Lord Campbell.
The Pilgrim's Progress is a book which makes its way through the
fancy to the understanding and the heart. The child peruses it with
wonder and delight; in youth we discover the genius which it
displays; its worth is apprehended as we advance in years; and we
perceive its merits feelingly in declining age. If it is not a well
of English undefiled, to which the poet as well as the philologist
must repair if they would drink of the living waters, it is a clear
stream of current English, the vernacular of his age--sometimes
indeed in its rusticity and coarseness, but always in its plainness
and its strength. Robert Southey.
No man of common-sense and common integrity can deny that Bunyan,
the tinker of Elstow, was a practical atheist, a worthless
contemptible infidel, a vile rebel to God and goodness, a common
profligate. Now be astonished, O heaven, to eternity; and wonder, O
earth and hell, while time endures. Behold this very man become a
miracle of mercy, a mirror of wisdom, goodness, holiness, truth, and
love. See his polluted soul cleansed and adorned by divine grace,
his guilt pardoned, the divine law inscribed upon his heart, the
divine image, or the resemblance of God's moral perfections
impressed upon his soul.
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