Bunyan Characters (3rd Series) eBook

Alexander Whyte
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 302 pages of information about Bunyan Characters (3rd Series).

Bunyan Characters (3rd Series) eBook

Alexander Whyte
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 302 pages of information about Bunyan Characters (3rd Series).
always successful orator Ill-pause.  On difficult occasions he came himself on the scene and Ill-pause with him.  On such difficult occasions as in the Garden of Eden; as when Noah was told to make haste and build an ark; as also when Abraham was told to make haste and leave his father’s house; when Jacob was bid remember and pay the vow he had made when his trouble was upon him; as also when Joseph had to flee for what was better than life; and on that memorable occasion when David sent Joab out against Rabbah, but David tarried still at Jerusalem.  On all these essential, first-class, and difficult occasions the old serpent brought up Ill-pause.  As also when our Lord was in the wilderness; when He set His face to go up to Jerusalem; when He saw certain Greeks among them that came up to the passover; as also again and again in the Garden.  As also on crucial occasions in your own life.  As when you had been told not to eat, not to touch, and not even to look at the forbidden fruit, then Ill-pause, the devil’s orator, came to you and said that it was a tree to be desired.  And, you shall not surely die.  As also when you were moved to terror and to tears under a Sabbath, or under a sermon, or at some death-bed, or on your own sick-bed—­Ill-pause got you to put off till a more convenient season your admitted need of repentance and reformation and peace with God.  On such difficult occasions as these the devil took Ill-pause to help him with you, and the result, from the devil’s point of view, has justified his confidence in his orator.  When Ill-pause gets his new honours paid him in hell; when there is a new joy in hell over another sinner that has not yet repented, your name will be heard sounding among the infernal cheers.  Just think of your baptismal name and your pet name at home giving them joy to-night at their supper in hell!  And yet one would not at first sight think that such triumphs and such toasts, such medals, and clasps, and garters were to be won on earth or in hell just by saying such simple-sounding and such commonplace things as those are for which Ill-pause receives his decorations.  ‘Take time,’ he says.  ‘Yes,’ he admits, ’but there is no such hurry; to-morrow will do; next year will do; after you are old will do quite as well.  The darkness shall cover you, and your sin will not find you out.  Christ died for sin, and it is a faithful saying that His blood will cleanse you later on from all this sin.’  Everyday and well-known words, indeed, but a true orator is seen in nothing more than in this, that he can take up what everybody knows and says, and put it so as to carry everybody captive.  One of Quintilian’s own orators has said that a great speaker only gives back to his hearers in flood what they have already given to him in vapour.

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Project Gutenberg
Bunyan Characters (3rd Series) from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.