closing words of this his final testimony are such as deserve to be
written in letters of gold as the sum of all true Christian teaching: "Be
ye holy in all manner of conversation: Consider that the holy God is your
Father, and let this oblige you to live like the children of God, that
you may look your Father in the face with comfort another day." "There
is," writes Dean Stanley, "no compromise in his words, no faltering in
his convictions; but his love and admiration are reserved on the whole
for that which all good men love, and his detestation on the whole is
reserved for that which all good men detest." By the catholic spirit
which breathes through his writings, especially through "The Pilgrim's
Progress," the tinker of Elstow "has become the teacher not of any
particular sect, but of the Universal Church."




CHAPTER IX.


We have, in this concluding chapter, to take a review of Bunyan's merits
as a writer, with especial reference to the works on which his fame
mainly rests, and, above all, to that which has given him his chief title
to be included in a series of Great Writers, "The Pilgrim's Progress."
Bunyan, as we have seen, was a very copious author. His works, as
collected by the late industrious Mr. Offor, fill three bulky quarto
volumes, each of nearly eight hundred double-columned pages in small
type. And this copiousness of production is combined with a general
excellence in the matter produced. While few of his books approach the
high standard of "The Pilgrim's Progress" or "Holy War," none, it may be
truly said, sink very far below that standard. It may indeed be affirmed