bones and skulls of those that thou hast already dispatch'd, and make them believe, ere a week comes to an end, thou also wilt tear them in pieces, as thou hast done their fellows before them."

So when the morning was come, the Giant goes to them 5 again, and takes them into the castle-yard and shews them as his wife had bidden him. "These," said he, "were once pilgrims as you are, and they trespassed on my grounds, as you have done; and when I saw fit, I tore them in pieces, and so, within ten days, I will do to you. Go, get you 10 down to your den again"; and with that he beat them all the way thither.

They lay, therefore, all day on Saturday in a lamentable case, as before. Now, when night was come, and when Mrs. Diffidence and her husband, the Giant, were 15 got to bed, they began to renew their talk about their prisoners, and the old Giant wondered that he could neither by his blows nor his counsel bring them to an end. And with that his wife replied, "I fear," said she, "that they live in hope that some one will come to relieve them, or 20 that they have picklocks about them, by the means of which they hope to escape." "And sayest thou so, my dear?” said the Giant; "I will, therefore, search them in the morning."

Now, a little before it was day, good Christian, as one 25 half amazed, brake out in this excited speech: "What a fool," quoth he, "am I, thus to lie in a dungeon, when I may as well walk at liberty! I have a key in my bosom, called Promise, that will, I am persuaded, open any lock

in Doubting Castle." "Then," said Hopeful, "that is good news, good brother; pluck it out of thy bosom, and try."

Then Christian pulled it out of his bosom, and began 5 to try at the dungeon door, whose bolt (as he turned the key) gave back, and the door flew open with ease, and Christian and Hopeful both came out. Then he went to the outward door that leads into the castle-yard, and with his key opened that door also. After he went to the 10 iron gate, for that must be opened too; that lock went hard, yet the key did open it. Then they thrust open the gate to make their escape with speed, but that gate, as it opened, made such a creaking that it waked Giant Despair, who, hastily rising to pursue his prisoners, felt his limbs 15 to fail, so that he could by no means go after them. Then they went on, and came to the King's highway, and so were safe, because they were out of his jurisdiction.

JOHN BUNYAN: The Pilgrim's Progress.

HELPS TO STUDY

4. On the second night what advice was

5.

1. By whom were Christian and Hopeful made prisoners? 2. How were they in fault? 3. On the first night what advice was given to Giant Despair by his wife? offered by Mrs. Diffidence? With what argument did Despair urge them to commit suicide? 6. What discussion did Christian and Hopeful have on the question? 7. Give Hopeful's arguments against suicide. 8. In his second discussion Hopeful recalls some of Christian's former deeds of courage; what were those? 9. How did the prisoners finally make their escape? 10. Compare their escape with that of St. Peter, Doubting here means doubting God. When men

Acts xii. 7-10. 11.

stay near Doubting Castle, why are they likely to be seized by despair? 12. What do men suffer from despair? 13. To what are men often tempted by despair and diffidence (i.e. distrust)? 14. What is the Key of Promise? 15. Where do Christians find promises?

Diffidence (distrust, i.e. of others, not in the modern sense, distrust of oneself). grievous, very hard, severe. cudgel, club. rating, scolding. Vanity Fair, the name of a place where Christian had been tempted but was victorious. The words are often applied to fashionable or frivolous life; in this sense Thackeray used them as a title for his novel.

JOHN BUNYAN (1628-1688) knew a good deal about prisons, for he spent twelve years of his life in Bedford jail. He was born near Bedford, about fifty miles from London, served as a soldier in the civil war that dethroned Charles I, and worked at his father's trade of a tinker. When in his twenties he became convinced that his life was irreligious, he joined the church and was soon appointed "preacher of the word" for the country about Bedford. As a preacher he was very popular and a powerful influence for good. In 1660, when Charles II came back to England, laws were passed which forbade all religious services except those of the Church of England. Bunyan was arrested and as he refused to promise to give up preaching, was kept in Bedford jail until those harsh laws were repealed in 1672. For him, however, jail was no Doubting Castle, but a place where he could preach with his pen if not with his voice. While there he planned and possibly wrote Pilgrim's Progress, which was printed in 1678. It has been read since by men of all creeds as a sincere account of the Christian life and has been the delight of generations of boys and girls because of its vivid story as well as its excellent teaching.

Review Questions. 1. What great poet lived at about the same time as John Bunyan? 2. In what respects were the two alike? 3. What similarity in subject is there between Paradise Lost and Pilgrim's Progress? 4. Tell the circumstances in which each book was written.

A DISSERTATION UPON ROAST PIG

This selection is presented as from an original manuscript. You will soon see that this solemn-faced introduction gives a pretense of historical accuracy to a very absurd and ridiculous story. Charles Lamb is a great humorist and his humor consists in part in the unexpected words and phrases with which he discourses. From the subject you could scarcely guess at his treatment of it.

Mankind, says a Chinese manuscript, which my friend M. was obliging enough to read and explain to me, for the first seventy thousand ages ate their meat raw, clawing or biting it from the living animal, just as they do in Abyssinia to 5 this day. This period is not obscurely hinted at by their great Confucius in the second chapter of his "Mundane Mutations," where he designates a kind of golden age by the term Chofang, literally the Cooks' Holiday. The manuscript goes on to say, that the art of roasting, or rather 10 broiling (which I take to be the elder-brother) was accidentally discovered in the manner following.

The swineherd, Ho-ti, having gone out into the woods one morning, as his manner was, to collect mast for his hogs, left his cottage in the care of his eldest son, Bo-bo, a 15 great lubberly boy, who being fond of playing with fire, as younkers of his age commonly are, let some sparks escape into a bundle of straw which, kindling quickly, spread the conflagration over every part of their poor mansion, till it was reduced to ashes. Together with the cottage (a sorry

ante-diluvian make-shift of a building, you may think it), what was of much more importance, a fine litter of newfarrowed pigs, no less than nine in number, perished. China pigs have been esteemed a luxury all over the east, from the remotest periods that we read of. Bo-bo was in the utmost 5 consternation, as you may think, not so much for the sake of the tenement, which his father and he could easily build up again with a few dry branches, and the labor of an hour or two, at any time, as for the loss of the pigs.

While he was thinking what he should say to his father, 10 and wringing his hands over the smoking remnants of one of those untimely sufferers, an odor assailed his nostrils, unlike any scent which he had before experienced. What could it proceed from? - not from the burnt cottage he had smelt that smell before indeed this was by no means 15 the first accident of the kind which had occurred through the negligence of this unlucky young fire-brand. Much less did it resemble that of any known herb, weed, or flower. A premonitory moistening at the same time overflowed his nether lip. He knew not what to think. He next stooped 20 down to feel the pig, if there were any signs of life in it. He burnt his fingers, and to cool them he applied them in his booby fashion to his mouth. Some of the crumbs of the scorched skin had come away with his fingers, and for the first time in his life (in the world's life indeed, for before him 25 no man had known it) he tasted — crackling!

Again he felt and fumbled at the pig. It did not burn him so much now; still he licked his fingers from a sort of habit. The truth at length broke into his slow understand