The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1880-11-24
A SNEAKING 4 TTACK.

Why should James Anthony Froude
write the biography of John Bunyan?
What could be the motive? There is in
the course of publication now by the
Harpers series of biographies called
Morley's English Men of Letters, and
one of these English "men of letters" is
John Bunyan, and his biographer is the
author of the Life of Caesar. 1t would
be exactly as appropriate to have Life
of Voltaire by Moody and Sankey, or a
Life of Count Zinzendorf by Wall-streer
broker. Bunyan is an exquisite artist
but the Pilgrims Progress without the
religion is like the armor in the Tower
without the knights, or some beautiful
face sealed in death.
The writing of biography is the labor
of love- biographies have been written
by those who were in sympathy with the
character to be reproduced. There is
only one other kind of biography-that
which is written to injure and defame-
that which is written for the purpose O
making an attack upon the representa-
tive of certain ideas.
Now Morley's Series of English Men
of Letters" purports to be literary at
fair, gotten up in the interest of literature,
and in order to illustrate the literature
of England. No one would expect it to
be turned into an engine for an attack
on the Christian Religion. Yet this is
precisely what has occurred in this BIZ
ography. An avowed infdel, one of the
bitterest in England, is selected to write
the life of the author of what has been
called. >" the fifth gospel analyse the
works of an author whose sole theme was
Christian Experience. Of course the OBJ
iect here is not literary; it is polemical
Mr.. Morley or Mr. Froude has a per-
feet right to attack Christianity; but in
this case it is done under the disguise of
Lives of English Men of Letters and
a young person who would be on his
guard against Col. Ingersoll will find his
sympathy for Bunyan and with the pill
grims in his immortal allegory thorough
ly chilled by this literary Mephistopheles
without realising how he contracted the
fatal cold.
These remarks are suggested by the
article in the October number of the
Southern Presbyterian RevieaO, entitled
" Froudes Bunyan," by Col. J. T. l..
Preston, of Lexington, Va, one of the
best articles, we desire to say, that we
have seen in any of the reviews for some
time.
We had occasion some twelve months
ago to call attention to an article of Mr..
Froude's, entitled GA Cagliostro of the
Second Century" in the Nineteenth Cen
ta1ry, written in the same spirit and with
the same diabolical malice which char
.acterise this Life Of Bunyan. The article
purported to give an account of the i'm
poster Alexander Of Abonotichus Ia dis
ciple of Apollonius of Tyana), who set up
an oracle in Paphlagonia in the second
century, and attracted attention in all
the neighboring countries, and even al
Rome itself. The real object Of Mr.
Froude was to point out what he calls
the credulity of that age, and thereby tc
discredit the preaching and miracles o.
Paul and Barnabas in the same region
(where. they were taken for gods)-thc
insinuation being thrown out that Alex
ander was as successful as Paul, and thai
both owed their success to the uncritica
spirit Of the age and the credulous recep
ton of the marvellous to which we have
referred. Mr.. Froude would have US be