The story of Bunyan is, we say,
one of the golden threads binding together into harmony and
symmetry, what, seen apart, seem but fragmentary and incoherent
influences--the track of a divine Providence controlling the fates
and reputations of the race. It is a Providence disappointing men's
judgments and purposes, exalting the lowly and depressing the
illustrious, rebuking despondency on the one hand and on the other
curbing presumption, setting up one and putting down another. This
is done even now and even here, as one of the many intimations which
even time and earth present, of that final and universal reparation
which is reserved for the general resurrection and the last
judgment. Then the unforgetting and universal Sovereign will avenge
all the forgotten of his people, nor leave unpunished one among the
tallest and mightiest of his enemies. As the foreshadowing of this,
there is often in this life what Milton has called, "a resurrection
of character." Seen in Bunyan and others on earth, it will be one
day accomplished as to all the families of mankind. We pronounce TOO
SOON upon the apparent inequalities of fame and recompense around
us; while we fail to take in the future as well as the present, and
attempt to solve the mysteries of time without including in the
field of our survey the retributions of that eternity which forms
the selvage and hem of all the webs of earth.
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