scriptural depth, and in scriptural simplicity with Greatheart's noble
resolution of Christiana's question which he made on the way from the
Interpreter's house to the House Beautiful. "This is brave!" exclaimed
that mother in Israel, when the guide had come to an end. "Methinks it
makes my heart to bleed to think that He should bleed for me. O Thou
loving One! O Thou blessed One! Thou deservest to have me, for Thou
hast bought me. No marvel that this made the water to stand in my
husband's eyes, and that it made him trudge so nimbly on. O Mercy, that
thy father and thy mother were here; yea, and Mrs. Timorous too! Nay, I
wish now with all my heart that here was Madam Wanton too. Surely,
surely their hearts would be affected here!" Promise me to read at home
Greatheart's discourse on the Righteousness of Christ, and you will thank
me for having exacted the promise.
The incongruity of a soldier handling such questions, and especially in
such a style, has stumbled some of John Bunyan's fault-finding readers.
The same incongruity stumbled "the Honourable Colonel Hacker, at Peebles
or elsewhere," to whom Cromwell sent these from Edinburgh on the 25th
December 1650--"But indeed I was not satisfied with your last speech to
me about Empson, that he was a better preacher than fighter or soldier--or
words to that effect. Truly, I think that he that prays and preaches
best will fight best. I know nothing that will give like courage and
confidence as the knowledge of God in Christ will; and I bless God to see
any in this army able and willing to impart the knowledge they have for
the good of others. I pray you receive Captain Empson lovingly: I dare
assure you he is a good man and a good officer; I would we had no worse."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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