of the otherwise most learned of all
the New Testament men. Bunyan does not accuse the rising hope of the
Pharisees of school or of synagogue ignorance. That young Hebrew Rabbi
knew every jot and tittle of the law of Moses, and all the accumulated
traditions of the fathers to boot. But Bunyan has Paul himself with him
when he accuses and convicts Saul of an absolutely brutish ignorance of
his own heart and hidden nature. That so very brisk lad was always
boasting in himself of the day on which he was circumcised, and of the
old stock of which he had come; of his tribe, of his zeal, of his
blamelessness, and of the profit he had made of his educational and
ecclesiastical opportunities. Whereas Bunyan is fain to say of himself
in his _Grace Abounding_ that he is "not able to boast of noble blood or
of a high-born state according to the flesh. Though, all things
considered, I magnify the Heavenly Majesty for that by this door He
brought me into this world to partake of the grace and life that is in
Christ by the Gospel."

As we listen to the conversation that goes on between the two old
pilgrims and this smartly appointed youth, we find them striving hard,
but without any sign of success, to convince him of some of the things
from which he gets his somewhat severe name. For one thing, they at last
bluntly told him that he evidently did not know the very A B C about
himself. Till, when too hard pressed by the more ruthless of the two old
men, the exasperated youth at last frankly burst out: "I will never
believe that my heart is thus bad!" There is a warm touch of Bunyan's
own experience here, mixed up with his so dramatic development of Paul's
morsels of autobiography that he lets drop in his Epistles to the
Philippians and to the Galatians. "Now was I become godly; now I was
become a right honest man. Though as yet I was nothing but a poor
painted hypocrite, yet I was proud of my godliness. I read my Bible, but
as for Paul's Epistles, and such like Scriptures, I could not away with
them; being, as yet, but ignorant both of the corruptions of my nature
and of the want and worth of Jesus Christ to save me. The new birth did
never enter my mind, neither knew I the deceitfulness and treachery of my
own wicked heart. And as for secret thoughts, I took no notice of them."
My brethren, old and young, what do you think of all that? What have you
to say to all that? Does all that not open a window and let a flood o