At the same time, though it cannot be denied that Bunyan has lost at this point a great opportunity for his genius and for our advantage,—­at the same time, he undoubtedly did a very courageous thing in introducing Atheist at all; and, especially, in introducing him to us and making him laugh so loudly at us when we are on the very borders of the land of Beulah.  A less courageous writer, and a writer less sure of his ground, would have left out Atheist altogether; or, if he had felt constrained to introduce him, would have introduced him at any other period of our history rather than at this period.  Under other hands than Bunyan’s we would have met with this mocking reprobate just outside the City of Destruction; or, perhaps, among the booths of Vanity Fair; or, indeed, anywhere but where we now meet him.  And, that our greater-minded author does not let loose the laughter of Atheist upon us till we are almost out of the body is a stroke of skill and truth and boldness that makes us glad indeed that we possess such a sketch at Bunyan’s hand at all, all too abrupt and all too short as that sketch is.  In the absence, then, of a full-length and finished portrait of Atheist, we must be content to fall back on some of the reflections and lessons that the mere mention of his name, the spot he passes us on, and the ridicule of his laughter, all taken together, awaken in our minds.  One rapid stroke of such a brush as that of John Bunyan conveys more to us than a full-length likeness, with all the strongest colours, of any other artist would be able to do.

1.  One thing the life-long admiration of John Bunyan’s books has helped to kindle and burn into my mind and my imagination is this:  What a universe of things is the heart of man!  Were there nothing else in the heart of man but all the places and all the persons and all the adventures that John Bunyan saw in his sleep, what a world that would open up in all our bosoms!  All the pilgrims, good and bad—­they, or the seed and possibility of them all, are all in your heart and in mine.  All the cities, all the roads that lead from one city to another, with all the paths and all the by-paths,—­all the adventures, experiences, endurances, conflicts, overthrows, victories,—­all are within us and never are to be seen anywhere else.  Heaven and hell, God and the devil, life and death, salvation and damnation, time and eternity, all are within us.  “There is no Mount Zion in all this world,” bellowed out this blinded fool.  “No; I know that quite well,” quickly responded Christian; “but there is in the world to come.”  He would have said the whole truth, and he would have been entirely right, had he taken time to add, “and in the world within.”  “And more,” he should have said to Atheist, “much more in the world within than in any possible world to come.”  The Celestial City, every Sabbath-school child begins gradually to understand, is not up among the stars; till, as he grows older, he takes in the