upon Valiant was,
under other names, Impertinence, Meddlesomeness, Officiousness,
Over-Interference. Pragmatic,--by whatever name he calls himself, there
is no mistaking him. He is never satisfied. He is never pleased. He is
never thankful. He is always setting his superiors right. He is like
the Psalmist in one thing, he has more understanding than all his
teachers. And he enjoys nothing more than in letting them know that.
There is nothing he will not correct you in--from cutting for the stone
to commanding the Channel Fleet. Now, if all that has put any visual
image of Pragmatic into your mind, you will see at once what an enemy he
too is fitted to be to the truth. For the truth does not stand in
points, but in principles. The truth does not dwell in the letter but in
the spirit. The truth is not served by setting other people right, but
by seeing every day and in every thing how far wrong we are ourselves.
The truth is like charity in this, that it begins at home. It is like
charity in this also, that it never behaves itself unseemly. A
pragmatical man, taken along with an inconsiderate man, and then a wild-
headed man added on to them, are three about as fatal hands as any truth
could fall into. The worst enemy of the truth must pity the truth, and
feel his hatred at the truth relenting, when he sees her under the
championship of Wildhead, Inconsiderate, and Pragmatic.

5. The first time we see Valiant-for-truth he is standing at the mouth
of Dead-man's-lane with his sword in his hand and with his face all
bloody. "They have left upon me, as you see," said the bleeding man,
"some of the marks of their valour, and have also carried away with them
some of mine." And, in like manner, we see Paul with the blood of
Barnabas still upon him when he is writing the thirteenth of First
Corinthians; and John with the blood of the Samaritans still upon him
down to his old age when he is writing his First Epistle; and John Bunyan
with the blood of the Quakers upon him when he is covertly writing this
page of his autobiography under the veil of Valiant-for-truth; and
William Law with the blood of Bishop Hoadly and John Wesley dropping on
the paper as he pens that golden passage which ends with Dr. Trapp and
George Fox. Where did you think Paul got that splendid passage about
charity? Where did you think William Law got that companion passage
about Church divisions, and about the Church Catholic? Where are such