king's
coin had been abused, and another with that so angry and so
ill-conditioned churl old Mr. Prejudice, with his sixty deaf men under
him.