By the way, let me tell you a little story about Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. I am a great lover of John Bunyan, but I do not believe him Infallible. The other day I met with a story about him which I think a very good one. There was a young man in Edinburgh who wished to be a missionary. He was a wise young man. So he thought, “If I am to be a missionary, there is no need for me to transport myself far away from home. I may as well be a missionary in Edinburgh.” There’s a hint to some of you ladies who give away tracts in your district, but never give your servant Mary one. Well, this young man started and he was determined to speak to the first person he met. He met one of those old fishwives— those of us who have seen them can never forget them—they are extraordinary women, indeed! So, stepping up to her, he said, “Here you are, coming along with your burden on your back. Let me ask you if you have got another burden, a spiritual burden.” “What?” she asked. “Do you mean that burden in John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress? Because if you do, young man, I got rid of that many years ago, probably before you were born.
“But I went a better way to work than the pilgrim did. The evangelist that John Bunyan talks about was one of your parsons that do not preach the Gospel, for he said, ‘Keep that light in your eye and run to the wicket-gate.’ Why, man alive! That was not the place for him to run to! He should have said, ‘Do you see that Cross? Run there at once!’ But, instead of that, he sent the poor pilgrim to the wicket-gate first—and much good he got by going there! He got tumbling into the slough and was like to have been killed by it.”
“But did not you,” the young man asked, “go through any Slough of Despond?” “Yes, I did. But I found it a great deal easier going through with my burden off than with it on my back.”
The old woman was quite right! John Bunyan put the getting rid of the burden too far off from the commencement of the pilgrimage. If he meant to show what usually happens, he was right, but if he meant to show what ought to have happened, he was wrong. We must not say to the sinner, “Now, Sinner, if you will be saved, go to the baptismal pool, go to the wicket-gate, go to the church—do this or that.” No, the Cross should be right in front of the wicket-gate and we should say to the sinner, “Throw yourself down there and you are safe. But you are not safe till you can cast off your burden and lie at the foot of the Cross and find peace
in Jesus.”
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Douglas Newell IV
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