"--They are not valiant for the truth."--_Jeremiah_
"--Ye should contend earnestly for the faith."--_Jude_.
"Forget not Master Valiant-for-the-Truth,
That man of courage, tho' a very youth.
Tell every one his spirit was so stout,
No man could ever make him face about."
_Bunyan_.
"I am of Dark-land, for there was I born, and there my father and mother
are still." "Dark-land," said the guide; "doth not that lie upon the
same coast as the City of Destruction?" "Yes, it doth," replied Valiant-
for-truth. "And had I not found incommodity there, I had not forsaken it
at all; but finding it altogether unsuitable to me, and very unprofitable
for me, I forsook it for this way. Now, that which caused me to come on
pilgrimage was this. We had one Mr. Tell-true came into our parts, and
he told it about what Christian had done, that went from the City of
Destruction. That man so told the story of Christian and his travels
that my heart fell into a burning haste to be gone after him, nor could
my father and mother stay me, so I got from them, and am come thus far on
my way."
1. A very plain and practical lesson is already read to us all in
Valiant-for-truth's explanation of his own pilgrimage. He tells the
guide that he was made a pilgrim just by having the story of The Pilgrim
told to him. All that Tell-true did was just to recite the story of the
pilgrim, when young Valiant's heart fell into a burning haste to be a
pilgrim too. My brethren, could any lesson be plainer? Read the
_Pilgrim's Progress_ with your children. And, after a time, read it
again till they call it beautiful, and till you see the same burning
haste in their hearts that young Valiant felt in his heart. Circulate
the _Pilgrim's Progress_. Make opportunities to give the _Pilgrim's
Progress_ to the telegraph boys and errand boys at your door. Never go
on a holiday without taking a dozen cheap and tasteful copies of _The
Pilgrim_ to give to boys and girls in the country. Make sure that no
one, old or young, of your acquaintance, in town or country, is without a
good copy of _The Pilgrim_. And the darker their house is, make all the
more sure that John Bunyan is in it.
"Now may this little book a blessing be,
To those that love this little book and me
And may its buyer have no cause to say
His money is but lost or thrown away."
2. But the great lesson of Valiant's so impressive life lies in the
tremendous fight he had with three ruffians who all set upon him at once
and well-nigh made an end of him. For, when we put by the curtains here
again, and turn up the metaphors, what do we find? What, but a lesson of
first-rate importance for many men among ourselves; for many public men,
many ministers, and many other much-in-earnest men. For Valiant, as his
name tells us, was set to contend for the truth. He had the truth. The
truth was put into his keeping, and he was bound to defend it. He was
thrown into a life of controversy, and thus into all the terrible
temptations--worse than the temptations to whoredom or wine--that
accompany a life of controversy. The three scoundrels that fell upon
Valiant at the mouth of the lane were Wildhead, Inconsiderate, and
Pragmatic. In other words, the besetting temptations of many men who are
set as defenders of the truth in religion, as well as in other matters,
is to be wild-headed, inconsiderate, self-conceited, and intolerably
arrogant. The bloody battle that Valiant fought, you must know, was not
fought at the mouth of any dark lane in the midnight city, nor on the
side of any lonely road in the moonless country. This terrible fight was
fought in Valiant's own heart. For Valiant was none of your calculating
and cold-blooded friends of the truth. He did not wait till he saw the
truth walking in silver slippers. Let any man lay a finger on the truth,
or wag a tongue against the truth, and he will have to settle it with
Valiant. His love for the truth was a passion. There was a fierceness
in his love for the truth that frightened ordinary men even when they
were on his own side. Valiant would have died for the truth without a
murmur. But, with all that, Valiant had to learn a hard and a cruel
lesson. He had to learn that he, the best friend of truth as he thought
he was, was at the same time, as a matter of fact, the greatest enemy
that the truth had. He had to take home the terrible discovery that no
man had hurt the truth so much as he had done. Save me from my friend!
the truth was heard to say, as often as she saw him taking up his weapons
in her behalf. We see all that every day. We see Wildhead at his
disservice of the truth every day. Sometimes above his own name, and
sometimes with grace enough to be ashamed to give his name, in the
newspapers. Sometimes on the platform; sometimes in the pulpit; and
sometimes at the dinner-table. But always to the detriment of the truth.
In blind fury he rushes at the character and the good name of men who
were servants of the truth before he was born, and whose shield he is not
worthy to bear. How shall Wildhead be got to see that he and the like of
him are really the worst friends the truth can possibly have? Will he
never learn that in his wild-bull gorings at men and at movements, he is
both hurting himself and hurting the truth as no sworn enemy of his and
of the truth can do? Will he never see what an insolent fool he is to go
on imputing bad motives to other men, when he ought to be prostrate
before God on account of his own? More than one wild-headed student of
William Law has told me what a blessing they have got from that great
man's teaching on the subject of controversy. Will the Wildheads here to-
night take a line or two out of that peace-making author and lay them to
heart? "My dear L-, take notice of this, that no truths, however solid
and well-grounded, will help you to any divine life, but only so far as
they are taught, nourished, and strengthened by an unction from above;
and that nothing more dries and extinguishes this heavenly unction than a
talkative reasoning temper that is always catching at every opportunity
of hearing or telling some religious matters. Stop your ears and shut
your eyes to all religious tales . . . I would no more bring a false
charge against a deist than I would bear false witness against an
apostle. And if I knew how to do the deists more justice in debate I
would gladly do it . . . And as the gospel requires me to be as glad to
see piety, equity, strict sobriety, and extensive charity in a Jew or a
Gentile as in a Christian; as it obliges me to look with pleasure upon
their virtues, and to be thankful to God that such persons have so much
of true and sound Christianity in them; so it cannot be an unchristian
spirit to be as glad to see truths in one party of Christians as in
another, and to look with pleasure upon any good doctrines that are held
by any sect of Christian people, and to be thankful to God that they have
so much of the genuine saving truths of the gospel among them . . .
Selfishness and partiality are very inhuman and base qualities even in
the things of this world, but in the doctrines of religion they are of a
far baser nature. In the present divided state of the Church, truth
itself is torn and divided asunder; and, therefore, he is the only true
Catholic who has more of truth and less of error than is hedged in by any
divided part. To see this will enable us to live in a divided part
unhurt by its division, and keep us in a true liberty and fitness to be
edified and assisted by all the good that we hear or see in any other
part of the Church. And thus, uniting in heart and spirit with all that
is holy and good in all Churches, we enter into the true communion of
saints, and become real members of the Holy Catholic Church, though we
are confined to the outward worship of only one particular part of it.
And thus we will like no truth the less because Ignatius Loyola or John
Bunyan were very jealous for it, nor have the less aversion to any error
because Dr. Trapp or George Fox had brought it forth." If Wildhead would
take a winter of William Law, it would sweeten his temper, and civilise
his manners, and renew his heart.
3. Inconsiderate, again, is the shallow creature he is, and does the
endless mischief that he does, largely for lack of imagination. He never
thinks--neither before he speaks nor after he has spoken. He never put
himself in another man's place all his days. He is incapable of doing
that. He has neither the head nor the heart to do that. He never once
said, How would I like that said about me? or, How would I like that done
to me? or, How would that look and taste and feel to me if I were in So-
and-so's place? It needs genius to change places with other men; it
needs a grace beyond all genius; and this poor headless and heartless
creature does not know what genius is. It needs imagination, the noblest
gift of the mind, and it needs love, the noblest grace of the heart, to
consider the case of other people, and to see, as Butler says, that we
differ as much from other people as they differ from us. And it is by
far the noblest use of the imagination, far nobler than carving a
Laocoon, or painting a Last Judgment, or writing a "Paradiso" or a
"Paradise Lost," to put ourselves into the places of other men so as to
see with their eyes, and feel with their hearts, and sympathise with
their principles, and even with their prejudices. Now, the inconsiderate
man has so little imagination and so little love that he is sitting here
and does not know what I am saying; and what suspicion he has of what I
am saying is just enough to make him dislike both me and what I am saying
too. But his dull suspicion and his blind dislike are more than made up
for by the love and appreciation of those lovers and defenders of the
truth who painfully feel how wild and inconsiderate, how hot-headed, how
thoughtless, and how reckless their past service even of God's truth has
been.
"The King is full of grace and fair regard.
Consideration, like an angel, came
And whipp'd the offending Adam out of him."
4. And as to Pragmatic, I would not call you a stupid person even though
you confided to me that you had never heard this footpad's name till to-
night. John Bunyan has been borrowing Latin again, and not to the
improvement of his style, or to the advantage of his readers. It would
be insufferably pragmatic in me to begin to set John Bunyan right in his
English; but I had rather offend the shades of a hundred John Bunyans
than leave my most unlettered hearer without his full and proper Sabbath-
night lesson. The third armed thief, then, that fell upon Valiant was,
under other names, Impertinence, Meddlesomeness, Officiousness,
Over-Interference. Pragmatic,--by whatever name he calls himself, there
is no mistaking him. He is never satisfied. He is never pleased. He is
never thankful. He is always setting his superiors right. He is like
the Psalmist in one thing, he has more understanding than all his
teachers. And he enjoys nothing more than in letting them know that.
There is nothing he will not correct you in--from cutting for the stone
to commanding the Channel Fleet. Now, if all that has put any visual
image of Pragmatic into your mind, you will see at once what an enemy he
too is fitted to be to the truth. For the truth does not stand in
points, but in principles. The truth does not dwell in the letter but in
the spirit. The truth is not served by setting other people right, but
by seeing every day and in every thing how far wrong we are ourselves.
The truth is like charity in this, that it begins at home. It is like
charity in this also, that it never behaves itself unseemly. A
pragmatical man, taken along with an inconsiderate man, and then a wild-
headed man added on to them, are three about as fatal hands as any truth
could fall into. The worst enemy of the truth must pity the truth, and
feel his hatred at the truth relenting, when he sees her under the
championship of Wildhead, Inconsiderate, and Pragmatic.
5. The first time we see Valiant-for-truth he is standing at the mouth
of Dead-man's-lane with his sword in his hand and with his face all
bloody. "They have left upon me, as you see," said the bleeding man,
"some of the marks of their valour, and have also carried away with them
some of mine." And, in like manner, we see Paul with the blood of
Barnabas still upon him when he is writing the thirteenth of First
Corinthians; and John with the blood of the Samaritans still upon him
down to his old age when he is writing his First Epistle; and John Bunyan
with the blood of the Quakers upon him when he is covertly writing this
page of his autobiography under the veil of Valiant-for-truth; and
William Law with the blood of Bishop Hoadly and John Wesley dropping on
the paper as he pens that golden passage which ends with Dr. Trapp and
George Fox. Where did you think Paul got that splendid passage about
charity? Where did you think William Law got that companion passage
about Church divisions, and about the Church Catholic? Where are such
passages ever got by inspired apostles, or by any other men, but out of
their own bloody battles with their own wild-headedness, intolerance,
dislike, and resentment? Where do you suppose I got the true key to the
veiled metaphor of Valiant-for-truth? It does not exactly hang on the
doorpost of his history. Where, then, could I get it but off the inside
wall of my own place of repentance? Just as you understand what I am now
labouring to say, not from my success in saying it, but from your own
trespasses against humility and love, your unadvised speeches, and your
wild and whirling words. Without shame and remorse, without
self-condemnation and self-contempt, none of those great passages of
Paul, or John, or Bunyan, or Law were ever written; and without a like
shame, remorse, self-condemnation, and self-contempt they are not rightly
read.
"Oh! who shall dare in this frail scene
On holiest, happiest thoughts to lean,
On Friendship, Kindred, or on Love?
Since not Apostles' hands can clasp
Each other in so firm a grasp,
But they shall change and variance prove.
"But sometimes even beneath the moon
The Saviour gives a gracious boon,
When reconciled Christians meet,
And face to face, and heart to heart,
High thoughts of Holy love impart
In silence meek, or converse sweet.
"Oh then the glory and the bliss
When all that pained or seemed amiss
Shall melt with earth and sin away!
When saints beneath their Saviour's eye,
Filled with each other's company,
Shall spend in love the eternal day!"
6. Then said Greatheart to Mr. Valiant-for-truth, "Thou hast worthily
behaved thyself; let me see thy sword." So he showed it him. When he
had taken it in his hand and had looked thereon a while, the guide said:
"Ha! it is a right Jerusalem blade!" "It is so," replied its owner. "Let
a man have one of these blades with a hand to wield it, and skill to use
it, and he may venture upon an angel with it. Its edges will never
blunt. It will cut flesh, and bones, and soul, and spirit, and all."
Both Damascus and Toledo blades were famous in former days for their
tenacity and flexibility, and for the beauty and the edge of their steel.
But even a Damascus blade would be worthless in a weak, cowardly, or
unskilled hand; while even a poor sword in the hand of a good swordsman
will do excellent execution. And much more so when you have both a first-
rate sword and a first-rate swordsman, such as both Valiant and his
Jerusalem blade were. Ha! yes. This is a right wonderful blade we have
now in our hand. For this sword was forged in no earthly fire; and it
was whetted to its unapproachable sharpness on no earthly whetstone. But,
best of all for us, when a good soldier of Jesus Christ has this sword
girt on his thigh he is able then to go forth against himself with it;
against his own only and worst enemy--that is, against himself. As here,
against his own wildness of head and pride of heart. Against his own
want of consideration also. "My people do not consider." As also
against himself as a lawless invader of other men's freedom of judgment,
following of truth, public honour, and good name. As the Arabian
warriors see themselves and dress themselves in their swords as in a
glass, so did Valiant-for-truth see the thoughts and intents, the joints
and the marrow of his own disordered soul in his Jerusalem blade. In the
sheen of it he could see himself even when the darkness covered him; and
with its two edges all his after-life he slew both all real error in
other men and all real evil in himself. "Thou hast done well," said
Greatheart the guide. "Thou hast resisted unto blood, striving against
sin. Thou shalt abide by us, come in and go out with us, for we are thy
companions."
7. "Sir," said the widow indeed to Valiant-for-truth, "sir, you have in
all places shown yourself true-hearted." The first time she ever saw
this man that she is now seeing for the last time on this side the river,
his own mother would not have known him, he was so hacked to pieces with
the swords of his three assailants. But as she washed the blood off the
mangled man's head and face and hands, she soon saw beneath all his
bloody wounds a true, a brave, and a generous-hearted soldier of the
Cross. The heart is always the man. And this woman had lived long
enough with men to have discovered that. And with all his sears she saw
that it was at bottom the truth of his heart that had cast him into so
many bloody encounters. There were men in that company, and men near the
river too, with far fewer marks of battle, and even of defeat, upon them,
who did not get this noble certificate and its accompanying charge and
trust from this clear-eyed widow. And, then, she had never forgot--how
could she?--his exclamation, and almost embrace of her as of his own
mother, when he burst out with his eyes full of blood, "Why, is this
Christian's wife? What! and going on pilgrimage too? It glads my heart!
Good man! How joyful will he be when he shall see her and her children
enter after him in at the gates into the city!" He would have been
hacked a hundred times worse than he was before the widow of Christian,
and the mother of his children, would have seen anything but the manliest
beauty in a young soldier who could salute an old woman in that way. It
gladdened her heart to hear him, you may be sure, as much as it gladdened
his heart to see her. And that was the reason that she actually set
Greatheart himself aside, and left her children under this young man's
sword and shield. "I would also entreat you to have an eye to my
children," she said. Young men, has any dying mother committed her
children, if you at any time see them faint, to you? Have you ever
spoken so comfortably to any poor widow about her sainted husband that
she has passed by some of our foremost citizens, and has astonished and
offended her lawyers by putting a stripling like you into the
trusteeship? Did ever any dying mother say to you that she had seen you
to be so true-hearted at all times that she entreated you to have an eye
to her children? Speaking at this point for myself, I would rather see
my son so trusted at such an hour by such a woman than I would see him
the Chancellor of Her Majesty's Exchequer, or the Governor of the Bank of
England. And so to-night would you.