Pilgrim's
Progress the Finest of
All Allegories
Bunyan's Story Full of the Spirit of the Bible—The Simple Tale of Christian's Struggles and Triumph Appeals to Old and Young.
No contrast could be greater than that between Milton and John Bunyan unless it be the contrast between their masterpieces, Paradise Lost and Pilgrim's Progress. One was born in the purple and had all the advantages that flow from wealth and liberal education; the other was the son of a tinker, who had only a common school education and who from boyhood was forced to work for a living. Milton produced a poem nearly every line of which is rich in allusions to classical literature and mythology; Bunyan wrote an allegory, as simple in style as the English Bible, but which was destined to have a sale in English-speaking countries second only to the Bible itself, from which its inspiration was drawn.
Portrait of John Bunyan
after the Oil Painting by
Sadler
Milton knew many lands and peoples; he was one of the great scholars of all ages, and in literary craftsmanship has never been surpassed by any writer. Bunyan never traveled beyond the bounds of England; he knew only two books well, the Bible and Fox's Book of Martyrs, yet he produced one of the great literary masterpieces which profoundly influenced his own time and which has been the delight of thousands of readers in England and America, because of the simple human nature and the tremendous spiritual force that he put into the many trials and the ultimate victory of Christian.
John Bunyan was born in 1628 near Bedford, England, and he lived for sixty years. His father was a tinker, a calling that was held in some disrepute because of its association with wandering gypsies. The boy was a typical Saxon, large and strong, full of rude health; but by the time he was ten years old he began to show signs of an imagination that would have wrecked a weaker body. Bred in the rigid Calvinism of his day, he began to have visions of the consequences of sin; he began to see that he was perilously near to the consuming fire which the preachers declared was in store for all who did not repent and seek the Lord.