The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Pilgrim's Progress, by John Bunyan

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Title: The Pilgrim's Progress
From this world to that which is to come.

Author: John Bunyan

Release Date: June 12, 2008 [EBook #131]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS ***

Produced by SeeWei Toh and Alan R. Light. HTML version by Al Haines.

Notes:

1. Legends: = Sidenotes [Bible reference] = Bible references

2. Sections are numbered for future reference. These sections
have been chosen arbitrarily, i.e., {1}, {2}

3. This is 'Part 1', but is a complete work in itself. Bunyan
wrote a sequel ('Part 2') some years after the first part, hence
the 'Parts'.

THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS

From This World To That Which Is To Come

by

John Bunyan

Part One

DELIVERED UNDER THE SIMILITUDE OF A DREAM BY JOHN BUNYAN

The Author's Apology for his Book

{1} When at the first I took my pen in hand
Thus for to write, I did not understand
That I at all should make a little book
In such a mode; nay, I had undertook
To make another; which, when almost done,
Before I was aware, I this begun.

And thus it was: I, writing of the way
And race of saints, in this our gospel day,
Fell suddenly into an allegory
About their journey, and the way to glory,
In more than twenty things which I set down.
This done, I twenty more had in my crown;
And they again began to multiply,
Like sparks that from the coals of fire do fly.

Nay, then, thought I, if that you breed so fast,
I'll put you by yourselves, lest you at last
Should prove ad infinitum, and eat out
The book that I already am about.

Well, so I did; but yet I did not think
To shew to all the world my pen and ink
In such a mode; I only thought to make
I knew not what; nor did I undertake
Thereby to please my neighbour: no, not I;
I did it my own self to gratify.

{2} Neither did I but vacant seasons spend
In this my scribble; nor did I intend
But to divert myself in doing this
From worser thoughts which make