The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan Every Child Can ReadBunyan, John
Religion
The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan Every Child Can Read
Bunyan, John
Christian life -- Juvenile literature; Christian pilgrims and pilgrimages -- Juvenile literature
EVAN. My sons, you have heard, in the words of the truth of the Gospel,
that you must "through many trials enter into the kingdom of heaven;"
and again, that "in every city bonds and afflictions await you;" and
therefore you cannot expect that you should go long on your pilgrimage
without them in some sort or other. You have found something of the
truth of these words upon you already, and more will immediately follow;
for now, as you see, you are almost out of this wilderness, and
therefore you will soon come into a town that you will by-and-by see
before you; and in that town you will be hardly beset with enemies who
will strain hard but they will kill you; and be you sure that one or
both of you must seal the truth which you hold with blood: but be you
faithful unto death, and the King will give you a crown of life. He that
shall die there, although his death will be unnatural, and his pain,
perhaps, great, he will yet have the better of his fellow; not only
because he will be arrived at the Celestial City soonest, but because he
will escape many miseries that the other will meet with in the rest of
his journey. But when you are come to the town, and shall find fulfilled
what I have here related, then remember your friend, and quit yourselves
like men, and commit the keeping of your souls to God in well-doing, as
unto a faithful Creator.
[Sidenote: THE PILGRIMS AT VANITY FAIR]
Then I saw in my dream, that, when they were got out of the wilderness,
they presently saw a town before them, and the name of that town is
Vanity; and at the town there is a fair kept, called Vanity Fair. It is
kept all the year long. It beareth the name of Vanity Fair, because the
town where it is kept is lighter than vanity, and also because all that
is there sold, or that cometh thither, is vanity; as is the saying of
the Wise, "All that cometh is vanity."
This is no newly begun business, but a thing of ancient standing. I will
show you the original of it.
Almost five thousand years ago, there were pilgrims walking to the
Celestial City, as these two honest persons are; and Beelzebub,
Apollyon, and Legion, with their companions, perceiving by the path that
the pilgrims made that their way to the city lay through this town of
Vanity, they contrived here to set up a fair; a fair wherein should be
sold all sorts of vanity, and that it should last all the year long.
Therefore at this fair are all such things sold as houses, lands,
trades, places, honors, preferments, titles, countries, kingdoms, lusts,
pleasures, and delights of all sorts, as wives, husbands, children,
masters, servants, lives, blood, bodies, souls, silver, gold, pearls,
precious stones, and what not.
And, moreover, at this fair there are at all times to be seen jugglings,
cheats, games, plays, fools, apes, knaves, and rogues, and that of every
kind.
Here are to be seen, too, and that for nothing, thefts, murders, false
swearers, and that of a blood-red color.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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