“As I walked through the wilderness of this world I lighted on a certain place where was a den [Bedford jail] and laid me down in that place to sleep; and, as I slept, I dreamed a dream.”  So the story begins.  He sees a man called Christian setting out with a book in his hand and a great load on his back from the city of Destruction.  Christian has two objects,—­to get rid of his burden, which holds the sins and fears of his life, and to make his way to the Holy City.  At the outset Evangelist finds him weeping because he knows not where to go, and points him to a wicket gate on a hill far away.  As Christian goes forward his neighbors, friends, wife and children call to him to come back; but he puts his fingers in his ears, crying out, “Life, life, eternal life,” and so rushes across the plain.

Then begins a journey in ten stages, which is a vivid picture of the difficulties and triumphs of the Christian life.  Every trial, every difficulty, every experience of joy or sorrow, of peace or temptation, is put into the form and discourse of a living character.  Other allegorists write in poetry and their characters are shadowy and unreal; but Bunyan speaks in terse, idiomatic prose, and his characters are living men and women.  There are Mr. Worldly Wiseman, a self-satisfied and dogmatic kind of man, youthful Ignorance, sweet Piety, courteous Demas, garrulous Talkative, honest Faithful, and a score of others, who are not at all the bloodless creatures of the Romance of the Rose, but men real enough to stop you on the road and to hold your attention.  Scene after scene follows, in which are pictured many of our own spiritual experiences.  There is the Slough of Despond, into which we all have fallen, out of which Pliable scrambles on the hither side and goes back grumbling, but through which Christian struggles mightily till Helpful stretches him a hand and drags him out on solid ground and bids him go on his way.  Then come Interpreter’s house, the Palace Beautiful, the Lions in the way, the Valley of Humiliation, the hard fight with the demon Apollyon, the more terrible Valley of the Shadow, Vanity Fair, and the trial of Faithful.  The latter is condemned to death by a jury made up of Mr. Blindman, Mr. Nogood, Mr. Heady, Mr. Liveloose, Mr. Hatelight, and others of their kind to whom questions of justice are committed by the jury system.  Most famous is Doubting Castle, where Christian and Hopeful are thrown into a dungeon by Giant Despair.  And then at last the Delectable Mountains of Youth, the deep river that Christian must cross, and the city of All Delight and the glorious company of angels that come singing down the streets.  At the very end, when in sight of the city and while he can hear the welcome with which Christian is greeted, Ignorance is snatched away to go to his own place; and Bunyan quaintly observes, “Then I saw that there was a way to hell even from the gates of heaven as well as from the city of Destruction.  So I awoke, and behold it was a dream!”