It startles us not a little to come suddenly upon three pilgrims fast
asleep with fetters on their heels on the upward side of the
Interpreter's House, and even on the upward side of the cross and the
sepulchre. We would have looked for those three miserable men somewhere
in the City of Destruction or in the Town of Stupidity, or, at best,
somewhere still outside of the wicket-gate. But John Bunyan did not lay
down his _Pilgrim's Progress_ on any abstract theory, or on any easy and
pleasant presupposition, of the Christian life. He constructed his so
lifelike book out of his own experiences as a Christian man, as well as
out of all he had learned as a Christian minister. And in nothing is
Bunyan's power of observation, deep insight, and firm hold of fact better
seen than just in the way he names and places the various people of the
pilgrimage. Long after he had been at the Cross of Christ himself, and
had seen with his own eyes all the significant rooms in the Interpreter's
House, Bunyan had often to confess that the fetters of evil habit, unholy
affection, and a hard heart were still firmly riveted on his own heels.
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