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Whyte, Alexander, 1836-1921

"Bunyan Characters (1st Series)"

To the Hebrews, they were _faciales_, face-
men; _colorati_, dyed men, red men, birds of many colours. You may paint
a man, you may paint a rose, you may paint a fire burning, but you cannot
paint a soul, or the smell of a rose, or the heat of a fire. And it is
hard to counterfeit spiritual graces, such as love to Christ, sincere
intending of the glory of God, and such like spiritual things.' Yes,
indeed; it is hard to put on and to go through with a truly spiritual
grace even to the best and most spiritually-minded of men; and as for the
true hypocrite, he never honestly attempts it. If he ever did honestly
and resolutely attempt it, he would at once in that pass out of the ranks
of the hypocrites altogether and pass over into a very different
category. Bunyan lets us see how a formalist and a hypocrite and a
Christian all respectively do when they come to a real difficulty. The
three pilgrims were all walking in the same path, and with their faces
for the time in the same direction. They had not held much conference
together since their first conversation, and as time goes on, Christian
has no more talk but with himself, and that sometimes sighingly, and
sometimes more comfortably.


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