The Holy War – John Bunyan

judgment to make, nor what would be the end of such thundering beginnings.
It was also presently noised in the town, how the Recorder's house was
possessed, his rooms taken up, and his palace made the seat of the war; and
no sooner was it noised abroad, but they took the alarm as warmly, and gave
it out to others of his friends, and you know as a snow-ball loses nothing by
rolling, so in little time the whole town was possessed that they must expect
nothing from the Prince but destruction; and the ground of the business was
this. The Recorder was afraid, the Recorder trembled, and the captains
carried it strangely to the Recorder, so many came to see; but when they with
their own eyes did behold the captains in the palace, and their battering-rams
ever playing at the castle gates to beat them down, they were riveted in their
fears, and it made them as in amaze. And, as I said, the man of the house
would increase all this, for whoever came to him, or discoursed with him,
nothing would he talk of, tell them, or hear, but that death and destruction
now attended Mansoul.[17]
'For,' quoth the old gentleman, 'you are all of you sensible that we all
have been traitors to that once despised, but now famously victorious and
glorious Prince Emmanuel. For he now, as you see, doth not only lie in close
siege about us, but hath forced his entrance in at our gates; moreover,
Diabolus flees before him, and he hath, as you behold, made of my house a
garrison against the castle, where he is. I, for my part, have transgressed
greatly, and he that is clean it is well for him. But, I say, I have transgressed
greatly in keeping silence when I should have spoken, and in perverting of
justice when I should have executed the same. True, I have suffered
something at the hand of Diabolus, for taking part with the laws of King
Shaddai; but that, alas! what will that do? Will that make compensation for
the rebellions and treasons that I have done, and have suffered without
gainsaying, to be committed in the town of Mansoul? Oh, I tremble to think
what will be the end of this so dreadful and so ireful a beginning!'
Now, while these brave captains were thus busy in the house of the old
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