Dear Mr. Wet-eyes, with his rope upon his head, will have a fit
congregation one winter night, and Captain Self-denial another. We shall
have another painful but profitable evening before a communion season
with Mr. Prywell, and so we shall eat of that bread and drink of that
cup. Emmanuel's livery will occupy us one evening, Mansoul's Magna
Charta another, and her annual Feast-day another. Her Established Church
and her beneficed clergy will take up one evening, some Skulkers in
Mansoul another, the devil's last prank another, and then, to wind up
with, Emmanuel's last speech and charge to Mansoul from his chariot-step
till He comes again to accomplish her rapture. All that we shall see and
take part in; unless, indeed, our Captain comes in anger before the time,
and spears us to the earth when He finds us asleep at our post or in the
act of sin at it, which may His abounding mercy forbid!

And now take these three forewarnings and precautions.

1. First:--All who come here on these coming Sabbath evenings will not
understand the _Holy War_ all at once, and many will not understand it at
all. And little blame to them, and no wonder. For, fully to understand
this deep and intricate book demands far more mind, far more experience,
and far more specialised knowledge than the mass of men, as men are, can
possibly bring to it. This so exacting book demands of us, to begin
with, some little acquaintance with military engineering and
architecture; with the theory of, and if possible with some practice in,
attack and defence in sieges and storms, winter campaigns and long drawn-
out wars. And then, impossible as it sounds and is, along with all that
we would need to have a really profound, practical, and at first-hand
acquaintance with the anatomy of the human subject, and especially with
cardiac anatomy, as well as with all the conditions, diseases, regimen
and discipline of the corrupt heart of man. And then it is enough to
terrify any one to open this book or to enter this church when he is told
that if he comes here he must be ready and willing to have the whole of
this terrible and exacting book fulfilled and experienced in himself, in
his own body and in his own soul.

2. And, then, you will not all like the _Holy War_. The mass of men
could not be expected to like any such book. How could the vain and
blind citizen of a vain and blind city like to be wakened up, as Paris
was wakened up within our own remem