CHAPTER IV.
THE PURITANS. BUNYAN'S "PILGRIM'S PROGRESS."
I.
The renaissance of learning, with its delight in a sense of existence, its enjoyment of a new life, a newly acquired knowledge, and a quickened intelligence, was gradually supplanted by that renaissance of religion which followed the general introduction of the Bible among the English people. Weary of the oppression of the clergy, weary of giving an often ruinous obedience to the tyranny of men whose lives gave them no claim to control the conduct of others, the early Puritan found in the Bible the knowledge of God and the means of grace which he despaired of obtaining from the priest. The Bible became in reality The Book. It was the one volume possessed and read by the people at large. The classical authors, the volumes of translations issued in Elizabeth's time, the productions, even, of English genius had been familiar only to the upper and best-educated classes. The great body of the people were without books, and the Bible became their one literary resource, and the sole teacher of the conditions by which salvation could be attained. It was seized upon with extraordinary avidity and enthusiasm. Old men learned to read, that they might study it for themselves. Crowds gathered in churches and private houses to hear it read aloud. A good reader became a public benefactor. Alike in manor and in cottage, the family gathered at night to listen with awe-struck interest to the solemn words whose grandeur was not yet lessened by familiarity. As we quote, often unconsciously, from a hundred different authors, the Puritans quoted from their one book.[82] Some, like Bunyan, at first preferred the historical chapters. But the Bible soon came to have a far more powerful and absorbing interest than any of a literary nature. There men looked for their sentence of eternal life or eternal torment. There they sought the solution of the question: "What shall I do to be saved?" And they sought it with all the fervor of conscientious men who realized, as we cannot realize, the doctrine of eternal damnation. To understand the influence of the Bible, we must remember how completely men believed in a personal God, ruling England then, as He had ruled Israel of old; and in a devil who stalked through the world luring men to their perdition. The Bible was studied with a fearful eagerness for the way to please the one and to escape the other. Looked upon as the word of God, pointing out the only means of salvation, men placed themselves, through the Bible, in direct communication with the Deity, and, casting aside the authority of a church, acknowledged responsibility to Him alone. The difficulty of interpreting obscure portions of the Scriptures drove many to frenzy and despair. A hopeful or consoling passage was hailed with joy. "Happy are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy." "Lo," wrote Tyndale, "here God hath made a covenant wyth us, to mercy full unto us, yf we wyll be mercy full one to another."
Thus two ideas became paramount: the idea of God, and the idea of conscience. God was thought of as a judge who will reward His chosen servants by eternal happiness, but who will deliver those who do not know Him, or those who sin against His laws, to Satan and everlasting fire; a God to please whom is the first object of this life, as no pleasure and no pain here can compare with the pleasure or pain to come. This conception of the Deity still survives among us, but it is not realized with the intensity of men who feel the hand of God in every incident of their lives, who fancy that the Devil in person is among them, and who distinctly hear his tempting words. Conscience, the guide who pointed out the path of rectitude, became strict and self-searching, ever looking inwardly, and judging harshly, magnifying, through the greatness of its ideal of virtue, every failing into a crime. The natural result of these ideas seething in a brain which had little other food was Puritanism: the subordination of all other interests of life to the attainment of a spiritual condition acceptable in the sight of God. Following this aim with feverish intentness, and tortured by a conscience of extreme tenderness, the Puritans naturally cast aside the pleasures of this life as likely to interfere with the attainment of future happiness, and as worthless compared to it. It was no time for gaiety and trifling when the horrors of hell were staring them in the face.
There is extant a life-like picture of a London housewife, which can teach us much regarding the spirit of Puritanism.[83] "She was very loving and obedient to her parents, loving and kind to her husband, very tender-hearted to her children, loving all that were godly, much misliking the wicked and profane. She was a pattern of sobriety unto many, very seldom was seen abroad, except at church. When others recreated themselves, at holidays and other times, she would take her needlework, and say, 'here is my recreation.'"
The self-denial of this virtuous housewife developed into that austerity which, when Puritanism had become the ruling power in England, closed the theatre and the bear-garden, stopped the dancing on the village green, and assumed a dress and manner, the sombreness of which was meant to signify a scorn of this world. While we can now easily perceive the mistakes of the Puritans, and condemn the folly of prohibiting innocent amusements which form a natural outlet for exuberant spirits, it will be well if we can do justice to the nobility of aim, and the greatness of self-sacrifice, to which their austerity was due. We must remember that the aim of the Puritans was a godliness far more exacting than that which we seek, and requiring a proportionate sacrifice of immediate pleasure. We must remember, too, that the amusements of that time were in large part brutal, like the bear-gardens; and licentious, like most of the theatres. Puritanism could only exist among men filled to an uncommon degree with a love of virtue, who were ready to undergo every hardship, and to sacrifice every personal inclination to attain it. Growing up among the people at large, Puritanism showed a strong national love of religion and morality. The resolution with which its devotees pursued their aims, the serene content with which the martyrs welcomed the flames which were to open the gates of Heaven, were backed by a strength of faith not exceeded by that of the early Christians. The self-control and self-sacrifice of the Puritans moulded the armies of the Commonwealth, and overthrew the tyranny of Charles. But their finer qualities were clouded by the fanaticism which a long persecution had engendered. A phrase in our description of the London housewife unconsciously tells the story: "Loving all that were godly, much misliking the wicked and profane." The godly were the sharers of her own faith, the "wicked and profane" were all those without its pale. Here lay the weakness of Puritanism: its narrowness, its lack of sympathy with the world at large, its indifference to the sufferings of those who had no place in the ranks of the elect.
Among such men we must look in vain for literary productions having the aim of entertainment. The literature of the time was chiefly polemical, and commentaries crowded on the book-shelves the volumes of classical and Italian writers. To Puritanism, fiction was the invention of the Evil One, but still to Puritanism we owe, what is now, and seems destined ever to remain, the finest allegory in the English language.
[82] See Green's "Short History of the English People," chap. viii, sec. 1.
[83] John Wallington's description of his mother. Green's "Short History of the English People," p. 451.