In seeking a solid bottom for our subject, then, we naturally turn to Butler.  Bunyan will people the house for us once it is built, but Butler lays bare for us the naked rock on which men like Bunyan build and beautify and people the dwelling-place of God and man.  What exactly is this thing, character, we hear so much about? we ask the sagacious bishop.  And how shall we understand our own character so as to form it well till it stands firm and endures?  ‘Character,’ answers Butler, in his bald, dry, deep way, ’by character is meant that temper, taste, disposition, whole frame of mind from whence we act in one way rather than another . . . those principles from which a man acts, when they become fixed and habitual in him we call his character . . .  And consequently there is a far greater variety in men’s characters than there is in the features of their faces.’  Open Bunyan now, with Butler’s keywords in your mind, and see the various tempers, tastes, dispositions, frames of mind from which his various characters act, and which, at bottom, really make them the characters, good or bad, which they are.  See the principles which Bunyan has with such inimitable felicity embodied and exhibited in their names, the principles within them from which they have acted till they have become a habit and then a character, that character which they themselves are and will remain.  See the variety of John Bunyan’s characters, a richer and a more endless variety than are the features of their faces.  Christian and Christiana, Obstinate and Pliable, Mr. Fearing and Mr. Feeblemind, Temporary and Talkative, Mr. By-ends and Mr. Facing-both-ways, Simple, Sloth, Presumption, that brisk lad Ignorance, and the genuine Mr. Brisk himself.  And then Captain Boasting, Mr. High-mind, Mr. Wet-Eyes, and so on, through a less known (but equally well worth knowing) company of municipal and military characters in the Holy War.

We shall see, as we proceed, how this and that character in Bunyan was formed and deformed.  But let us ask in this introductory lecture if we can find out any law or principle upon which all our own characters, good or bad, are formed.  Do our characters come to be what they are by chance, or have we anything to do in the formation of our own characters, and if so, in what way?  And here, again, Butler steps forward at our call with his key to our own and to all Bunyan’s characters in his hand, and in three familiar and fruitful words he answers our question and gives us food for thought and solemn reflection for a lifetime.  There are but three steps, says Butler, from earth to heaven, or, if you will, from earth to hell—­acts, habits, character.  All Butler’s prophetic burden is bound up in these three great words—­acts, habits, character.  Remember and ponder these three words, and you will in due time become a moral philosopher.  Ponder and practise them, and you will become what is infinitely better—­a moral man.  For acts, often