Bunyan Characters-3 [56]
soul--came into my hands as good lot would have it just the other night. The moth-eaten chest was full of his old papers, but the pieces that took my heart most were, as it looked to me, actually gnashed through with his remorseful teeth, and soaked and sodden past recognition with his sweat and his tears and his agonising hands. But after some late hours over those remnants I managed to make some sense to myself out of them. There are some parts of the parchments that pass me; but, if only to show you that this arch-spy's so vigilant jealousy was not all directed against other people's bad hearts and bad habits, I shall copy some lines out of the old box. 'Have I penitence?' he begins without any preface. 'Have I grief, shame, pain, horror, weariness for my sin? Do I pray and repent, if not seven times a day as David did, yet at least three times, as Daniel? If not as Solomon, at length, yet shortly as the publican? If not like Christ, the whole night, at least for one hour? If not on the ground and in ashes, at least not in my bed? If not in sackcloth, at least not in purple and fine linen? If not altogether freed from all, at least from immoderate desires? Do I give, if not as Zaccheus did, fourfold, as the law commands, with the fifth part added? If not as the rich, yet as the widow? If not the half, yet the thirtieth part? If not above my power, yet up to my power?' And then over the page there are some illegible pencillings from old authors of his such as this from Augustine: 'A good man would rather know his own infirmity than the foundations of the earth or the heights of the heavens.' And this from Cicero: 'There are many hiding-places and recesses in the mind.' And this from Seneca: 'You must know yourself before you can amend yourself. An unknown sin grows worse and worse and is deprived of cure.' And this from Cicero again: 'Cato exacted from himself an account of every day's business at night'; and also Pythagoras,
'Nor let sweet sleep upon thine eyes descend Till thou hast judged its deeds at each day's end.'
And this from Seneca again: 'When the light is removed out of sight, and my wife, who is by this time aware of my practice, is now silent, I pass the whole of my day under examination, and I review my deeds and my words. I hide nothing from myself: I pass over nothing.' And then in Mr. Prywell's boldest and least trembling hand: 'O yes! many shall come from the east and the west and shall sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, when many of the children of the kingdom shall be cast out. O yes.' Now, this 'O yes!' Miss Peacock tells us, is the Anglicised form of a French word for our Lord's words, Take heed how ye hear!
4. 'A sober and a judicious man' it is said of Mr. Prywell also. To a certainty that. It could not be otherwise than that. For Mr. Prywell's office, its discoveries and its experiences, would sober any man. 'I am sprung from a country,' says Abelard, 'of which the soil is light, and the temper of the inhabitants is light.' So was it with Mr. Prywell to begin with. But even Abelard was sobered in time, and so was Mr. Prywell. Life sobered Abelard, and Mr. Prywell too; life's crooks and life's crosses, life's duties and life's disappointments, especially Mr. Prywell. 'The more narrowly a man looks into himself,' says A Kempis, 'the more he sorroweth.' Not sober-mindedness alone comes to him who looks narrowly into himself, but great sorrow of heart also. And if you are not both sobered in your mind and full of an unquenchable sorrow in your heart, O yes! attend to it, for you are not yet begun to be what God would have you to be. Dr. Newman, with all his mistakes and all his faults, was a master in two things: his own heart and the English language. And in writing home to his mother a confidential letter from college on his birthday, he confides to her that he often 'shudders at himself.' 'No,' he answered to his mother's fears and advices about food and air and exercise: 'No, I am neither nervous, nor in ill-health,
'Nor let sweet sleep upon thine eyes descend Till thou hast judged its deeds at each day's end.'
And this from Seneca again: 'When the light is removed out of sight, and my wife, who is by this time aware of my practice, is now silent, I pass the whole of my day under examination, and I review my deeds and my words. I hide nothing from myself: I pass over nothing.' And then in Mr. Prywell's boldest and least trembling hand: 'O yes! many shall come from the east and the west and shall sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, when many of the children of the kingdom shall be cast out. O yes.' Now, this 'O yes!' Miss Peacock tells us, is the Anglicised form of a French word for our Lord's words, Take heed how ye hear!
4. 'A sober and a judicious man' it is said of Mr. Prywell also. To a certainty that. It could not be otherwise than that. For Mr. Prywell's office, its discoveries and its experiences, would sober any man. 'I am sprung from a country,' says Abelard, 'of which the soil is light, and the temper of the inhabitants is light.' So was it with Mr. Prywell to begin with. But even Abelard was sobered in time, and so was Mr. Prywell. Life sobered Abelard, and Mr. Prywell too; life's crooks and life's crosses, life's duties and life's disappointments, especially Mr. Prywell. 'The more narrowly a man looks into himself,' says A Kempis, 'the more he sorroweth.' Not sober-mindedness alone comes to him who looks narrowly into himself, but great sorrow of heart also. And if you are not both sobered in your mind and full of an unquenchable sorrow in your heart, O yes! attend to it, for you are not yet begun to be what God would have you to be. Dr. Newman, with all his mistakes and all his faults, was a master in two things: his own heart and the English language. And in writing home to his mother a confidential letter from college on his birthday, he confides to her that he often 'shudders at himself.' 'No,' he answered to his mother's fears and advices about food and air and exercise: 'No, I am neither nervous, nor in ill-health,