badly. His genius was a
native genius. As soon as he began to write at all, he wrote well.
Without any training, is he says, in the school of Aristotle or Plato, or
any study of the great masters of literature, at one bound he leapt to a
high level of thought and composition. His earliest book, "Some Gospel
Truths Opened," "thrown off," writes Dr. Brown, "at a heat," displays the
same ease of style and directness of speech and absence of stilted
phraseology which he maintained to the end. The great charm which
pervades all Bunyan's writings is their naturalness. You never feel that
he is writing for effect, still less to perform an uncongenial piece of
task-work. He writes because he had something to say which was worth
saying, a message to deliver on which the highest interests of others
were at stake, which demanded nothing more than a straightforward
earnestness and plainness of speech, such as coming from the heart might
best reach the hearts of others. He wrote as he spoke, because a
necessity was laid upon him which he dared not evade. As he says in a
passage quoted in a former chapter, he might have stepped into a much
higher style, and have employed more literary ornament. But to attempt
this would be, to one of his intense earnestness, to degrade his calling.
He dared not do it. Like the great Apostle, "his speech and preaching
was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the
Spirit and in power." God had not played with him, and he dared not play
with others. His errand was much too serious, and their need and danger
too urgent to waste time in tricking out his words with human skill. And
it is just this which, with all their rudeness, their occasional bad
grammar, and homely colloquialisms, gives to Bunyan's writings a power of
riveting the attention and stirring the affections which few writers have
attained to. The pent-up fire glows in every line, and kindles the
hearts of his readers. "Beautiful images, vivid expressions, forcible
arguments all aglow with passion, tender pleadings, solemn warnings, make
those who read him all eye, all ear, all soul." This native vigour is
attributable, in no small degree, to the manner in which for the most
part Bunyan's works came into being. He did not set himself to compose
theological treatises upon stated subjects, but after he had preached
with satisfaction to himself and acceptance with his audience, he usually
wrote out the