myth a philosophic meaning, peculiar, and freely corresponding to it, ours is that narrative. Let us endeavour, then, thoroughly to explore this higher meaning. The history of Jacob has brought us in its progress up to that turning point, in which, having escaped from the selfishness of Laban, whose craftiness he had overcome by a finer subtilty, as the possessor of rich herds of cattle, he advances towards the wished-for reconciliation with his injured brother Esau. After he had taken his wives and maids and children, with all his possessions, across the brook Jabbok, he himself remained on this side the stream, and in expectation, we imagine, of something extraordinary about to happen. It was night, and Jacob was alone. Wherefore did he separate himself from his family, and what was the ground of this self-chosen loneliness? The narrative is silent on the matter. He wished to be alone, not, certainly, that tired with the toils of the day he might sleep the more quietly, but that he might follow, undisturbed, his own meditations. His mind found itself in an unusual excitement. The first act of his life was closed when he took his leave of Laban. But this first life of Jacob was closely associated with the ill meaning of his name, which signifies, "he will supplant;" and we must not wish to conceal the confirmation of this significance of the name, which the history of our patriarch itself affords. The historian has not done so, for distinctly enough he utters his condemnation, in the remarkable and very designed alliteration, piercing through the ear to the inmost soul: 125 ab-ny ȧpy " (chap. xxxi. 20 ;) i.e., “And Jacob stole the heart of Laban." And has not Jeremiah, the great prophet of truth, described with bold frankness his ancester as he really was, on this shadow-side of his life, when he says (chap. ix. 4), "Take heed every one of his neighbour, and trust ye not in any brother; for every brother is a supplanting Jacob?" (py ipy) This supplanting Jacob, who survived in his posterity as an abhorrence to the prophets of purity and uprightness, and always displayed, in the great mass of the nation, the evil significance of his name, now approached the decisive moment, when he must appear before the eyes of his brother, from whom he had taken by craft his birthright and his father's blessing. For this important meeting of the morrow he wished to collect himself, and, therefore, remained alone in the still night. But yet he was not quite alone. There was with him One, who had appeared to him as the living God, who had repeated to him the promise of free favour, which he had before given to Isaac and to Abraham, and who had shown himself to him in all his ways up to the present time, as the God of truth. This true and living God spoke now to him powerfully and distinctly through conscience, that voice as old as the cry in Paradise,—" Where art thou, Adam?" Jacob certainly could bear testimony that he had given himself in unconditional faith to the God of his fathers, and trusted to his protection; but, like as the Omnipotence of the eternal Creator of heaven and earth, which had been revealed to Abraham, had become known also to him, so must he now attain to the knowledge, that this God, the Protector of his house, was a pure Being of truth, who had no pleasure in lies and deceit. And it is just this transition from falsehood to truth in the inner and outward life of Jacob, by means of the severest conflict that can take place, that our narrative designs to set forth. It is the strife of God against the old man that strives against him, a strife which no nature of uncommon endowment, destined to a lofty aim, and conscious of such destiny, can escape. While Jacob remembered, how from fear of Esau, whom he had supplanted, he had come to the selfish Laban, and there had suffered and striven, he would appear to himself as a triumphant conqueror; but his whole past life, from the beginning to the end, had been one web of cunning. He had striven with man and prevailed; but now he must strive with God himself. See now! He has even undertaken this contest, and has prevailed. But it was a long and fearful struggle in the dark night up to the break of day. It was the repentancestrife of Jacob, at his second birth, in its fiercest intensity, from which he was to come forth a new man, bearing a new name. The more we are compelled to regard Jacob as excelling in physical strength, when he rolled with ease a great stone from the well, the more severe, even for his bodily frame, was this wrestling with God in his soul. For it was certainly a spiritual conflict; but one that could not but shake violently his bodily organism. God worked through the spiritual organ of conscience, an organ especially consecrated to himself, upon Jacob's bodily frame;-so much is truth and reality. But it is not true that He wrestled with him as an incarnate man. But what does it import, that God, when wrestling with the man, did not prevail against him? This was the reason that Jacob was not overcome in this conflict,-that, while so hard pressed by God, that his thigh was dislocated,—he yet, in steadfast truth, retained his hold, and desired the blessing. In this longing, which would take no denial, lay Jacob's victory, and the blessing was the crown, which he bore away. Jacob felt this blessing in his inmost soul. Its fruit is the happy consciousness, that in this contest with God he has won a new life, adorned with a new name: henceforth he is to be called "Israel," -a striver with God; and if he is yet afterwards called Jacob, this name no longer bears in his second life the significance which adhered to it in the first. His cunning is changed into divinely-enlightened wisdom. With full right could he erect, on this separating point of his two-fold life, a memorial of his thankfulness, by naming the place "the face of God." He had inwardly seen God really face to face; that God, who lays hold of the sinner and wrestles with him, but who, when the man holds out in the struggle with a longing after mercy, and with confiding truthfulness, blesses him and consecrates him to a new life. Jacob halted, certainly, when in the morning he passed over before Phenuel, and was thus painfully reminded what hand had seized him in the night, and wherefore; but how brightly did the rising sun shine on him, to light him to a new life of truth! VI. JOHN BUNYAN.-THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS.* "I commit my name," the illustrious Bacon is reported to have said, "to posterity after some few generations shall be past." If the father of modern philosophy, who during his own lifetime rose to the highest offices of the state, could thus express himself in anticipation of the homage of posterity, how far more appropriate such a sentence, in reference to the judgment posterity pronounces on the character and labours of the Baptist preacher who dreamed his dream in the damp dungeon of Bedford gaol. Of the two men, in order, not of the alphabet, but of posterity's approval, we think Bunyan will rather rank before Bacon. Bacon had certainly more power, but Bunyan more genius; Bacon more self-esteem, Bunyan more humility; Bacon more preferment, Bunyan more persecution. In the reverence paid to his intellectual strength the former has had his reward; in the growing respect for his moral and spiritual worth, and creative imagination, the latter is even now beginning to receive his. The character of the one of late years has scarcely advanced in public esteem, his sun has been darkened by clouds; while that of the other has shone more brightly after the storm. The one is splendour, the other is warmth. Bacon has formed minds who by degrees have guided the multitude, but Bunyan has guided the multitude itself. Several circumstances have lately brought our author under the notice of the reading public of this country. The newspapers have told us of a statue of him to be erected along with those of statesmen, philosophers, warriors, and poets, who are esteemed the ornaments of our country. One or two lives of him and estimates of his character and writings have come forth from the press. One of the most popular importations of American literature is Dr. Cheever's 'Lectures on the Pilgrim's Progress,' and it has the charm of being one of the cheapest books issued in this age of cheap publications. It has greatly contributed to make the public understand and appreciate John Bunyan and his book. And now in the work at the head of this article we have a critical edition of the 'Pilgrim's Progress,' a brief account of which we will lay before our readers, accompanying it with a strong recommendation to buy and read for themselves. Mr. Offor, as the editor on behalf of the Hanserd Knollys Society, gives us a literal copy-orthography, capitals, italics, punctuation, and all, of the first edition of the Pilgrim. Besides this every alteration made by the author during his life, and the wood-cuts by which, during the same term, his work was illustrated, are carefully preserved. The whole is printed in good type, and on stout paper, form The Pilgrim's Progress,' by John Bunyan, accurately printed from the first edition, edited for the Hanserd Knollys Society, with an introduction, by George Offor. London: Printed for the Society, by J. Haddon, Castle Street, Finsbury. 1847. ing a very handsome octavo volume. At the commencement of the introduction is a view of Bedford gaol as it existed in the year 1761. This was the place where, undoubtedly, Bunyan composed the first part of his 'Pilgrim's Progress.' The introduction is a valuable document, presenting facts which it is necessary to know in order to understand John Bunyan's history, and the meaning of many parts of his allegory. Mr. Offor gives us the indictment preferred against his author : 66 - " That John Bunyan, of the town of Bedford, labourer, hath devilishly and perniciously abstained from coming to church to hear divine service, and is a common upholder of several unlawful meetings and conventicles, to the great disturbance and distraction of the good subjects of this kingdom, contrary to the laws of our Sovereign Lord the King.” The prisoner admitted his guilt, no witnesses were summoned, and he was sentenced to go back to prison, to lie three months for the good of his soul; then to be asked to mend and go to church, and on his failing to do so to be banished the realm. To gaol rather than to church John Bunyan accordingly went. He preferred being engaged in writing the 'Pilgrim's Progress' to the hearing of unprofitable sermons, and the whole Christian world now thanks him for his honest and determined preference. In prison John studied his Bible, laboured for the support of his family, taught his fellow-prisoners, and composed his books. The fact that amongst these was the Pilgrim's Progress' Mr. Offor has taken pains to establish, and we think he has placed it beyond a doubt. He cites, after dispersing Mr. Philip's surmises, and somewhat severely handling him for indulging them, several proofs of the fact that Bunyan did write the 'Pilgrim's Progress' within the very walls of his dungeon. The first is John's own testimony at the beginning of the Pilgrim itself" As I walked through the wilderness of this world, I lighted on a certain place where was a Den; and I laid me down in that place to sleep; and as I slept I dreamed a Dream." In the margin the word den is explained to mean a dungeon, and it is certainly a fair inference that in the dungeon the work was composed. "As you read," says Dr. Cheever," the Grace Abounding,' you are ready to say at every step, here is the future author of 'Pilgrim's Progress.' It is as if you stood beside some great sculptor and watched every movement of his chisel, having had his design explained to you before, so that at every blow some new trait of beauty in the future statue comes clearly into view." To this book Mr. Offor concludes the lines refer which were first inserted in Bunyan's second edition "And thus it was: I writing of the Way And Race of Saints, in this our Gospel Day, Fell suddenly into an Allegory About their Journey, and the Way to Glory, Like sparks that from the coals of fire do fly; Nay, then thought I, if that you breed so fast, The plain conclusion from these words is that John Bunyan was writing some book, in all probability the 'Grace Abounding,' when he thought of the scheme of the 'Pilgrim's Progress,' and at once set about the composition of it. A comparison of the first and second editions affords signs of the manuscript having been kept some time before it was printed, and of the first edition being at last printed in haste, according to the orthography of John, when he had not employed himself in mental cultivation and improvement. The third evidence which Mr. Offor adduces is that of a very intimate friend of Bunyan, in his continuation to the 'Grace Abounding.' He mentions the first part of the Pilgrim's Progress,' amongst other books, as written by Bunyan whilst in confinement. As the fourth proof there is a tradition handed down in the family of Bunyan's fellow-prisoner, that the 'Pilgrim's Progress' was written in prison and read to the prisoners, who made various remarks on it. Mr. Offor sums up this evidence by the strong and somewhat extravagant declaration, "If we refuse such testimony neither shall we believe if Bunyan himself came from the invisible world to confirm its truth." The book was not published for some time after Bunyan's release. Let it be remembered that our author had a blind daughter, and a tender and delicate wife left in solitude to count the wearisome hours of her husband's cruel imprisonment. She was a woman of his own heroic spirit. She came to London, and a petition on her behalf for the release of her husband was presented to the House of Lords, but it was in vain. The wife pleaded her own cause before the judges. Lord Chief Justice Hale heard and was affected by her simple and eloquent appeal; but her husband remained in prison. Possibly she sorrowed over the loss of her husband's useful labour in the church and in the world; but these were precious years in that husband's life. This wife was a treasure to John Bunyan, and marriage with him (in happy contrast with that other John, twenty years in advance of him, whose "soul was as a star and dwelt apart ") seems to have been eminently fortunate. It was the treatise, 'A Plain Man's Pathway to Heaven,' brought by John Bunyan's first wife as a part of her humble dowry, that led his spirit to the wicket gate. The age in which Bunyan lived was one of sorest trial to honest Christians. It is stated that eight thousand Dissenters perished in prison during the reign of Charles II. The fashion was not public execution, but wearisome imprisonment and private cruelty. Some spectacles were little better than the gladiatorial shows of the ancients. The audience was less numerous, the victims more worthy, the wild beasts more ingenious, and scarcely less fierce and brutal than in the age of Nero. The Quakers and the Baptists were most commonly thrown to the human lions, and most severely handled by them. These VOL. I., No. III. b M |