The Immortal Dreamer To be " old-fashioned " in these

days is to be ahead of one's time. This represents no attempt at Chestertonian paradox, but is the sober faith in which I have been confirmed by a re-reading of The Pilgrim's Progress in the beautiful little volume before me. The only possible fault to be found with this admirable replica is that, being an exact copy of the first version of 1678, it is incomplete. Bunyan's work often grew after it had first seen the light, and it was only in later editions of his most famous book that Mr. Worldly Wiseman and Diffidence, the wife of Giant Despair, appeared ; that the discourse with Charity in the House Beautiful and the sight of Lot's wife turned, tp a pillar of salt were introduced ; and that the account of Mr. Byends' rich relatives was sup- plemented. But you _may take much ,from The Pilgrim's Progress, and still have much left ; and, even in its earliest form, what an amazingly vital book it was—and is ! We are told that nobody reads it to-day. But " nobody," after all, usually means the self-consciously modern intellectual cliques ; . and the type of . literary snobbishness represented by such cliques is itself, if only their members knew it, the most pathetically old-fashioned thing in the. world.. Every age has its coteries of superior people. They have their little day ; but how „soon it ceases to be ! It is only the simple folk who are never really ".behind the times." They may lose step with prevailing fashions. Yet the future, if not the present, is always on their side. Simplicity is the only thing that is never permanently out-moiled.

It is unnecessary to enlarge here upon the orgy of artificiality that has manifested itself in all branches of life and art since. the War. The springs of true happiness have heen obscured by, an insensate fog of pleasure. The jazz-conductor (who, with his blatant baton, was supposed to have driven the final nails into the coffins of Bach and Beethoven !) has been the presiding genius of the cabaret of post-War society ; and those who, in literature, have remained loyal to the belief that simplicity, sincerity, and sympathy are the only unalterable qualities that matter have Either been ignored or Made the objects of flippant jest. „ But there is ample evidence that the tide of sanity is returning. An eminent critic was telling us the other day that the craze for modernism qud modernism in music has already spent itself ; and readers whO follow current reviewing of poetry will have noticed the respect with which verse in the traditional spirit is again being received. A straw showing the direction of the wind is the announcement of the forthcoming reappearance of the poems of Sir William Watson, whose reputation has suffered so complete an eclipse during the last decade. And far more substantial witness to a re-emerging spirituality is to be found in the literature that is being produced for the ter-

centenary of Bunyan's birth. • The amount of this literature is, to begin with, remarkable. Book-makers and publishers are always ready to reap commer- cial profit by reawakening, on the occasion of some anni- versary, an ephemeral interest in even a faded personality. But no faded personality could inspire so many volumes as

have already appeared or been promised in, connexion with

the Bunyan celebrations of this year. Even more striking, however, than the quantity of these books is their prevailing quality. It is clear to anyone who has read much of the

new Bunyan literature that it is, for the most part; the fruit of loving and intimate study, and that, so far from being regarded as a curiosity of bygone days, Bunyan is tecognized as an immortal literary artist and as a prophet who has a vital message for our modern Vanity Fair.

Excellent in its own way, for instance, is Mr. Harrison's " study in personality." For young students of Bunyan Mr.

Harrison may be a less comprehensive and picturesque guide than Mr. Gwilym Griffith, whose book we recently noticed. But confirmed Bunyan lovers will find that Mr. Harrison fills, with admirable balance and humour, some important gaps in our knowledge and appreciation. –He f:

has, to begin with; had access to the Church-Book of the Bedford meeting-house over which Bunyan served as pastor from

.1672 until his death in 1688. This book is shortly to be pro-

duced in facsimile. Meanwhile Mr. Harrison has drawn upon it, and the entries during Bunyan's ministry are full

of colour and interest, and show the extent to which Bunyan found among the people and incidents of his own church life the raw material for The Pilgrim's Progress. Then Mr. Harrison lucidly traces the three stages of Bunyan's con- version. _Firstly there was the time of ecstacy, when the reformed tinker, who had boasted of his sins and his foul language; tried to frighten his hearers away from the edge of hell-pit. This was followed by a period of bitterness and aridity when, enthusiasm having died down, he sought refuge in 'a logic based on Scripture. Finally, ecstacy and logic were fused into a wise humanity. As he follows these successive phases of Aevelopment, Mr. Harrison notes the corresponding changes in Bunyan's literary style, and gives us a very full and discriminating commentary on the whole of his immense and uneven literary output. Grace Abounding, that wonderful autobiography, should be taken down again from the shelf by many hands as the result of the wise and glowing tribute here paid to it ; and if any readers think that Mr. Harrison has exaggerated the dramatic quality of Bunyan at his best, let them turn to the little book by Mr. Wilton. Rix, in which, with great skill and reverence, certain scenes from- The Pilgrim's Progress have been arranged in a dramatized -version of Bunyan's own words. These scenes have already been performed at Mr. Rix's own church, and they offer to other amateur dramatic societies a novel and impressive means of celebrating the tercentenary.

It is to be hoped, indeed, that the main -influence of all the present Bunyan literature will be to send readers back to Bunyan's own works. For many people, no doubt, books- like The Pilgrim's • Progress are unpleasantly associated in memory with task-work at school or with the rather stuffy atmosphere of distant Sunday afternoons. But if such readers will only make an effort, and will approach The Pilgrim's Progress in the same spirit as they would a new volume from Mudie's, they will find it not only enthralling as a story, but in many respects strikingly modern. We hear much -to-day, for instance, about " economy of technique." Well, let those writers who talk so much about it turn for an example to Bunyan ! There is little that he could not teach them. Bunyan is one of the master-witnesses to the fact that mere education, mere intellect or cleverness, count for little in literature. Spiritual vision and intensity of passion solve their own problems of technique, and are in any age the only qualities that make writing more than artifice. It is true that The Pilgrim's Progress has its dull interludes. Bunyan the seventeenth-century Puritan sometimes submerges Bunyan " the immortal dreamer," and when this happens the style at once falls flat. We could well dispense, say, with the pages of argument between Christian, Hopeful, and Ignorance. Not only is the prose turgid, but we are sometimes inclined to think Ignorance wiser than his ridi- culers I Bunyan the theologian, the believer in election, is here trying to prove, against his own inner, deeper vision, the uselessness of works without faith.. But Bunyan the prophet soon re-emerges. The Country of Beulah is sighted by the pilgrims, and immediately the narrative marches forward again—simple, terse, and irradiated with poetry. And what

a wealth not only of poetry and passion, but of humour and satire, we have in this book ! And, most amazing of all, what a complete absence of caricature ! Bunyan's characters, though introduced to point a moral, are all people of real flesh and blood, and it is to be feared that most of them will • be painfully up-to-date until, if ever, Utopia is established upon earth.

Bunyan, indeed, is still far ahead of our own time. it is sometimes urged against him that his conception of salvation is merely personal and is concerned exclusively,with a future life. This is true enough if we restrict ourselves to certain passages of The Pilgrim's Progress. But, with Mr. Griffith, I find it difficult to conceive how• any intelligent person can read the hook- as a whole without seeing in. it the implications -

of a larger gospel. It must be admitted that Christian is sometimes selfishly concerned with- hii dim Welfare, as when he makes no attempt to rescue Vain-Confidence from the . pit. Yet, on- escaping from Doubting Castle, he deliberately takes measures to prevent other pilgrims from falling into the hands of Giant Despair. It is true, again, that Bunyan pictures the Man in the Iron- Cage as doomed by God Himself to eternal imprisonment.. Elsewhere, however, he attempts, with great • subtlety, to refute, even while accepting, the doctrine of predestination ; while in many a lyrical passage the full Gospel light, embracing earth as well as heaven, shines forth unmistakably.. There are glaring inconsistencies. But, after all, none but a pedant would expect an allegory to have a mathematical precision, and none but the stupid can fail to distinguish the grain of eternal truth from the Chaff of contemporary theology. Whatever its incidental deficiences, The Pilgrim's Progress is, next to the Bible itself, the greatest literary dramatization of the fact that righteoui- ness alone exalteth a man, and that it is only communion with the unseen that raises him above the level of the brutes. And if Bunyan does indeed overstress the personal aspect of salvation, rerhaps we tend to-day towards the opposite extreme.- We need a social gospel, of course. Yet pro- grammes and policies are doomed to ineffectuality unlees they be reinforced with personal sanctity. Character is the one impregnable rock against which the fury of hell cannot prevail ; and until that lesson be learned, The Pilgrim's ••Progress will never be out of date. GILBERT THOMAS.