MR. WORLDLY-WISEMAN

'Wise in this world.'--Paul.

Mr. Worldly-Wiseman has a long history behind him on which we cannot now

enter at any length. As a child, the little worldling, it was observed,

took much after his secular father, but much more after his scheming

mother. He was already a self-seeking, self-satisfied youth; and when he

became a man and began business for himself, no man's business flourished

like his. 'Nothing of news,' says his biographer in another place,

'nothing of doctrine, nothing of alteration or talk of alteration could

at any time be set on foot in the town but be sure Mr. Worldly-Wiseman

would be at the head or tail of it. But, to be sure, he would always

decline those he deemed to be the weakest, and stood always with those,

in his way of thinking, that he supposed were the strongest side.' He

was a man, it was often remarked, of but one book also. Sunday and

Saturday he was to be found deep in _The Architect of Fortune_; _or_,

_Advancement in Life_, a book written by its author so as to 'come home

to all men's business and bosoms.' He drove over scrupulously once a

Sunday to the State church, of which he was one of the most determined

pillars. He had set his mind on being Lord Mayor of the town before

long, and he was determined that his eldest son should be called Sir

Worldly-Wiseman after him, and he chose his church accordingly. Another

of his biographers in this connection wrote of him thus: 'Our Lord Mayor

parted his religion betwixt his conscience and his purse, and he went to

church not to serve God, but to please the king. The face of the law

made him wear the mask of the Gospel, which he used not as a means to

save his soul, but his charges.' Such, in a short word, was this

'sottish man' who crossed over the field to meet with our pilgrim when he

was walking solitary by himself after his escape from the slough.

'How now, good fellow? Whither away after this burdened manner?' What a

contrast those two men were to one another in the midst of that plain

that day! Our pilgrim was full of the most laborious going; sighs and

groans rose out of his heart at every step; and then his burden on his

back, and his filthy, slimy rags all made him a picture such that it was

to any man's credit and praise that he should stop to speak to him. And

then, when our pilgrim looked up, he saw a gentleman standing beside him

to whom he was ashamed to speak. For the gentleman had no burden on his

back, and he did not go over the plain laboriously. There was not a spot

or a speck, a rent or a wrinkle on all his fine raiment. He could not

have been better appointed if he had just stepped out of the gate at the

head of the way; they can wear no cleaner garments than his in the

Celestial City itself. 'How now, good fellow? Whither away after this

burdened manner?' 'A burdened manner, indeed, as ever I think poor

creature had. And whereas you ask me whither away, I tell you, sir, I am

going to yonder wicket gate before me; for there, as I am informed, I

shall be put into a way to be rid of my heavy burden.' 'Hast thou a wife

and children?' Yes; he is ashamed to say that he has. But he confesses

that he cannot to-day take the pleasure in them that he used to do. Since

his sin so came upon him, he is sometimes as if he had neither wife nor

child nor a house over his head. John Bunyan was of Samuel Rutherford's

terrible experience,--that our sins and our sinfulness poison all our

best enjoyments. We do not hear much of Rutherford's wife and children,

and that, no doubt, for the sufficient reason that he gives us in his so

open-minded letter. But Bunyan laments over his blind child with a

lament worthy to stand beside the lament of David over Absalom, and again

over Saul and Jonathan at Mount Gilboa. At the same time, John Bunyan

often felt sore and sad at heart that he could not love and give all his

heart to his wife and children as they deserved to be loved and to have

all his heart. He often felt guilty as he looked on them and knew in

himself that they did not have in him such a father as, God knew, he

wished he was, or ever in this world could hope to be. 'Yes,' he said,

'but I cannot take the pleasure in them that I would. I am sometimes as

if I had none. My sin sometimes drives me like a man bereft of his

reason and clean demented.' 'Who bid thee go this way to be rid of thy

burden? I beshrew him for his counsel. There is not a more troublesome

and dangerous way in the world than this is to which he hath directed

thee. And besides, though I used to have some of the same burden when I

was young, not since I settled in that town,' pointing to the town of

Carnal-Policy over the plain, 'have I been at any time troubled in that

way.' And then he went on to describe and denounce the way to the

Celestial City, and he did it like a man who had been all over it, and

had come back again. His alarming description of the upward way reads to

us like a page out of Job, or Jeremiah, or David, or Paul. 'Hear me,' he

says, 'for I am older than thou. Thou art like to meet with in the way

which thou goest wearisomeness, painfulness, hunger, perils, nakedness,

sword, lions, dragons, darkness, and in a word, death, and what not.' You

would think that you were reading the eighth of the Romans at the thirty-

fifth verse; only Mr. Worldly-Wiseman does not go on to finish the

chapter. He does not go on to add, 'I am persuaded that neither death,

nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present,

nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall

be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Jesus Christ our

Lord.' No; Worldly-Wiseman never reads the Romans, and he never hears a

sermon on that chapter when he goes to church.

Mr. Worldly-Wiseman became positively eloquent and impressive and all but

convincing as he went so graphically and cumulatively over all the

sorrows that attended on the way to which this pilgrim was now setting

his face. But, staggering as it all was, the man in rags and slime only

smiled a sad and sobbing smile in answer, and said: 'Why, sir, this

burden upon my back is far more terrible to me than all the things which

you have mentioned; nay, methinks I care not what I meet with in the way,

so be I can also meet with deliverance from my burden.' This is what our

Lord calls a pilgrim having the root of the matter in himself. This poor

soul had by this time so much wearisomeness, painfulness, hunger, perils,

nakedness, sword, lions, dragons, darkness, death, and what not in

himself, that all these threatened things outside of himself were but so

many bugbears and hobgoblins wherewith to terrify children; they were but

things to be laughed at by every man who is in ernest in the way. 'I

care not what else I meet with if only I also meet with deliverance.'

There speaks the true pilgrim. There speaks the man who drew down the

Son of God to the cross for that man's deliverance. There speaks the

man, who, mire, and rags, and burdens and all, will yet be found in the

heaven of heavens where the chief of sinners shall see their Deliverer

face to face, and shall at last and for ever be like Him. Peter examined

Dante in heaven on faith, James examined him on hope, and John took him

through his catechism on love, and the seer came out of the tent with a

laurel crown on his brow. I do not know who the examiner on sin will be,

but, speaking for myself on this matter, I would rather take my degree in

that subject than in all the other subjects set for a sinner's

examination on earth or in heaven. For to know myself, and especially,

as the wise man says, to know the plague of my own heart, is the true and

the only key to all other true knowledge: God and man; the Redeemer and

the devil; heaven and hell; faith, hope, and charity; unbelief, despair,

and malignity, and all things of that kind else, all knowledge will come

to that man who knows himself, and to that man alone, and to that man in

the exact measure in which he does really know himself. Listen again to

this slough-stained, sin-burdened, sighing and sobbing pilgrim, who, in

spite of all these things--nay, in virtue of all these things--is as sure

of heaven and of the far end of heaven as if he were already enthroned

there. 'Wearisomeness,' he protests, 'painfulness, hunger, perils,

nakedness, sword, lions, dragons, darkness, death, and what not--why,

sir, this burden on my back is far more terrible to me than all these

things which you have mentioned; nay, methinks I care not what I meet

with in the way, so be I can also meet with deliverance from my burden.'

O God! let this same mind be found in me and in all the men and women for

whose souls I shall have to answer at the day of judgment, and I shall be

content and safe before Thee.

That strong outburst from this so forfoughten man for a moment quite

overawed Worldly-Wiseman. He could not reply to an earnestness like

this. He did not understand it, and could not account for it. The only

thing he ever was in such earnestness as that about was his success in

business and his title that he and his wife were scheming for. But

still, though silenced by this unaccountable outburst of our pilgrim,

Worldly-Wiseman's enmity against the upward way, and especially against

all the men and all the books that made pilgrims take to that way, was

not silenced. 'How camest thou by thy burden at first?' By reading this

Book in my hand.' Worldly-Wiseman did not fall foul of the Book indeed,

but he fell all the more foul of those who meddled with matters they had

not a head for. 'Leave these high and deep things for the ministers who

are paid to understand and explain them, and attend to matters more

within thy scope.' And then he went on to tell of a far better way to

get rid of the burden that meddlesome men brought on themselves by

reading that book too much--a far better and swifter way than attempting

the wicket-gate. 'Thou wilt never be settled in thy mind till thou art

rid of that burden, nor canst thou enjoy the blessings of wife and child

as long as that burden lies so heavy upon thee.' That was so true that

it made the pilgrim look up. A gentleman who can speak in that true

style must know more than he says about such burdens as this of mine;

and, after all, he may be able, who knows, to give me some good advice in

my great straits. 'Pray, sir, open this secret to me, for I sorely stand

in need of good counsel.' Let him here who has no such burden as this

poor pilgrim had cast the first stone at Christian; I cannot. If one who

looked like a gentleman came to me to-night and told me how I would on

the spot get to a peace of conscience never to be lost again, and how I

would get a heart to-night that would never any more plague and pollute

me, I would be mightily tempted to forget what all my former teachers had

told me and try this new Gospel. And especially if the gentleman said

that the remedy was just at hand. 'Pray, sir,' said the breathless and

spiritless man, 'wilt thou, then, open this secret to me?'

The wit and the humour and the satire of the rest of the scene must be

fully enjoyed over the great book itself. The village named Morality,

hard by the hill; that judicious man Legality, who dwells in the first

house you come at after you have turned the hill; Civility, the pretty

young man that Legality hath to his son; the hospitality of the village;

the low rents and the cheap provisions, and all the charities and

amenities of the place,--all together make up such a picture as you

cannot get anywhere out of John Bunyan. And then the pilgrim's stark

folly in entering into Worldly-Wiseman's secret; his horror as the hill

began to thunder and lighten and threaten to fall upon him; the sudden

descent of Evangelist; and then the plain-spoken words that passed

between the preacher and the pilgrim,--don't say again that the poorest

of the Puritans were without letters, or that they had not their own

esoteric writings full of fun and frolic; don't say that again till you

are a pilgrim yourself, and have our John Bunyan for one of your classics

by heart.

We are near an end, but before you depart, stand still a little, as

Evangelist said to Christian, that I may show you the words of God. And

first, watch yourselves well, for you all have a large piece of this

worldly-wise man in yourselves. You all take something of some ancestor,

remote or immediate, who was wise only for this world. Yes, to be sure,

for you still decline as they did, and desert as they did, those you deem

to be the weakest, and stand with those that you suppose to be the

strongest side. _The Architect of Fortune_ is perhaps too strong meat

for your stomach; but still, if you ever light upon its powerful pages,

you will surely blush in secret to see yourself turned so completely

inside out. You may not have chosen your church wholly with an eye to

your shop; but you must admit that you see as good and better men than

you are doing that every day. And it is a sure sign to you that you do

not yet know the plague of your own heart, unless you know yourself to be

a man more set upon the position and the praise that this world gives

than you yet are on the position and the praise that come from God only.

Set a watch on your own worldly heart. Watch and pray, lest you also

enter into all Worldly-Wiseman's temptation. This is one of the words of

God to you.

Another word of God is this. The way of the cross, said severe

Evangelist, is odious to every worldly-wise man; while, all the time, it

is the only way there is, and there never will be any other way to

eternal life. The only way to life is the way of the cross. There are

two crosses, indeed, on the way to the Celestial City; there is, first,

the Cross of Christ, once for you, and then there is your cross daily for

Christ, and it takes both crosses to secure and to assure any man that he

is on the right road, and that he will come at last to the right end.

'The Christian's great conquest over the world,' says William Law, 'is

all contained in the mystery of Christ upon the cross. And true

Christianity is nothing else but an entire and absolute conformity to

that spirit which Christ showed in the mysterious sacrifice of Himself

upon the cross. Every man is only so far a Christian as he partakes of

this same spirit of Christ--the same suffering spirit, the same sacrifice

of himself, the same renunciation of the world, the same humility and

meekness, the same patient bearing of injuries, reproaches, and

contempts, the same dying to all the greatness, honours, and happiness of

this world that Christ showed on the cross. We also are to suffer, to be

crucified, to die, to rise with Christ, or else His crucifixion, His

death, and His resurrection will profit us nothing. 'This is the second

word of God unto thee. And the third thing to-night is this, that though

thy sin be very great, though thou hast a past life round thy neck enough

to sink thee for ever out of the sight of God and all good men; a youth

of sensuality now long and closely cloaked over with an after life of

worldly prosperity, worldly decency, and worldly religion, all which only

makes thee that whited sepulchre that Christ has in His eye when He

speaks of thee with such a severe and dreadful countenance; yet if thou

confess thyself to be all the whited sepulchre He sees thee to be, and

yet knock at His gate in all thy rags and slime, He will immediately lay

aside that severe countenance and will show thee all His goodwill.

Notwithstanding all that thou hast done, and all thou still art, He will

not deny His own words, or do otherwise than at once fulfil them all to

thee. Ask, then, and it shall be given thee; seek, and thou shalt find;

knock, and it shall be opened unto thee. And with a great goodwill, He

will say to those that stand by Him, Take away the filthy garments from

him. And to thee He will say, Behold, I have caused all thine iniquity

to pass from thee, and I will clothe thee with change of raiment.