matched and equalled.' The chiefs were taken
prisoners, and brought to trial like Atheism and his companions, and
so, with an address from the Prince, the story comes to a close.

Thus at last the 'Holy War' ends or seems to end. It is as if Bunyan
had wished to show that though the converted Christian was still
liable to the assaults of Satan, and even to be beaten down and
overcome by him, his state was never afterwards so desperate as it had
been before the redemption, and that he had assistance ready at hand
to save him when near extremity. But the reader whose desire it is
that good shall triumph and evil be put to shame and overthrown
remains but partially satisfied; and the last conflict and its issues
leave Mansoul still subject to fresh attacks. Diabolus was still at
large. Carnal Sense broke prison and continued to lurk in the town.
Unbelief 'was a nimble Jack: him they could never lay hold of, though
they attempted to do it often.' Unbelief remained in Mansoul till the
time that Mansoul ceased to dwell in the country of the Universe; and
where Unbelief was Diabolus would not be without a friend to open the
gates to him. Bunyan says, indeed, that 'he was stoned as often as he
showed himself in the streets.' He shows himself in the streets much
at his ease in these days of ours after two more centuries.

Here lies the real weakness of the 'Holy War.' It may be looked at
either as the war in the soul of each sinner that is saved, or as the
war for the deliverance of humanity. Under the first aspect it leaves
out of sight the large majority of mankind who are not supposed to be
saved, and out of whom, therefore, Diabolus is not driven at all.
Under the other aspect the struggle is still unfinished; the last act
of the drama has still to be played, and we know not what the
conclusion is to be.

To attempt to represent it, therefore, as a work of art, with a
beginning, a middle, and an end, is necessarily a failure. The
mysteries and contradictions which the Christian revelation leaves
unsolved are made tolerable to us by Hope. We are prepared to find in
religion many things which we cannot understand; and difficulties do
not perplex us so long as they remain in a form to which we are
accustomed. To emphasise the problem by offering it to us in an
allegory, of which we are presumed to possess a key, serves only to
revive Man Friday's question, or the old dilemma which neither
intellect nor imagination has ever