Bunyan, John, 1628-1688 -- Criticism and interpretation
And this from Seneca again: 'When the light is removed out of sight, and
my wife, who is by this time aware of my practice, is now silent, I pass
the whole of my day under examination, and I review my deeds and my
words. I hide nothing from myself: I pass over nothing.' And then in
Mr. Prywell's boldest and least trembling hand: 'O yes! many shall come
from the east and the west and shall sit down with Abraham and Isaac and
Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, when many of the children of the kingdom
shall be cast out. O yes.' Now, this 'O yes!' Miss Peacock tells us, is
the Anglicised form of a French word for our Lord's words, Take heed how
ye hear!
4. 'A sober and a judicious man' it is said of Mr. Prywell also. To a
certainty that. It could not be otherwise than that. For Mr. Prywell's
office, its discoveries and its experiences, would sober any man. 'I am
sprung from a country,' says Abelard, 'of which the soil is light, and
the temper of the inhabitants is light.' So was it with Mr. Prywell to
begin with. But even Abelard was sobered in time, and so was Mr.
Prywell. Life sobered Abelard, and Mr. Prywell too; life's crooks and
life's crosses, life's duties and life's disappointments, especially Mr.
Prywell. 'The more narrowly a man looks into himself,' says A Kempis,
'the more he sorroweth.' Not sober-mindedness alone comes to him who
looks narrowly into himself, but great sorrow of heart also. And if you
are not both sobered in your mind and full of an unquenchable sorrow in
your heart, O yes! attend to it, for you are not yet begun to be what God
would have you to be. Dr. Newman, with all his mistakes and all his
faults, was a master in two things: his own heart and the English
language. And in writing home to his mother a confidential letter from
college on his birthday, he confides to her that he often 'shudders at
himself.' 'No,' he answered to his mother's fears and advices about food
and air and exercise: 'No, I am neither nervous, nor in ill-health, nor
do I study too much. I am neither melancholy, nor morose, nor austere,
nor distant, nor reserved, nor sullen. I am always cheerful, ready and
eager to join in any merriment. I am not clouded with sadness, nor
absent in mind, nor deficient in action. No; take me when I am most
foolish at home and extend mirth into childishness; yet all the time I am
shuddering at myself.' There spake the future author of the immortal
sermons. There spake a mind and a heart that have deepened the minds and
the hearts of Christian men more than any other influence of the century;
a mind and a heart, moreover, that will shine and beat in our best
literature and in our deepest devotion for centuries to come. You must
all know by this time another classical passage from the pen of another
spiritual genius in the Church of England, that greatly gifted church.
Let me repeat it to illustrate how sober-mindedness and great sorrow of
heart always come to the best of men.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account