The Riches of Bunyan

Many of the Christians of our time though conversant with the PILGRIMS PROGRESS and HOLY WAR are apparently little aware of the glowing genius and fervent piety and strong sense and picturesque imagery and racy vigorous English that mark the many other writings of the honored tinker of Elstow. These last if less known than the story of the pilgrimage to the Celestial City and of the siege and recovery of the good town of Mansoul yet bear all of them the traces of the same vivid fancy the same earnest heart and the same robust and sanctified intellect. To save from comparative disuse and consequent unprofitableness-from being buried in an undeserved seclusion if not oblivion many sparkling truths and pithy sayings and pungent rebukes likely to do great good if they could but have in our busy day a more general currency over the wide mart of the world;-and to bespeak a new circle of influence and a broader sphere of notoriety and usefulness for these overlooked legacies of a good and great man of a former age has been the editors object in the prolonged sifting to which he has subjected all Bunyans writings. Of that patient and conscientious study the present selection has been the result. It is not hoped or even wished for them that in the case of any readers able to give the requisite leisure these excerpts should supersede the original writings. But these last in mass are beyond the means and the time which are at the command of many Christians who would yet greatly prize the briefer examples of Bunyans experience and Bunyans teachings that are here presented.