The Pilgrim’s Progress: Part 1: Christian, Hopeful, and By-ends Summary & Analysis

As Christian continues on his way, he is joined by a man named Hopeful, who witnessed Christian’s suffering and Faithful’s martyrdom. Hopeful “rises out of [Faithful’s] ashes.” He tells Christian that other people from Vanity will follow them.

Christian and Hopeful encounter a man named By-ends, who comes from the wealthy town of Fair-speech and is heading to the Celestial City. However,  By-ends refuses to tell them his name. He says that he and his wife, the Lady Feigning’s daughter, differ from their stricter peers in that they never go against the prevailing tide in their religious beliefs, and they like religion best “in silver slippers.” Christian recognizes By-ends and quietly warns Hopeful that this man is a rascal.

When Christian confronts By-ends, By-ends insists that he was unfairly nicknamed by people who are jealous of his good fortunes. Christian tells By-ends that if he wants to travel with him and Hopeful, he must be willing to resist the tide and also be content with a ragged religion, not just a fancy one that wins popular approval. By-ends accuses them of trying to override his conscience and refuses to accompany them further. Christian and Hopeful continue on their way alone. When By-ends is joined by a small group of fellow pilgrims, he disparages Christian and Hopeful as being overly rigid in their opinions. The group agrees that both Scripture and human reason support the idea that religion and worldly goods go together.

By-ends poses a question to his new companion Money-love: if someone has the opportunity to obtain worldly advantages by becoming more outwardly zealous in their religion, shouldn’t they be allowed to use religion as a means to that end? Money-love agrees. Even if a minister, say, has the chance to obtain a more lucrative position by changing his preaching style and opinions, he should do it—there’s nothing wrong with wanting a better job, after all, and willingness to change one’s opinions suggests a humble temperament! Similarly, there’s nothing wrong with a tradesman becoming religious in order to gain a rich wife and more customers. The whole group applauds these answers.

By-end’s group decides to pose these same questions to Christian and Hopeful. When they catch up to the others, Mr. Hold-the-world explains the scenarios. Christian immediately replies that it’s always wrong to use religion as a means to gain something else. He cites several biblical examples for proof, concluding that someone who becomes religious in order to gain worldly goods will also throw away religion on worldly grounds. By-ends and his friends can make no response to this, and Christian and Hopeful go on their way again.