The Worst Punctuation in ALL of English Literature

I want to talk about my second favorite part in The Pilgrim’s Progress. The best part has to be when Christian’s burden comes off his back at the cross. How can you beat that? The next best part also has to be the first worst punctuation in all of English literature. I can’t believe that no editor, publisher, person-with-text-authority, hasn’t fixed it.

Christian and Hopeful go off the Way and into Giant Despair’s property. He catches them and imprisons them in his dungeon at Doubting Castle. Despair mocks them, beats them again and again, and counsels them to kill themselves; he says that there’s no way out. Christian is ready to end it, Hopeful helps him hold on, and then:

“Now a little before it was day, good Christian, as one half amazed, brake out in this passionate speech.

What a fool, quoth he, am I, thus to lie in a stinking Dungeon, when I may as well walk at liberty? I have a Key in my bosom, called Promise, that will, (I am persuaded) open any Lock in Doubting-Castle.

Then said Hopeful, That’s good news; good Brother pluck it out of thy bosom, and try.”

“That’s good news” - semi-colon?! Are you kidding?! This is why exclamation marks were created. Make two separate sentences and get in the BOOM!

And, oh!, how much we need to hide God’s Word in our bosom for such dark places. What promises of God we have that we must remember. This is the key to our hope, to our joy, to our liberty. Greater is He who is in you than the Despair that is in the world.