almost to the present time, and to have been merely a mode of advertisement to the public, that the husband would not pay the debts of his wife, contracted subsequent to the time when she was thus cried down.'

The character of Mr. Brisk is wittily drawn in Bunyan's Emblems:

'Candles that do blink within the socket,

And saints whose eyes are always in their pocket,
Are much alike; such candles make us fumble;
And at such saints, good men and bad do stumble.'

Bunyan enjoyed the beauties of nature, especially the singing of birds; thus when Christiana leaves the Palace Beautiful, the songs of the birds are reduced to poetry, to comfort the pilgrims. A bird furnished him with one of his Divine Emblems. It is upon the lark :

'This pretty bird, oh! how she flies and sings
But could she do so if she had not wings?
Her wings bespeak my faith, her songs my peace;
When I believe and sing, my doubtings cease.'

Mercy longs for that mirror which flatters not, and the shepherds give her a Pible. Modern Christians may wonder that she had not previously furnished herself with one; doubtless she had the use of one, and all her pocket-money went to relieve the distresses of the poor of Christ's flock. Think of the thousands of pious men and women incarcerated in dungeons, because they loved Christ, and dared not violate conscience. What a charge upon those saints who possessed the means of rendering them assistance! The revenues of the church by law established were never used for the distribution of Bibles. The church had obtained a most enormous and injurious privilege, for the sole printing of Bibles in all languages, to withhold altogether, or give a supply as they chose. The natural consequence of this was, a high price for books printed on bad paper, and miserably incorrect. Of late years, part of the wealth she derived from her monopoly in printing incorrect Bibles has been wrung from her, and the Word of life now flows all pure as a mighty river, to refresh the earth. All honour be paid to those who fought that battle, and obtained that important victory. In Bunyan's time, the church allowed it only 'in a niggard stream, and that polluted.' Herbert has well expressed the value of the mirror which Mercy longed for:—

'The Bible is the looking-glass of souls, wherein
All men may see
Whether they be

Still as by nature they are, deformed with sin;
Or in a better case,

As new adorned with grace.''

Herbert's Synagogue, p. 1.

And he has thus shown the value of its sacred pages, to guide the benighted travellers: 'Greatheart struck a light, and took a view of his book or map.'

"The Bible! That's the book. The book indeed,
The book of books!

On which who looks,

As he should do aright, shall never need Wish for a better light

To guide him in the night."

The Christian reader can scarcely know, after having read the whole volume, which gave the greatest enjoyment-whether travelling in company with Christian and his bosom friend, or the delightful feelings excited by witnessing the matronly conduct of Christiana; seeing her modest friend, Mercy, a lovely companion, or the excellent picture of child-like behaviour in the four boys: retracing the road, every step becomes delightfully interesting, and the Valley of Humiliation the most lovely picture of the whole. The courtship of Mr. Brisk-the additions to their company-the weddings, and the happy close'-this, with the final perseverance of the whole party, leads every reader earnestly to wish for a Third Part, more adventures, more of the Divine goodness, more proofs that in this world, with all its bitterness, the gospel of Jesus Christ makes its possessors happy; yes, 'we have the promise of the life that now is, as well as of that which is to come.' But death, probably from the latent effects of his imprisonment, cut short the valuable life of the pilgrim's friend. And now, after long neglect, his country is teeming with his name as a national honour, and scarcely knows how sufficiently to show respect and admiration to his memory. Magnificent merchant-ships bear that name to oriental and transatlantic countries. Several thousand pounds have been subscribed to adorn the scene of his labours at Bedford with a BUNYAN CHAPEL, capable of seating about twelve hundred worshippers-a more appropriate monument to his memory than a statue or a splendid tomb. The pens of our greatest literary men have been employed to exhibit his singular piety, his extraordinary talent, and his extensive usefulness-may his image be placed with those of Milton, Shakspeare, Hampden, aud the giant men who have shed glory upon this nation, in the splendid new house in which the Commons of England hold their sittings.

2 Herbert's Synagogue, p. 15.

3 The last words of Christiana were-'I come, Lord, to be with thee, and bless thee.'

'How my heart

Longs, JESUS, for thy coming! to set free,
Th' imprison'd pilgrim from frail flesh and sin,
From evil and from death, to wing her way,
Her joyful way, to liberty and thee l'

CHAPTER IX.

FORGED THIRD PART OF PILGRIM'S PROGRESS.

The Pilgrim's Progress, the Third Part. London Bridge, 1693. The preface is signed J. B. J. Ryland considered this as inferior to Bunyan as a piece of hop sack is to the finest cambric, or a daub to a Titian. It has also very indelicate passages. To it was appended a life of Bunyan, containing a paragraph about the Ranters 30 indecent that a new life was written for the fourth edition, 1700. In the reprint of the old life by Mr. Ivimey, the dirty paragraph was omitted. QueryWho wrote this Third Part? or either of the lives?

John Edgar, D.D. LL.D., Belfast, published the following excellent observations upon the Pilgrim's Progress, and warnings against the forged third part, in the British Standard, October 12, 1860. They are now reprinted with his kind permission:

THE STERLING AND THE SPURIOUS.

Lord Macaulay declares Bunyan superior in genius to Baxter or Howe, and that the Pilgrim's Progress is a greater favourite in every nursery than Jack the GiantKiller. Dr. Arnold believed it to be a complete reflection of Scripture. Coleridge esteemed it the best uninspired summary of evangelical theology ever produced. Dr. Cheever thinks it always keeps its hold on the heart; and James Montgomery says, beautifully and truly, 'It would be difficult to name another work in our native tongue of which so many editions have been printed, of which so many readers have lived and died, the character of whose lives and deaths must have been more or less affected by its lessons and examples, its fictions and realities.' Not only do the common people confirm the high character of the Pilgrim's Progress thus expressed by the learned and great, but the common people were the first to see and prize the peerless excellence of Bunyan's great work, which their superiors now universally acknowledge.

So long as the English language lives, it will continue to be read by multitudes of the young at the very period when the imagination and heart are most easily and permanently affected by all the golden stores of heavenly truth with which the fascinating pages of Bunyan overflow. It is all-important, therefore, that Bunyan's Pilgrim should be guarded with sacred care. Self-interest and superstition have both tried to pervert him to their own vile ends, and make gain of Bunyan's fame.

In 1692 there appeared a forgery claiming to be a third part of Bunyan's Pilgrim, which so far succeeded in deception as to reach a sixth edition in 1705, although in 1693 it was publicly denounced as an imposture in these words: "The third part of the Pilgrim's Progress that's now abroad was not done by John Bunyan as is suggested. But the true copy left by him will be published by Nath. Ponder. No copy of this has been yet discovered. The London Quarterly Review says that this forgery - The Adventures of Mr. Tender Conscience-is most unworthy to be bound up, as it sometimes is, with Bunyan's matchless parable. But bound up it still unhappily is, and therefore I now write. John Newton asserts that a common hedge-stake deserves as much to be compared with Aaron's rod, as this poor performance to be obtruded on the world as the production of John Bunyan. But John Newton is in his grave, and the world is professedly much wiser than in his day, yet this poor performance is obtruded as John Bunyan's still. Dr. Ryland says that when an

anonymous scribbler tried to obtrude his stuff on the world as a third part of J'ilgrim's Progress, the cheat was soon discovered, and that every Christian of good taste could as easily see the difference as between fine cambric and coarse sacking. But Dr. Ryland and John Newton had both too high an estimate of the public understanding and Christian taste, for it is quite common for good Christians of taste and discernment to read the third part without even a suspicion that it is a forgery; and, to the shame of Philip, in his life of Bunyan, he says, "The third part may not be Bunyan's, but it is the production of a man of real genius. Bunyan's first biographer claims it for him, though his first editor does not even mention it. I should be glad to find that it was Bunyan's.' As being truly and really Bunyan's it is even now in different editions circulated. As this forgery, like every other, should be exposed, and as certain of its contents are pernicious,

I beg attention to the following facts :

1. John Bunyan is remarkably distinguished, as Lord Macaulay has clearly shown, for the plainness and purity of his simple Saxon-English style. Whole pages of his contain scarcely a word above two syllables. Bunyan's style, says Cheever, grew out of his habitual and exclusive familiarity with the English Bible. He little thought he was thus acquiring a mastery over the purest form of the English language. Not spoiled by other books, his childlike spirit spoke in the simple, sweet Saxon language of home and childhood, full of grace, and easy to all. How entirely different from this is the language, style, and whole structure of the third part, as any one may see from multitudes of such passages as these "They lay an embargo on their faith;' 'thus having habituated and used them. selves to a jocular vein;' 'stands capitulating with temptations;' 'returned thanks to the Sovereign Giver of all good gifts, the Creator and Preserver of all mankind, for refreshing them with His good creatures;' 'the non-ultra of law and gospel;' 'in him all the vices of the world disembogue themselves as in a common emunctory.' It is not necessary to multiply examples, as they may be found in every page, nor specify instances of bad grammar, which also abound.

2. Another grand characteristic of Bunyan, wholly denied to his poor imitator, is a rich humour and dazzling wit, properties of true genius, such as break forth with greatness and beauty in 'John Gilpin,' even from the deep darkness of Cowper's melancholy, which, as a wise man says, makes the fancy chuckle while the heart doth ache.

3. Even in the peculiarities, or, as some deem them, defects or obscurities of Bunyan, the difference between the sterling and the counterfeit appears--for example, in his use of 'a' for 'have,' and of the word 'end.'

4. Though a learned gentleman, who wrote against Bunyan, calls him so very dirty a creature that he disdains to defile his fingers with him, yet there is not, in all his works, an offence against refined sentiment, genuine modesty, or Christian taste. Not so with his sordid imitator, who, in his third book, writes and repeats things so vile that they deserve a place in Dean Swift's 'Gulliver' or 'Tale of a Tub.'

5. There are other differences of far greater importance, one of which is, the difference in the respect paid to Goodwill, who opens the wicket-gate, by Christian, Christiana, and Mr. Tender Conscience, who is the hero of the forged book third. Both Christian and Christiana give him high honour, calling him Lord, and ask him to remove the burden of their sin; and Bunyan, too, describes him as the Lord at the head of the way, who by word and deed grants pardon. On the contrary, neither from the author nor hero of the third book have we any intimation of the divine nature of Goodwill; he is a mere man, and no more;

he may be gatekeeper for a Unitarian Elysium, but he could not open the gate of the narrow way which leads to John Bunyan's heaven.

6. Another essential difference is, that Bunyans pilgrims receive blessings solely through the instrumentality of the truth of God's Word, while with Mr. Tender Conscience the case is far different. Is Christian or Christiana convicted, converted, comforted, made triumphant?-All are by means of the truth, the truth of God alone. This is - the true Protestant, the true evangelical principle, which honours the Bible and the God of the Bible. Sadly and far away from this is the doleful road of Tender Conscience. A sorry figure he certainly cuts-'all over bedaubed with the filth of the Slough of Despond. Being all over clammed with it, he goes at a slow pace, his head hanging down, his hands quivering, and his feet tripping; and a speck or two of the dirt being spattered near his eyes makes him dim-sighted, so that he gropes along like one that is blind.' How is he delivered out of this dreadful state? Not certainly in the way Bunyan would have described, but partly by his own penitence, and partly by a miracle; for we are told that 'while he sat crying, a bright cloud hovered over his head, which, gradually descending, overshadowed him; and out of the cloud a hand was reached forth which, with the tears that ran like rivers from his eyes, washed the dirt off his eyes, and his whole body, so that in a moment, as it were, his sight and strength were restored again.' All this takes place before Mr. Tender Conscience has entered the strait gate at all. After he has been admitted by Goodwill, of whom he has nothing better to say than that he seemed to be a person worthy of reverence by his grave countenance, and whom he merely asks to tell him where he might find one that had skill to probe his wounds and cure them, if not mortal. How does he get healed? Not by the balm of the Great Physician, but by a strong crutch of lignum vitæ, which Goodwill gave him, telling him that it had a particular virtue to stay the bleeding of wounds. Forthwith he was much comforted, eased, and supported by the crutch; for no sooner was he in possession of it but his wounds abated bleeding, and, by the time it grew warm in his hand, it sent forth a certain odoriferous perfume, which exceedingly refreshed his spirit, and he found himself becoming stronger and stronger by the healing virtue of this wonderful crutch.

7. All this smacks strongly of Popery; and the Popish character of the forgery is still farther manifest, first, in its multitude of misquotations of Scripture, and, secondly, in its numerous quotations from the Apocrypha as of divine authority. How a biographer of Bunyan like Philip could wish his hero proved ignorant of the Bible, and enamoured with the Apocrypha, is more than I can tell.

8. I shall not dwell on the falsehoods and nonsense con. tained in the forged part, but merely furnish two specimens. "The first sin that ever was committed in the world was eating.' Though it be not certain whether it proceeded from some natural contagion in the fruit which Adam ate, or from the venomous breath of the Serpent, or some other hidden cause, yet we are sure that no sooner had he tasted the fatal morsel, but a strange alteration befell him; the faculties of his soul were dislocated and disjointed: this was the effect of irregular eating.'

9. The last and chief subject to which I solicit attention

is, that this wretched production contains a laboured defence of Popish fasting and of Popish nunneries, not under these names, or in an open, above-board way, yet still as thoroughly Popish as the Puseyite writers of the 'Tracts for the Times' could wish, and in the true spirit of Miss Sellon and the Bishops of Exeter and Oxford.

Let the Christian public therefore be warned and vigilant. In these times of rampant Romanism and Puseyism in these times when, as Dr. Campbell, in the British Standard, has so clearly and faithfully shown, the university of Oxford, the great head quarters of aristocratic and episcopal education, has. become head-quarters of Puseyism and scepticism-in these times when the agents of Popery, male and female, are ceaselessly active in undermining truth and liberty-here is a vile, degrading, and jesuitical production, bound up with the Pilgrim's Progress, professing to be part of the Pilgrim's Progress, sold in ignorance by Christian booksellers, and read in ignorance by large numbers at a period of life when injuries may be done to immortal minds never to be healed. Let all booksellers, therefore, stop the sale of Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress in Three Parts, and all lovers of truth and honesty prevent its circulation. The taste for reading spreads; let us wisely work the Press.

JOHN EDGAR, D.D., LL.D., Belfast.

For notices of the other forgeries on Bunyan, see the end of the Memoir.

This long introduction to the Pilgrim's Progress is intended to prove

First, That it was an original conception of the author, not in the slightest degree assisted by any previous allegory, or by any human aid.

'True, I have not for these things fished in other men's waters. My Bible and Concordance are my only library in my writings.'-Preface to Solomon's Temple Spiritualized.

Second, That the Pilgrim's Progress was written in prison, and has become one of the strongest proofs of the folly of imprisoning ardent men to prevent the spreading of their religious sentiments. Bunyan was prevented preaching to a few rustics, and by his incarceration he now preaches to millions of the human race.

Third, Bunyan's extraordinary qualifications to write a pilgrim's guide mysteriously aided by his prison discipline.

Fourth, To exhibit a bibliographical account of the early editions, and of the modern highlyillustrated copies, separate pictorial illustrations, poetic versions, comments, imitations, translations.

Fifth, The opinions of great and learned men, on Bunyan's Pilgrim, and causes of its popularity. Sixth, Leading features-exposure of the forged Third Part.