The Celestial Railroad

"The Celestial Railroad" is short story written as an allegory by American author Nathaniel Hawthorne. In it, Hawthorne parodies the seventeenth-century book The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan, which portrays a Christian's spiritual "journey" through life. In this story, the pilgrim journeys by iron horse rather than by foot, the burden of sin that Bunyan portrays is pulled by the same train, and Bunyan's figure Evangelist, preaching a message of conversion, is replaced by a figure known as "Mr. Smooth-it-away."