Genre Religion. Page - 3

aracter; but he goes further, when he asserts that'Bunyan's heart never was hardened.'[22] This is directly opposedto his description of himself:--'I found within me a great desireto take my fill of sin, still studying what sin was yet to becommitted; and I made as much haste as I could to fill my bellywith its delicates, lest I should die before I had my desire.' Hethus solemnly adds, 'In these things, I protest before God, I lienot, neither do I feign this sort of speech; these were really,strongly, and with all my heart, my desires; the good Lord, whosemercy is unsearchable, forgive me my transgressions.' The wholeof his career, from childhood to manhood, was, 'According to thecourse of this world, according to the prince of the power of theair, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience'(Eph 2:2).

These reminiscences are alluded to in the prologue of the HolyWar:--

'When Mansoul trampled upon things Divine,And wallowed in filth as doth a swine,Then I was

cannot be stationary; it must either decline or grow. Despite all the unworthy fears of our poor hearts, Divine love is destined to conquer. The bride exclaims:--

Thine ointments have a goodly fragrance; Thy name is as ointment poured forth; Therefore do the virgins love Thee.

There was no such ointment as that with which the High Priest was anointed: our Bridegroom is a Priest as well as a King. The trembling bride cannot wholly dismiss her fears; but the unrest and the longing become unbearable, and she determines to surrender all, and come what may to follow fully. She will yield her very self to Him, heart and hand, influence and possessions. Nothing can be so insupportable as His absence! If He lead to another Moriah, or even to a Calvary, she will follow Him.

Draw me: we will run after Thee!

But ah! what follows? A wondrously glad surprise. No Moriah, no Calvary; on the contrary, a KING! When the heart submits, then JESUS reigns. And when JESUS reigns, there is rest

s the distinctionbetween eating and digestion.

The following definition of teaching, contributed by a former statesuperintendent of schools, is rich in suggestion:

"Teaching is the process of training an individual through theformation of habits, the acquisition of knowledge, the inculcation ofideals, and the fixing of permanent interests so that he shall becomea clean, intelligent, self-supporting member of society, who has thepower to govern himself, can participate in noble enjoyments, and hasthe desire and the courage to revere God and serve his fellows."

Teaching does not merely consist of an inquisition of questions withappropriate answers thrown in; it surely is not mere reading; nor can itbe mistaken for preaching or lecturing. These are all means that may beemployed in the process of teaching. And they are important, too. Wehave been cautioned much, of late years, not to lose ourselves in theprocess of doling out facts--but that rather we should occupy

large! I resolved to begin at the beginning and study some of their doings before I probed their reason. Fate threw in my way a connection by marriage, a naval man, who on board his ship at Bombay had had a visit from a wandering Hindu who offered to show a sight the sahibs could never have seen before. He agreed, and standing a great brass vessel of water on the deck the man stood off at a great distance and in the sight of many people beckoned, and the water rose snake-like in the jar and crept over the edge and slipped down the side a bright snake of water, and so along the deck until he halted it with a sign, released it with a beckon, and so on until it crept to his feet and there dissolved into a pool of common water, leaving the jar empty.

I asked, "How did you explain it?" and the captain answered, "I couldn't. It couldn't have happened, but all the same he made a lot of us see it."

"But that kind of mass-hypnotism could be almost as wonderful as the reality," I suggested. "A really ter

tted; Bunyan's own title--'The Holy War made by Shaddai upon Diabolus for the regaining of the Metropolis of the World'--is altered to the feebler and more commonplace form--'The Holy War made by Christ upon the Devil for the Regaining of Man'; and, further, when a new edition was issued in 1696, the alterations and omissions of 168 4 were ignored, and a simple reprint made of the first edition of 1682.

J. B. {1c} 9 October, 1905.

THE AUTHOR TO THE READER

Courteous Reader,

I was considering with my self, what I had written concerning the Progress of the Pilgrim from this World to Glory; and how it had been acceptable to many in this Nation: It came again into my mind to write, as then, of him that was going to Heaven, so now, of the Life and Death of the Ungodly, and of their travel from this world to Hell. The which in this I have done, and have put it, as thou seest, under the Name and Title of Mr. Badman, a Name very proper for such a Subject: I have also put it into t

ne was to appear not only for an appointed work, but for an appointed period: "He shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever"--eis ton aiõna. If we translate literally and say "for the age," it harmonizes with a parallel passage. In giving the great commission, Jesus says: "And lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the age." Here his presence by the Holy Ghost is evidently meant. The perpetuity of that presence is guaranteed, "with you all the days"; and its bound determined, "unto the end of the age." Not that it need be argued that he shall not be here after this dispensation is finished; but that there is such a thing as a temporal mission of the Holy Spirit does seem to be implied. And a full study confirms the view. The present is the dispensation of {16} the Holy Ghost; the age-work which he inaugurated on the day of Pentecost is now going on, and it will continue until the Lord Jesus returns from heaven, when another order wil

pifies the pre-natal stage of life.Lauds, the office of dawn, seems to resemble the beginnings ofchildhood. Prime recalls to him youth. Terce, recited whenthe sun is high in the heavens shedding brilliant light, symbolisesearly manhood with its strength and glory. Sext typifies matureage. None, recited when the sun is declining, suggests man in hismiddle age. Vespers reminds all of decrepit age gliding gentlydown to the grave. Compline, night prayer said before sleep,should remind us of the great night, death.

CHAPTER II.

SHORT HISTORY OF DIVINE PRAISE IN GENERALAND OF THE BREVIARY IN PARTICULAR.

From all eternity the Godhead was praised with ineffable praise by theTrinity--the three divine Persons. The angels from the first moment ofthe creation sang God's praises. _Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus, DominusDeus, Sabaoth. Plena est omnis terra gloria ejus_ (Isaias vi. 3).

Cardinal Bona writes

ection.

A second condition of the spiritual life has been expressed in the precept, reiterated in many religions, by many experts in things relating to the life of the soul: "Live as if this hour were thy last." You will recall, as I pronounce these words, the memento mori of the Ancients, their custom of exhibiting a skeleton at the feast, in order to remind the banqueters of the fate that awaited them. You will remember the other-worldliness of Christian monks and ascetics who decried this pleasant earth as a vale of tears, and endeavored to fix the attention of their followers upon the pale joys of the Christian heaven, and you will wonder, perhaps, that I should be harking back to these conceptions of the past. I have, however, no such intention.

The prevailing attitude toward the thought of death is that of studied neglect. Men wish to face it as little as possible. We know, of course, what the fate is that awaits us. We know what are the terms of the compact. Now and again we are

ntoprison and even voted for their being put to death. I became soexceedingly mad against them that I even pursued them to foreigncities.

"Then as I was journeying[6] to Damascus, with the authority of thechief priests themselves, at mid-day I saw on the way a light from thesky, brighter than the blaze of the sun, shining round about me and mycompanions. And, as we were all fallen on to the road, I heard a voicesaying to me:

"'Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kickagainst the goad.'

"And I said, 'Who are you, Lord?'

"The answer came: 'I am Jesus, whom you persecute.'"

Then Paul went on:

"I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision; but I told those inDamascus and in Jerusalem and in all Judæa, aye! and the foreignnations also, that they should repent and turn to God.

"Later on," said Paul, "I fell into a trance, and Jesus came againto me and said, 'Go, I will send you afar to the Nations.' That (Paulwould say to Luke) is why I walk among perils in the