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Something to Do, this Weekend

Biblereader

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I'm listening to an excellent book on CD.
This set of 4 cds is narrated by Edward de Souza, who has played leading roles in over a dozen plays.

I hope you get to hear it on CD. Here's a place where you can buy a copy of the same one I'm listening to: http://www.naxosaudiobooks.com/northamerica/417112.htm

Here's another less expensive version, on ebay: http://cgi.ebay.com/The-Pilgrim-s-Progr ... dZViewItem

The Pilgrim's Progress from This World to That Which Is to Come by John Bunyan (published 1678) is an allegorical novel. Bunyan wrote this book while imprisoned in 1675 for violations of the Conventicle Act, which punished people for conducting unauthorised religious services outside of the Church of England. This work is regarded as one of the greatest classics of literature, and has been translated into more than 100 languages.

The allegory tells of Christian, an everyman character, who makes his way from the "City of Destruction" to the "Celestial City" of Zion. Christian finds himself weighed down by a great burden that he gets from reading a book (obviously the Bible). This burden, which would cause him to sink into Tophet (hell), is Christian's acute, immediate concern that impels him to the crisis of what to do for deliverance. Evangelist suddenly comes by to direct Christian for deliverance to the "Wicket Gate," which is the direction indicated by a "shining light" that Christian thinks he sees. An insight into what the burden is allegorically is given by Help, Christian's rescuer from the Slough of Despond:

This miry slough is such a place as cannot be mended: it is the descent whither the scum and filth that attends conviction for sin doth continually run, and therefore it is called the Slough of Despond.

Christian's burden had caused him to sink even further down into the slough than one who might have been unburdened; hence, the burden allegorically is the weight of the conviction of one's sin. Christian leaves his home, his wife, and children to save himself when his attempts to persuade them to join him are frustrated.

On his way to the Wicket Gate, Christian is led astray by Mr. Worldly Wiseman into seeking deliverance from his burden through the Law, supposedly with the help of a Mr. Legality and his son Civility in the village of Morality, rather than through Christ, allegorically by way of the Wicket Gate. Evangelist meets Christian before a life-threatening mountain, Mt. Sinai, that keeps Christian from getting to Mr. Legality's home. Evangelist shows Christian that he had sinned by turning out of his way, but he assures him that he will be welcomed at the Wicket Gate. Christian turns around and goes there. Wikipedia.org
 
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