It would but weary the reader to follow the details of a narrative which is so universally known. Who needs to be told that in the pilgrimage here described is represented in allegorical dress the course of a human soul convinced of sin, struggling onwards to salvation through the trials and temptations that beset its path to its eternal home? The book is so completely wrought into the mind and memory, that most of us can at once recall the incidents which chequer the pilgrim's way, and realize their meaning; the Slough of Despond, in which the man convinced of his guilt and fleeing from the wrath to come, in his agonizing self-consciousness is in danger of being swallowed up in despair; the Wicket Gate, by which he enters on the strait and narrow way of holiness; the Interpreter's House, with his visions and acted parables; the Wayside Cross, at the sight of which the burden of guilt falls from the pilgrim's back, and he is clothed with change of raiment; the Hill Difficulty, which stands right in his way, and which he must surmount, not circumvent; the lions which he has to pass, not knowing that they are chained; the Palace Beautiful, where he is admitted to the communion of the faithful, and sits down to meat with them; the Valley of Humiliation, the scene of his desperate but victorious encounter with Apollyon; the Valley of the Shadow of Death, with its evil sights and doleful sounds, where one of the wicked ones whispers into his ear thoughts of blasphemy which he cannot distinguish from the suggestions of his own mind; the cave at the valley's mouth, in which, Giant Pagan having been dead this many a day, his brother, Giant Pope, now sits alone, grinning at pilgrims as they pass by, and biting his nails because he cannot get at them; Vanity Fair, the picture of the world, as St. John describes it, hating the light that puts to shame its own self- chosen darkness, and putting it out if it can, where the Pilgrim's fellow, Faithful, seals his testimony with his death, and the Pilgrim himself barely escapes; the "delicate plain" called Ease, and the little hill, Lucre, where Demas stood "gentlemanlike," to invite the passersby to come and dig in his silver mine; Byepath Meadow, into which the Pilgrim and his newly-found companion stray, and are made prisoners by Giant Despair and shut up in the dungeons of Doubting Castle, and break out of prison by the help of the Key of Promise; the Delectable Mountains in Immanuel's Land, with their friendly shepherds and the cheering prospect of the far-off heavenly city; the Enchanted Land, with its temptations to spiritual drowsiness at the very end of the journey; the Land of Beulah, the ante-chamber of the city to which they were bound; and, last stage of all, the deep dark river, without a bridge, which had to be crossed before the city was entered; the entrance into its heavenly gates, the pilgrim's joyous reception with all the bells in the city ringing again for joy; the Dreamer's glimpse of its glories through the opened portals - is not every stage of the journey, every scene of the pilgrimage, indelibly printed on our memories, for our warning, our instruction, our encouragement in the race we, as much as they, have each one to run? Have we not all, again and again, shared the Dreamer's feelings - "After that they shut up the Gates; which, when I had seen, I wished myself among them," and prayed, God helping us, that our "dangerous journey" - ever the most dangerous when we see its dangers the least - might end in our "safe arrival at the desired country"?

"The Pilgrim's Progress" exhibits Bunyan in the character by which he would have most desired to be remembered, as one of the most influential of Christian preachers. Hallam, however, claims for him another distinction which would have greatly startled and probably shocked him, as the father of our English novelists. As an allegorist Bunyan had many predecessors, not a few of whom, dating from early times, had taken the natural allegory of the pilgrimage of human life as the basis of their works. But as a novelist he had no one to show him the way. Bunyan was the first to break ground in a field which has since then been so overabundantly worked that the soil has almost lost its productiveness; while few novels written purely with the object of entertainment have ever proved so universally entertaining. Intensely religious as it is in purpose, "The Pilgrim's Progress" may be safely styled the first English novel. "The claim to be the father of English romance," writes Dr. Allon, "which has been sometimes preferred for Defoe, really pertains to Bunyan. Defoe may claim the parentage of a species, but Bunyan is the creator of the genus." As the parent of fictitious biography it is that Bunyan has charmed the world. On its vivid interest as a story, its universal interest and lasting vitality rest. "Other allegorises," writes Lord Macaulay, "have shown great ingenuity, but no other allegorist has ever been able to touch the heart, and to make its abstractions objects of terror, of pity, and of love." Whatever its deficiencies, literary and religious, may be; if we find incongruities in the narrative, and are not insensible to some grave theological deficiencies; if we are unable without qualification to accept Coleridge's dictum that it is "incomparably the best 'Summa Theologiae Evangelicae' ever produced by a writer not miraculously inspired;" even if, with Hallam, we consider its "excellencies great indeed, but not of the highest order," and deem it "a little over-praised," the fact of its universal popularity with readers of all classes and of all orders of intellect remains, and gives this book a unique distinction. "I have," says Dr. Arnold, when reading it after a long interval, "always been struck by its piety. I am now struck equally or even more by its profound wisdom. It seems to be a complete reflexion of Scripture." And to turn to a critic of very different character, Dean Swift: "I have been better entertained and more improved," writes that cynical pessimist, "by a few pages of this book than by a long discourse on the will and intellect." The favourite of our childhood, as "the most perfect and complex of fairy tales, so human and intelligible," read, as Hallam says, "at an age when the spiritual meaning is either little perceived or little regarded," the "Pilgrim's Progress" becomes the chosen companion of our later years, perused with ever fresh appreciation of its teaching, and enjoyment of its native genius; "the interpreter of life to all who are perplexed with its problems, and the practical guide and solace of all who need counsel and sympathy."