not dream of buying a set of sermons on Faith versus Works. At bottom
the controversy is the same, and the dramatic results are the same.
Bunyan makes no attempt to present his pilgrims as more sensible or
better conducted than Mr Worldly Wiseman. Mr W. W.'s worst enemies, as
Mr Embezzler, Mr Never-go-to-Church-on-Sunday, Mr Bad Form, Mr Murderer,
Mr Burglar, Mr Co-respondent, Mr Blackmailer, Mr Cad, Mr Drunkard, Mr
Labor Agitator and so forth, can read the Pilgrim's Progress without
finding a word said against them; whereas the respectable people who
snub them and put them in prison, such as Mr W.W. himself and his young
friend Civility; Formalist and Hypocrisy; Wildhead, Inconsiderate, and
Pragmatick (who were clearly young university men of good family
and high feeding); that brisk lad Ignorance, Talkative, By-Ends of
Fairspeech and his mother-in-law Lady Feigning, and other reputable
gentlemen and citizens, catch it very severely. Even Little Faith,
though he gets to heaven at last, is given to understand that it served
him right to be mobbed by the brothers Faint Heart, Mistrust, and
Guilt, all three recognized members of respectable society and veritable
pillars of the law. The whole allegory is a consistent attack on
morality and respectability, without a word that one can remember
against vice and crime. Exactly what is complained of in Nietzsche and
Ibsen, is it not? And also exactly what would be complained of in all
the literature which is great enough and old enough to have attained
canonical rank, officially or unofficially, were it not that books are
admitted to the canon by a compact which confesses their greatness in
consideration of abrogating their meaning; so that the reverend rector
can agree with the prophet Micah as to his inspired style without being
committed to any complicity in Micah's furiously Radical opinions. Why,
even I, as I force myself; pen in hand, into recognition and civility,
find all the force of my onslaught destroyed by a simple policy of
non-resistance. In vain do I redouble the violence of the language in