to name him. It is a significant
circumstance that, for a long time all the numerous editions of the
_Pilgrim's Progress_ were evidently meant for the cottage and the servants'
hall. The paper, the printing, the plates, were all of the meanest
description. In general, when the educated minority and the common people
differ about the merit of a book, the opinion of the educated minority
finally prevails. The _Pilgrim's Progress_ is perhaps the only book about
which the educated minority has come over to the opinion of the common
people.

The attempts which have been made to improve and to imitate this book are
not to be numbered. It has been done into verse; it has been done into
modern English. The Pilgrimage of Tender Conscience, the Pilgrimage of Good
Intent, the Pilgrimage of Seek Truth, the Pilgrimage of Theophilus, the
Infant Pilgrim, the Hindoo Pilgrim, are among the many feeble copies of the
great original. But the peculiar glory of Bunyan is that those who most
hated his doctrines have tried to borrow the help of his genius. A Catholic
version of his parable may be seen with the head of the virgin in the
title-page. On the other hand, those Antinomians for whom his Calvinism is
not strong enough, may study the Pilgrimage of Hephzibah, in which nothing
will be found which can be construed into an admission of free agency and
universal redemption. But the most extraordinary of all the acts of
Vandalism by which a fine work of art was ever defaced was committed in the
year 1853. It was determined to transform the _Pilgrim's Progress_ into a
Tractarian book. The task was not easy; for it was necessary to make two
sacraments the most prominent objects in the allegory, and of all Christian
theologians, avowed Quakers excepted, Bunyan was the one in whose system
the sacraments held the least prominent place. However, the Wicket Gate
became a type of baptism, and the House Beautiful of the eucharist. The
effect of this change is such as assuredly the ingenious person who made it
never contemplated. For, as not a single pilgrim passes through the Wicket
Gate in infancy, and as Faithful hurries past the House Beautiful without
stopping, the lesson which the fable in its altered shape teaches, is that
none but adults ought to be baptized, and that the eucharist may safely be
neglected. Nobody would have discovered from the original _Pilgrim's
Progress_ that the author was not a Paedobaptist. To turn his book into a
book aga