umphant though they were, discovered that
they could have no permanent victory unless they could reduce the
castle. 'Doubters at a distance,' Beelzebub said, 'are but like
objections repelled by arguments. Can we but get them into the hold,
and make them possessors of that, the day will be our own.' The object
was, therefore, to corrupt Mansoul at the heart.

Then follows a very curious passage. Bunyan had still his eye on
England, and had discerned the quarter from which her real danger
would approach. Mansoul, the Devil perceived, 'was a market town, much
given to commerce.' 'It would be possible to dispose of some of the
Devil's wares there.' The people would be filled full, and made rich,
and would forget Emmanuel. 'Mansoul,' they said, 'shall be so cumbered
with abundance, that they shall be forced to make their castle a
warehouse.' Wealth once made the first object of existence,
'Diabolus's gang will have easy entrance, and the castle will be our
own.'

Political economy was still sleeping in the womb of futurity. Diabolus
was unable to hasten its birth, and an experiment which Bunyan thought
would certainly have succeeded was not to be tried. The _Deus ex
Machina_ appeared with its flaming sword. The Doubting army was cut to
pieces, and Mansoul was saved. Again, however, the work was
imperfectly done. Diabolus, like the bad genius in the fairy tale,
survived for fresh mischief. Diabolus flew off again to Hell Gate, and
was soon at the head of a new host; part composed of fugitive Doubters
whom he rallied, and part of a new set of enemies called _Bloodmen_,
by whom we are to understand persecutors, 'a people from a land that
lay under the Dog Star.' 'Captain Pope' was chief of the Bloodmen. His
escutcheon 'was the stake, the flame, and good men in it.' The
Bloodmen had done Diabolus wonderful service in time past. 'Once they
had forced Emmanuel out of the Kingdom of the Universe, and why,
thought he, might they not do it again?'

Emmanuel did not this time go in person to the encounter. It was
enough to send his captains. The Doubters fled at the first onset.
'The Bloodmen, when they saw that no Emmanuel was in the field,
concluded that no Emmanuel was in Mansoul. Wherefore, they, looking
upon what the captains did to be, as they called it, a fruit of the
extravagancy of their wild and foolish fancies, rather despised them
than feared them.' 'They proved, nevertheless, chicken-hearted, when
they saw themselves