diff options
| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:16:24 -0700 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:16:24 -0700 |
| commit | bf84af0a0e4a0c102a0c7834e8b744d2665f1b4e (patch) | |
| tree | d8a0c509b22b997054cc22e857d4864836a67c47 | |
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 3 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 1037-h.zip | bin | 0 -> 125150 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 1037-h/1037-h.htm | 4988 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 1037.txt | 4858 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 1037.zip | bin | 0 -> 122458 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/lfbyn10.txt | 5131 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/lfbyn10.zip | bin | 0 -> 120369 bytes |
9 files changed, 14993 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/1037-h.zip b/1037-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..565a207 --- /dev/null +++ b/1037-h.zip diff --git a/1037-h/1037-h.htm b/1037-h/1037-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f406edd --- /dev/null +++ b/1037-h/1037-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,4988 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>The Life of John Bunyan</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4 { + text-align: left; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<h2> +<a href="#startoftext">The Life of John Bunyan, by Edmund Venables</a> +</h2> +<pre> +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Life of John Bunyan, by Edmund Venables + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Life of John Bunyan + + +Author: Edmund Venables + +Release Date: April 21, 2005 [eBook #1037] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIFE OF JOHN BUNYAN*** +</pre> +<p><a name="startoftext"></a></p> +<p>Transcribed from the 1888 Walter Scott edition by David Price, email +ccx074@coventry.ac.uk</p> +<h1>THE LIFE OF JOHN BUNYAN<br /> +by Edmund Venables, M.A.</h1> +<h2>CHAPTER I.</h2> +<p>John Bunyan, the author of the book which has probably passed through +more editions, had a greater number of readers, and been translated +into more languages than any other book in the English tongue, was born +in the parish of Elstow, in Bedfordshire, in the latter part of the +year 1628, and was baptized in the parish church of the village on the +last day of November of that year.</p> +<p>The year of John Bunyan’s birth was a momentous one both for +the nation and for the Church of England. Charles I., by the extorted +assent to the Petition of Right, had begun reluctantly to strip himself +of the irresponsible authority he had claimed, and had taken the first +step in the struggle between King and Parliament which ended in the +House of Commons seating itself in the place of the Sovereign. +Wentworth (better known as Lord Strafford) had finally left the Commons, +baffled in his nobly-conceived but vain hope of reconciling the monarch +and his people, and having accepted a peerage and the promise of the +Presidency of the Council of the North, was foreshadowing his policy +of “Thorough,” which was destined to bring both his own +head and that of his weak master to the block. The Remonstrance +of Parliament against the toleration of Roman Catholics and the growth +of Arminianism, had been presented to the indignant king, who, wilfully +blinded, had replied to it by the promotion to high and lucrative posts +in the Church of the very men against whom it was chiefly directed. +The most outrageous upholders of the royal prerogative and the irresponsible +power of the sovereign, Montagu and Mainwaring, had been presented, +the one to the see of Chichester, the other—the impeached and +condemned of the Commons—to the rich living Montagu’s consecration +had vacated. Montaigne, the licenser of Mainwaring’s incriminated +sermon, was raised to the Archbishopric of York, while Neile and Laud, +who were openly named in the Remonstrance as the “troublers of +the English Israel,” were rewarded respectively with the rich +see of Durham and the important and deeply-dyed Puritan diocese of London. +Charles was steadily sowing the wind, and destined to reap the whirlwind +which was to sweep him from his throne, and involve the monarchy and +the Church in the same overthrow. Three months before Bunyan’s +birth Buckingham, on the eve of his departure for the beleaguered and +famine-stricken city of Rochelle, sanguinely hoping to conclude a peace +with the French king beneath its walls, had been struck down by the +knife of a fanatic, to the undisguised joy of the majority of the nation, +bequeathing a legacy of failure and disgrace in the fall of the Protestant +stronghold on which the eyes of Europe had been so long anxiously fixed.</p> +<p>The year was closing gloomily, with ominous forecasts of the coming +hurricane, when the babe who was destined to leave so imperishable a +name in English literature, first saw the light in an humble cottage +in an obscure Bedfordshire village. His father, Thomas Bunyan, +though styling himself in his will by the more dignified title of “brazier,” +was more properly what is known as a “tinker”; “a +mender of pots and kettles,” according to Bunyan’s contemporary +biographer, Charles Doe. He was not, however, a mere tramp or +vagrant, as travelling tinkers were and usually are still, much less +a disreputable sot, a counterpart of Shakespeare’s Christopher +Sly, but a man with a recognized calling, having a settled home and +an acknowledged position in the village community of Elstow. The +family was of long standing there, but had for some generations been +going down in the world. Bunyan’s grandfather, Thomas Bunyan, +as we learn from his still extant will, carried on the occupation of +a “petty chapman,” or small retail dealer, in his own freehold +cottage, which he bequeathed, “with its appurtenances,” +to his second wife, Ann, to descend, after her death, to her stepson, +his namesake, Thomas, and her own son Edward, in equal shares. +This cottage, which was probably John Bunyan’s birthplace, persistent +tradition, confirmed by the testimony of local names, warrants us in +placing near the hamlet of Harrowden, a mile to the east of the village +of Elstow, at a place long called “Bunyan’s End,” +where two fields are still called by the name of “Bunyans” +and “Further Bunyans.” This small freehold appears +to have been all that remained, at the death of John Bunyan’s +grandfather, of a property once considerable enough to have given the +name of its possessor to the whole locality.</p> +<p>The family of Buingnon, Bunyun, Buniun, Boynon, Bonyon, or Binyan +(the name is found spelt in no fewer than thirty-four different ways, +of which the now-established form, Bunyan, is almost the least frequent) +is one that had established itself in Bedfordshire from very early times. +The first place in connection with which the name appears is Pulloxhill, +about nine miles from Elstow. In 1199, the year of King John’s +accession, the Bunyans had approached still nearer to that parish. +One William Bunion held land at Wilstead, not more than a mile off. +In 1327, the first year of Edward III., one of the same name, probably +his descendant, William Boynon, is found actually living at Harrowden, +close to the spot which popular tradition names as John Bunyan’s +birthplace, and was the owner of property there. We have no further +notices of the Bunyans of Elstow till the sixteenth century. We +then find them greatly fallen. Their ancestral property seems +little by little to have passed into other hands, until in 1542 nothing +was left but “a messuage and pightell <a name="citation1"></a><a href="#footnote1">{1}</a> +with the appurtenances, and nine acres of land.” This small +residue other entries on the Court Rolls show to have been still further +diminished by sale. The field already referred to, known as “Bonyon’s +End,” was sold by “Thomas Bonyon, of Elstow, labourer,” +son of William Bonyon, the said Thomas and his wife being the keepers +of a small roadside inn, at which their overcharges for their home-baked +bread and home-brewed beer were continually bringing them into trouble +with the petty local courts of the day. Thomas Bunyan, John Bunyan’s +father, was born in the last days of Elizabeth, and was baptized February +24, 1603, exactly a month before the great queen passed away. +The mother of the immortal Dreamer was one Margaret Bentley, who, like +her husband, was a native of Elstow and only a few months his junior. +The details of her mother’s will, which is still extant, drawn +up by the vicar of Elstow, prove that, like her husband, she did not, +in the words of Bunyan’s latest and most complete biographer, +the Rev. Dr. Brown, “come of the very squalid poor, but of people +who, though humble in station, were yet decent and worthy in their ways.” +John Bunyan’s mother was his father’s second wife. +The Bunyans were given to marrying early, and speedily consoled themselves +on the loss of one wife with the companionship of a successor. +Bunyan’s grandmother cannot have died before February 24, 1603, +the date of his father’s baptism. But before the year was +out his grandfather had married again. His father, too, had not +completed his twentieth year when he married his first wife, Anne Pinney, +January 10, 1623. She died in 1627, apparently without any surviving +children, and before the year was half-way through, on the 23rd of the +following May, he was married a second time to Margaret Bentley. +At the end of seventeen years Thomas Bunyan was again left a widower, +and within two months, with grossly indecent haste, he filled the vacant +place with a third wife. Bunyan himself cannot have been much +more than twenty when he married. We have no particulars of the +death of his first wife. But he had been married two years to +his noble-minded second wife at the time of the assizes in 1661, and +the ages of his children by his first wife would indicate that no long +interval elapsed between his being left a widower and his second marriage.</p> +<p>Elstow, which, as the birthplace of the author of “The Pilgrim’s +Progress,” has gained a world-wide celebrity, is a quiet little +village, which, though not much more than a mile from the populous and +busy town of Bedford, yet, lying aside from the main stream of modern +life, preserves its old-world look to an unusual degree. Its name +in its original form of “Helen-stow,” or “Ellen-stow,” +the <i>stow</i> or stockaded place of St. Helena, is derived from a +Benedictine nunnery founded in 1078 by Judith, niece of William the +Conqueror, the traitorous wife of the judicially murdered Waltheof, +Earl of Huntingdon, in honour of the mother of the Emperor Constantine. +The parish church, so intimately connected with Bunyan’s personal +history, is a fragment of the church of the nunnery, with a detached +campanile, or “steeple-house,” built to contain the bells +after the destruction of the central tower and choir of the conventual +church. Few villages are so little modernized as Elstow. +The old half-timbered cottages with overhanging storeys, peaked dormers, +and gabled porches, tapestried with roses and honeysuckles, must be +much what they were in Bunyan’s days. A village street, +with detached cottages standing in gardens gay with the homely flowers +John Bunyan knew and loved, leads to the village green, fringed with +churchyard elms, in the middle of which is the pedestal or stump of +the market-cross, and at the upper end of the old “Moot Hall,” +a quaint brick and timber building, with a projecting upper storey, +a good example of the domestic architecture of the fifteenth century, +originally, perhaps, the Guesten-Hall of the adjacent nunnery, and afterwards +the Court House of the manor when lay-lords had succeeded the abbesses—“the +scene,” writes Dr. Brown “of village festivities, statute +hirings, and all the public occasions of village life.” +The whole spot and its surroundings can be but little altered from the +time when our hero was the ringleader of the youth of the place in the +dances on the greensward, which he tells us he found it so hard to give +up, and in “tip-cat,” and the other innocent games which +his diseased conscience afterwards regarded as “ungodly practices.” +One may almost see the hole from which he was going to strike his “cat” +that memorable Sunday afternoon when he silenced the inward voice which +rebuked him for his sins, and “returned desperately to his sport +again.” On the south side of the green, as we have said, +stands the church, a fine though somewhat rude fragment of the chapel +of the nunnery curtailed at both ends, of Norman and Early English date, +which, with its detached bell tower, was the scene of some of the fierce +spiritual conflicts so vividly depicted by Bunyan in his “Grace +Abounding.” On entering every object speaks of Bunyan. +The pulpit—if it has survived the recent restoration—is +the same from which Christopher Hall, the then “Parson” +of Elstow, preached the sermon which first awoke his sleeping conscience. +The font is that in which he was baptized, as were also his father and +mother and remoter progenitors, as well as his children, Mary, his dearly-loved +blind child, on July 20, 1650, and her younger sister, Elizabeth, on +April 14, 1654. An old oaken bench, polished by the hands of thousands +of visitors attracted to the village church by the fame of the tinker +of Elstow, is traditionally shown as the seat he used to occupy when +he “went to church twice a day, and that, too, with the foremost +counting all things holy that were therein contained.” The +five bells which hang in the belfry are the same in which Bunyan so +much delighted, the fourth bell, tradition says, being that he was used +to ring. The rough flagged floor, “all worn and broken with +the hobnailed boots of generations of ringers,” remains undisturbed. +One cannot see the door, set in its solid masonry, without recalling +the figure of Bunyan standing in it, after conscience, “beginning +to be tender,” told him that “such practice was but vain,” +but yet unable to deny himself the pleasure of seeing others ring, hoping +that, “if a bell should fall,” he could “slip out” +safely “behind the thick walls,” and so “be preserved +notwithstanding.” Behind the church, on the south side, +stand some picturesque ivy-clad remains of the once stately mansion +of the Hillersdons, erected on the site of the nunnery buildings in +the early part of the seventeenth century, with a porch attributed to +Inigo Jones, which may have given Bunyan the first idea of “the +very stately Palace, the name of which was Beautiful.”</p> +<p>The cottage where Bunyan was born, between the two brooks in the +fields at Harrowden, has been so long destroyed that even the knowledge +of its site has passed away. That in which he lived for six years +(1649-1655) after his first marriage, and where his children were born, +is still standing in the village street, but modern reparations have +robbed it of all interest.</p> +<p>From this description of the surroundings among which Bunyan passed +the earliest and most impressionable years of his life, we pass to the +subject of our biography himself. The notion that Bunyan was of +gipsy descent, which was not entirely rejected by Sir Walter Scott, +and which has more recently received elaborate support from writers +on the other side of the Atlantic, may be pronounced absolutely baseless. +Even if Bunyan’s inquiry of his father “whether the family +was of Israelitish descent or no,” which has been so strangely +pressed into the service of the theory, could be supposed to have anything +to do with the matter, the decided negative with which his question +was met—“he told me, ‘No, we were not’”—would, +one would have thought, have settled the point. But some fictions +die hard. However low the family had sunk, so that in his own +words, “his father’s house was of that rank that is meanest +and most despised of all the families in the land,” “of +a low and inconsiderable generation,” the name, as we have seen, +was one of long standing in Bunyan’s native county, and had once +taken far higher rank in it. And his parents, though poor, were +evidently worthy people, of good repute among their village neighbours. +Bunyan seems to be describing his own father and his wandering life +when he speaks of “an honest poor labouring man, who, like Adam +unparadised, had all the world to get his bread in, and was very careful +to maintain his family.” He and his wife were also careful +with a higher care that their children should be properly educated. +“Notwithstanding the meanness and inconsiderableness of my parents,” +writes Bunyan, “it pleased God to put it into their hearts to +put me to school, to learn both to read and write.” If we +accept the evidence of the “Scriptural Poems,” published +for the first time twelve years after his death, the genuineness of +which, though questioned by Dr. Brown, there seems no sufficient reason +to doubt, the little education he had was “gained in a grammar +school.” This would have been that founded by Sir William +Harpur in Queen Mary’s reign in the neighbouring town of Bedford. +Thither we may picture the little lad trudging day by day along the +mile and a half of footpath and road from his father’s cottage +by the brookside, often, no doubt, wet and miry enough, not, as he says, +to “go to school to Aristotle or Plato,” but to be taught +“according to the rate of other poor men’s children.” +The Bedford schoolmaster about this time, William Barnes by name, was +a negligent sot, charged with “night-walking” and haunting +“taverns and alehouses,” and other evil practices, as well +as with treating the poor boys “when present” with a cruelty +which must have made them wish that his absences, long as they were, +had been more protracted. Whether this man was his master or no, +it was little that Bunyan learnt at school, and that little he confesses +with shame he soon lost “almost utterly.” He was before +long called home to help his father at the Harrowden forge, where he +says he was “brought up in a very mean condition among a company +of poor countrymen.” Here, with but little to elevate or +refine his character, the boy contracted many bad habits, and grew up +what Coleridge somewhat too strongly calls “a bitter blackguard.” +According to his own remorseful confession, he was “filled with +all unrighteousness,” having “from a child” in his +“tender years,” “but few equals both for cursing, +swearing, lying and blaspheming the holy name of God.” Sins +of this kind he declares became “a second nature to him;” +he “delighted in all transgression against the law of God,” +and as he advanced in his teens he became a “notorious sinbreeder,” +the “very ringleader,” he says, of the village lads “in +all manner of vice and ungodliness.” But the unsparing condemnation +passed by Bunyan, after his conversion, on his former self, must not +mislead us into supposing him ever, either as boy or man, to have lived +a vicious life. “The wickedness of the tinker,” writes +Southey, “has been greatly overrated, and it is taking the language +of self-accusation too literally to pronounce of John Bunyan that he +was at any time depraved.” The justice of this verdict of +acquittal is fully accepted by Coleridge. “Bunyan,” +he says, “was never in our received sense of the word ‘wicked.’ +He was chaste, sober, and honest.” He hints at youthful +escapades, such, perhaps, as orchard-robbing, or when a little older, +poaching, and the like, which might have brought him under “the +stroke of the laws,” and put him to “open shame before the +face of the world.” But he confesses to no crime or profligate +habit. We have no reason to suppose that he was ever drunk, and +we have his own most solemn declaration that he was never guilty of +an act of unchastity. “In our days,” to quote Mr. +Froude, “a rough tinker who could say as much for himself after +he had grown to manhood, would be regarded as a model of self-restraint. +If in Bedford and the neighbourhood there was no young man more vicious +than Bunyan, the moral standard of an English town in the seventeenth +century must have been higher than believers in progress will be pleased +to allow.” How then, it may be asked, are we to explain +the passionate language in which he expresses his self-abhorrence, which +would hardly seem exaggerated in the mouth of the most profligate and +licentious? We are confident that Bunyan meant what he said. +So intensely honest a nature could not allow his words to go beyond +his convictions. When he speaks of “letting loose the reins +to his lusts,” and sinning “with the greatest delight and +ease,” we know that however exaggerated they may appear to us, +his expressions did not seem to him overstrained. Dr. Johnson +marvelled that St. Paul could call himself “the chief of sinners,” +and expressed a doubt whether he did so honestly. But a highly-strung +spiritual nature like that of the apostle, when suddenly called into +exercise after a period of carelessness, takes a very different estimate +of sin from that of the world, even the decent moral world, in general. +It realizes its own offences, venial as they appear to others, as sins +against infinite love—a love unto death—and in the light +of the sacrifice on Calvary, recognizes the heinousness of its guilt, +and while it doubts not, marvels that it can be pardoned. The +sinfulness of sin—more especially their own sin—is the intensest +of all possible realities to them. No language is too strong to +describe it. We may not unreasonably ask whether this estimate, +however exaggerated it may appear to those who are strangers to these +spiritual experiences, is altogether a mistaken one?</p> +<p>The spiritual instinct was very early awakened in Bunyan. While +still a child “but nine or ten years old,” he tells us he +was racked with convictions of sin, and haunted with religious fears. +He was scared with “fearful dreams,” and “dreadful +visions,” and haunted in his sleep with “apprehensions of +devils and wicked spirits” coming to carry him away, which made +his bed a place of terrors. The thought of the Day of Judgment +and of the torments of the lost, often came as a dark cloud over his +mind in the midst of his boyish sports, and made him tremble. +But though these fevered visions embittered his enjoyment while they +lasted, they were but transient, and after a while they entirely ceased +“as if they had never been,” and he gave himself up without +restraint to the youthful pleasures in which his ardent nature made +him ever the ringleader. The “thoughts of religion” +became very grievous to him. He could not endure even to see others +read pious books; “it would be as a prison to me.” +The awful realities of eternity which had once been so crushing to his +spirit were “both out of sight and mind.” He said +to God, “depart from me.” According to the later morbid +estimate which stigmatized as sinful what were little more than the +wild acts of a roystering dare-devil young fellow, full of animal spirits +and with an unusually active imagination, he “could sin with the +greatest delight and ease, and take pleasure in the vileness of his +companions.” But that the sense of religion was not wholly +dead in him even then, and that while discarding its restraints he had +an inward reverence for it, is shown by the horror he experienced if +those who had a reputation for godliness dishonoured their profession. +“Once,” he says, “when I was at the height of my vanity, +hearing one to swear who was reckoned for a religious man, it had so +great a stroke upon my spirit that it made my heart to ache.”</p> +<p>This undercurrent of religious feeling was deepened by providential +escapes from accidents which threatened his life—“judgments +mixed with mercy” he terms them,—which made him feel that +he was not utterly forsaken of God. Twice he narrowly escaped +drowning; once in “Bedford river”—the Ouse; once in +“a creek of the sea,” his tinkering rounds having, perhaps, +carried him as far northward as the tidal inlets of the Wash in the +neighbourhood of Spalding or Lynn, or to the estuaries of the Stour +and Orwell to the east. At another time, in his wild contempt +of danger, he tore out, while his companions looked on with admiration, +what he mistakenly supposed to be an adder’s sting.</p> +<p>These providential deliverances bring us to that incident in his +brief career as a soldier which his anonymous biographer tells us “made +so deep an impression upon him that he would never mention it, which +he often did, without thanksgiving to God.” But for this +occurrence, indeed, we should have probably never known that he had +ever served in the army at all. The story is best told in his +own provokingly brief words—“When I was a soldier I with +others were drawn out to go to such a place to besiege it. But +when I was just ready to go, one of the company desired to go in my +room; to which when I consented, he took my place, and coming to the +siege, as he stood sentinel, he was shot in the head with a musket bullet +and died.” Here, as is so often the case in Bunyan’s +autobiography, we have reason to lament the complete absence of details. +This is characteristic of the man. The religious import of the +occurrences he records constituted their only value in his eyes; their +temporal setting, which imparts their chief interest to us, was of no +account to him. He gives us not the slightest clue to the name +of the besieged place, or even to the side on which he was engaged. +The date of the event is left equally vague. The last point however +we are able to determine with something like accuracy. November, +1644, was the earliest period at which Bunyan could have entered the +army, for it was not till then that he reached the regulation age of +sixteen. Domestic circumstances had then recently occurred which +may have tended to estrange him from his home, and turn his thoughts +to a military life. In the previous June his mother had died, +her death being followed within a month by that of his sister Margaret. +Before another month was out, his father, as we have already said, had +married again, and whether the new wife had proved the proverbial <i>injusta +noverca</i> or not, his home must have been sufficiently altered by +the double, if we may not say triple, calamity, to account for his leaving +the dull monotony of his native village for the more stirring career +of a soldier. Which of the two causes then distracting the nation +claimed his adherence, Royalist or Parliamentarian, can never be determined. +As Mr. Froude writes, “He does not tell us himself. His +friends in after life did not care to ask him or he to inform them, +or else they thought the matter of too small importance to be worth +mentioning with exactness.” The only evidence is internal, +and the deductions from it vary with the estimate of the counter-balancing +probabilities taken by Bunyan’s various biographers. Lord +Macaulay, whose conclusion is ably, and, we think, convincingly supported +by Dr. Brown, decides in favour of the side of the Parliament. +Mr. Froude, on the other hand, together with the painstaking Mr. Offor, +holds that “probability is on the side of his having been with +the Royalists.” Bedfordshire, however, was one of the “Associated +Counties” from which the Parliamentary army drew its main strength, +and it was shut in by a strong line of defence from any combination +with the Royalist army. In 1643 the county had received an order +requiring it to furnish “able and armed men” to the garrison +at Newport Pagnel, which was then the base of operations against the +King in that part of England. All probability therefore points +to John Bunyan, the lusty young tinker of Elstow, the leader in all +manly sports and adventurous enterprises among his mates, and probably +caring very little on what side he fought, having been drafted to Newport +to serve under Sir Samuel Luke, of Cople, and other Parliamentary commanders. +The place of the siege he refers to is equally undeterminable. +A tradition current within a few years of Bunyan’s death, which +Lord Macaulay rather rashly invests with the certainty of fact, names +Leicester. The only direct evidence for this is the statement +of an anonymous biographer, who professes to have been a personal friend +of Bunyan’s, that he was present at the siege of Leicester, in +1645, as a soldier in the Parliamentary army. This statement, +however, is in direct defiance of Bunyan’s own words. For +the one thing certain in the matter is that wherever the siege may have +been, Bunyan was not at it. He tells us plainly that he was “drawn +to go,” and that when he was just starting, he gave up his place +to a comrade who went in his room, and was shot through the head. +Bunyan’s presence at the siege of Leicester, which has been so +often reported that it has almost been regarded as an historical truth, +must therefore take its place among the baseless creations of a fertile +fancy.</p> +<p>Bunyan’s military career, wherever passed and under whatever +standard, was very short. The civil war was drawing near the end +of its first stage when he enlisted. He had only been a soldier +a few months when the battle of Naseby, fatal to the royal cause, was +fought, June 14, 1645. Bristol was surrendered by Prince Rupert, +Sept. 10th. Three days later Montrose was totally defeated at +Philiphaugh; and after a vain attempt to relieve Chester, Charles shut +himself up in Oxford. The royal garrisons yielded in quick succession; +in 1646 the armies on both sides were disbanded, and the first act in +the great national tragedy having come to a close, Bunyan returned to +Elstow, and resumed his tinker’s work at the paternal forge. +His father, old Thomas Bunyan, it may here be mentioned, lived all through +his famous son’s twelve years’ imprisonment, witnessed his +growing celebrity as a preacher and a writer, and died in the early +part of 1676, just when John Bunyan was passing through his last brief +period of durance, which was to give birth to the work which has made +him immortal.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER II.</h2> +<p>It cannot have been more than two or three years after Bunyan’s +return home from his short experience of a soldier’s life, that +he took the step which, more than any other, influences a man’s +future career for good or for evil. The young tinker married. +With his characteristic disregard of all facts or dates but such as +concern his spiritual history, Bunyan tells us nothing about the orphan +girl he made his wife. Where he found her, who her parents were, +where they were married, even her christian name, were all deemed so +many irrelevant details. Indeed the fact of his marriage would +probably have been passed over altogether but for the important bearing +it hid on his inner life. His “mercy,” as he calls +it, “was to light upon a wife whose father was counted godly,” +and who, though she brought him no marriage portion, so that they “came +together as poor as poor might be,” as “poor as howlets,” +to adopt his own simile, “without so much household stuff as a +dish or a spoon betwixt” them, yet brought with her to the Elstow +cottage two religious books, which had belonged to her father, and which +he “had left her when he died.” These books were “The +Plain Man’s Pathway to Heaven,” the work of Arthur Dent, +the puritan incumbent of Shoebury, in Essex—“wearisomely +heavy and theologically narrow,” writes Dr. Brown—and “The +Practise of Piety,” by Dr. Lewis Bayley, Bishop of Bangor, and +previously chaplain to Prince Henry, which enjoyed a wide reputation +with puritans as well as with churchmen. Together with these books, +the young wife brought the still more powerful influence of a religious +training, and the memory of a holy example, often telling her young +graceless husband “what a godly man her father was, and how he +would reprove and correct vice both in his house and amongst his neighbours, +and what a strict and holy life he lived in his days both in word and +deed.” Much as Bunyan tells us he had lost of the “little +he had learnt” at school, he had not lost it “utterly.” +He was still able to read intelligently. His wife’s gentle +influence prevailed on him to begin “sometimes to read” +her father’s legacy “with her.” This must have +been entirely new reading for Bunyan, and certainly at first not much +to his taste. What his favourite reading had been up to this time, +his own nervous words tell us, “Give me a ballad, a news-book, +George on Horseback, or Bevis of Southampton; give me some book that +teaches curious arts, that tells of old fables.” But as +he and his young wife read these books together at their fireside, a +higher taste was gradually awakened in Bunyan’s mind; “some +things” in them he “found somewhat pleasing” to him, +and they “begot” within him “some desires to religion,” +producing a degree of outward reformation. The spiritual instinct +was aroused. He would be a godly man like his wife’s father. +He began to “go to church twice a day, and that too with the foremost.” +Nor was it a mere formal attendance, for when there he tells us he took +his part with all outward devotion in the service, “both singing +and saying as others did; yet,” as he penitently confesses, “retaining +his wicked life,” the wickedness of which, however, did not amount +to more than a liking for the sports and games of the lads of the village, +bell-ringing, dancing, and the like. The prohibition of all liturgical +forms issued in 1645, the observance of which varied with the strictness +or laxity of the local authorities, would not seem to have been put +in force very rigidly at Elstow. The vicar, Christopher Hall, +was an Episcopalian, who, like Bishop Sanderson, retained his benefice +unchallenged all through the Protectorate, and held it some years after +the Restoration and the passing of the Act of Uniformity. He seems, +like Sanderson, to have kept himself within the letter of the law by +making trifling variations in the Prayer Book formularies, consistent +with a general conformity to the old order of the Church, “without +persisting to his own destruction in the usage of the entire liturgy.” +The decent dignity of the ceremonial of his parish church had a powerful +effect on Bunyan’s freshly awakened religious susceptibility—a +“spirit of superstition” he called it afterwards—and +helped to its fuller development. “I adored,” he says, +“with great devotion, even all things, both the High Place”—altars +then had not been entirely broken down and levelled in Bedfordshire—“Priest, +Clerk, Vestment, Service, and what else belonging to the church, counting +all things holy that were therein contained, and especially the Priest +and Clerk most happy, and without doubt greatly blessed because they +were the servants of God and were principal in the Holy Temple, to do +His work therein, . . . their name, their garb, and work, did so intoxicate +and bewitch me.” If it is questionable whether the Act forbidding +the use of the Book of Common Prayer was strictly observed at Elstow, +it is certain that the prohibition of Sunday sports was not. Bunyan’s +narrative shows that the aspect of a village green in Bedfordshire during +the Protectorate did not differ much from what Baxter tells us it had +been in Shropshire before the civil troubles began, where, “after +the Common Prayer had been read briefly, the rest of the day even till +dark night almost, except eating time, was spent in dancing under a +maypole and a great tree, when all the town did meet together.” +These Sunday sports proved the battle-ground of Bunyan’s spiritual +experience, the scene of the fierce inward struggles which he has described +so vividly, through which he ultimately reached the firm ground of solid +peace and hope. As a high-spirited healthy athletic young fellow, +all kinds of manly sports were Bunyan’s delight. On week +days his tinker’s business, which he evidently pursued industriously, +left him small leisure for such amusements. Sunday therefore was +the day on which he “did especially solace himself” with +them. He had yet to learn the identification of diversions with +“all manner of vice.” The teaching came in this way. +One Sunday, Vicar Hall preached a sermon on the sin of Sabbath-breaking, +and like many hearers before and since, he imagined that it was aimed +expressly at him. Sermon ended, he went home “with a great +burden upon his spirit,” “sermon-stricken” and “sermon +sick” as he expresses it elsewhere. But his Sunday’s +dinner speedily drove away his self-condemning thoughts. He “shook +the sermon out of his mind,” and went out to his sports with the +Elstow lads on the village green, with as “great delight” +as ever. But in the midst of his game of tip-cat or “sly,” +just as he had struck the “cat” from its hole, and was going +to give it a second blow—the minuteness of the detail shows the +unforgetable reality of the crisis—he seemed to hear a voice from +heaven asking him whether “he would leave his sins and go to heaven, +or keep his sins and go to hell.” He thought also that he +saw Jesus Christ looking down on him with threatening countenance. +But like his own Hopeful he “shut his eyes against the light,” +and silenced the condemning voice with the feeling that repentance was +hopeless. “It was too late for him to look after heaven; +he was past pardon.” If his condemnation was already sealed +and he was eternally lost, it would not matter whether he was condemned +for many sins or for few. Heaven was gone already. The only +happiness he could look for was what he could get out of his sins—his +morbidly sensitive conscience perversely identifying sports with sin—so +he returned desperately to his games, resolved, he says, to “take +my fill of sin, still studying what sin was yet to be committed that +I might taste the sweetness of it.”</p> +<p>This desperate recklessness lasted with him “about a month +or more,” till “one day as he was standing at a neighbour’s +shop-window, cursing and swearing and playing the madman after his wonted +manner, the woman of the house, though a very loose and ungodly wretch,” +rebuked him so severely as “the ungodliest fellow for swearing +that ever she heard, able to spoil all the youth in a whole town,” +that, self-convicted, he hung down his head in silent shame, wishing +himself a little child again that he might unlearn the wicked habit +of which he thought it impossible to break himself. Hopeless as +the effort seemed to him, it proved effectual. He did “leave +off his swearing” to his own “great wonder,” and found +that he “could speak better and with more pleasantness” +than when he “put an oath before and another behind, to give his +words authority.” Thus was one step in his reformation taken, +and never retraced; but, he adds sorrowfully, “all this while +I knew not Jesus Christ, neither did I leave my sports and plays.” +We might be inclined to ask, why should he leave them? But indifferent +and innocent in themselves, an overstrained spirituality had taught +him to regard them as sinful. To indulge in them wounded his morbidly +sensitive conscience, and so they were sin to him.</p> +<p>The next step onward in this religious progress was the study of +the Bible, to which he was led by the conversation of a poor godly neighbour. +Naturally he first betook himself to the historical books, which, he +tells us, he read “with great pleasure;” but, like Baxter +who, beginning his Bible reading in the same course, writes, “I +neither understood nor relished much the doctrinal part,” he frankly +confesses, “Paul’s Epistles and such like Scriptures I could +not away with.” His Bible reading helped forward the outward +reformation he had begun. He set the keeping the Ten Commandments +before him as his “way to Heaven”; much comforted “sometimes” +when, as he thought, “he kept them pretty well,” but humbled +in conscience when “now and then he broke one.” “But +then,” he says, “I should repent and say I was sorry for +it, and promise God to do better next time, and then get help again; +for then I thought I pleased God as well as any man in England.” +His progress was slow, for each step involved a battle, but it was steadily +onwards. He had a very hard struggle in relinquishing his favourite +amusements. But though he had much yet to learn, his feet were +set on the upward way, and he had no mind to go back, great as the temptation +often was. He had once delighted in bell-ringing, but “his +conscience beginning to be tender”—morbid we should rather +say—“he thought such practise to be vain, and therefore +forced himself to leave it.” But “hankering after +it still,” he continued to go while his old companions rang, and +look on at what he “durst not” join in, until the fear that +if he thus winked at what his conscience condemned, a bell, or even +the tower itself, might fall and kill him, put a stop even to that compromise. +Dancing, which from his boyhood he had practised on the village green, +or in the old Moot Hall, was still harder to give up. “It +was a full year before I could quite leave that.” But this +too was at last renounced, and finally. The power of Bunyan’s +indomitable will was bracing itself for severe trials yet to come.</p> +<p>Meanwhile Bunyan’s neighbours regarded with amazement the changed +life of the profane young tinker. “And truly,” he +honestly confesses, “so they well might for this my conversion +was as great as for Tom of Bedlam to become a sober man.” +Bunyan’s reformation was soon the town’s talk; he had “become +godly,” “become a right honest man.” These commendations +flattered is vanity, and he laid himself out for them. He was +then but a “poor painted hypocrite,” he says, “proud +of his godliness, and doing all he did either to be seen of, or well +spoken of by man.” This state of self-satisfaction, he tells +us, lasted “for about a twelvemonth or more.” During +this deceitful calm he says, “I had great peace of conscience, +and should think with myself, ‘God cannot choose but now be pleased +with me,’ yea, to relate it in mine own way, I thought no man +in England could please God better than I.” But no outward +reformation can bring lasting inward peace. When a man is honest +with himself, the more earnestly he struggles after complete obedience, +the more faulty does his obedience appear. The good opinion of +others will not silence his own inward condemnation. He needs +a higher righteousness than his own; a firmer standing-ground than the +shifting quicksand of his own good deeds. “All this while,” +he writes, “poor wretch as I was, I was ignorant of Jesus Christ, +and going about to establish my own righteousness, and had perished +therein had not God in mercy showed me more of my state by nature.”</p> +<p>This revolution was nearer than he imagined. Bunyan’s +self-satisfaction was rudely shaken, and his need of something deeper +in the way of religion than he had yet experienced was shown him by +the conversation of three or four poor women whom, one day, when pursuing +his tinker’s calling at Bedford, he came upon “sitting at +a door in the sun, and talking of the things of God.” These +women were members of the congregation of “the holy Mr. John Gifford,” +who, at that time of ecclesiastical confusion, subsequently became rector +of St. John’s Church, in Bedford, and master of the hospital attached +to it. Gifford’s career had been a strange one. We +hear of him first as a young major in the king’s army at the outset +of the Civil War, notorious for his loose and debauched life, taken +by Fairfax at Maidstone in 1648, and condemned to the gallows. +By his sister’s help he eluded his keepers’ vigilance, escaped +from prison, and ultimately found his way to Bedford, where for a time +he practised as a physician, though without any change of his loose +habits. The loss of a large sum of money at gaming awoke a disgust +at his dissolute life. A few sentences of a pious book deepened +the impression. He became a converted man, and joined himself +to a handful of earnest Christians in Bedford, who becoming, in the +language of the day, “a church,” he was appointed its first +minister. Gifford exercised a deep and vital though narrow influence, +leaving behind him at his death, in 1655, the character of a “wise, +tolerant, and truly Christian man.” The conversation of +the poor women who were destined to exercise so momentous an influence +on Bunyan’s spiritual life, evidenced how thoroughly they had +drunk in their pastor’s teaching. Bunyan himself was at +this time a “brisk talker in the matters of religion,” such +as he drew from the life in his own Talkative. But the words of +these poor women were entirely beyond him. They opened a new and +blessed land to which he was a complete stranger. “They +spoke of their own wretchedness of heart, of their unbelief, of their +miserable state by nature, of the new birth, and the work of God in +their souls, and how the Lord refreshed them, and supported them against +the temptations of the Devil by His words and promises.” +But what seems to have struck Bunyan the most forcibly was the happiness +which their religion shed in the hearts of these poor women. Religion +up to this time had been to him a system of rules and restrictions. +Heaven was to be won by doing certain things and not doing certain other +things. Of religion as a Divine life kindled in the soul, and +flooding it with a joy which creates a heaven on earth, he had no conception. +Joy in believing was a new thing to him. “They spake as +if joy did make them speak; they spake with such pleasantness of Scripture +language, and with such appearance of grace in all they said, that they +were to me as if they had found a new world,” a veritable “El +Dorado,” stored with the true riches. Bunyan, as he says, +after he had listened awhile and wondered at their words, left them +and went about his work again. But their words went with him. +He could not get rid of them. He saw that though he thought himself +a godly man, and his neighbours thought so too, he wanted the true tokens +of godliness. He was convinced that godliness was the only true +happiness, and he could not rest till he had attained it. So he +made it his business to be going again and again into the company of +these good women. He could not stay away, and the more he talked +with them the more uneasy he became—“the more I questioned +my own condition.” The salvation of his soul became all +in all to him. His mind “lay fixed on eternity like a horse-leech +at the vein.” The Bible became precious to him. He +read it with new eyes, “as I never did before.” “I +was indeed then never out of the Bible, either by reading or meditation.” +The Epistles of St. Paul, which before he “could not away with,” +were now “sweet and pleasant” to him. He was still +“crying out to God that he might know the truth and the way to +Heaven and glory.” Having no one to guide him in his study +of the most difficult of all books, it is no wonder that he misinterpreted +and misapplied its words in a manner which went far to unsettle his +brain. He read that without faith he could not be saved, and though +he did not clearly know what faith was, it became a question of supreme +anxiety to him to determine whether he had it or not. If not, +he was a castaway indeed, doomed to perish for ever. So he determined +to put it to the test. The Bible told him that faith, “even +as a grain of mustard seed,” would enable its possessor to work +miracles. So, as Mr. Froude says, “not understanding Oriental +metaphors,” he thought he had here a simple test which would at +once solve the question. One day as he was walking along the miry +road between Elstow and Bedford, which he had so often paced as a schoolboy, +“the temptation came hot upon him” to put the matter to +the proof, by saying to the puddles that were in the horse-pads “be +dry,” and to the dry places, “be ye puddles.” +He was just about to utter the words when a sudden thought stopped him. +Would it not be better just to go under the hedge and pray that God +would enable him? This pause saved him from a rash venture, which +might have landed him in despair. For he concluded that if he +tried after praying and nothing came of it, it would prove that he had +no faith, but was a castaway. “Nay, thought I, if it be +so, I will never try yet, but will stay a little longer.” +“Then,” he continues, “I was so tossed betwixt the +Devil and my own ignorance, and so perplexed, especially at sometimes, +that I could not tell what to do.” At another time his mind, +as the minds of thousands have been and will be to the end, was greatly +harassed by the insoluble problems of predestination and election. +The question was not now whether he had faith, but “whether he +was one of the elect or not, and if not, what then?” “He +might as well leave off and strive no further.” And then +the strange fancy occurred to him, that the good people at Bedford whose +acquaintance he had recently made, were all that God meant to save in +that part of the country, and that the day of grace was past and gone +for him; that he had overstood the time of mercy. “Oh that +he had turned sooner!” was then his cry. “Oh that +he had turned seven years before! What a fool he had been to trifle +away his time till his soul and heaven were lost!” The text, +“compel them to come in, and yet there is room,” came to +his rescue when he was so harassed and faint that he was “scarce +able to take one step more.” He found them “sweet +words,” for they showed him that there was “place enough +in heaven for him,” and he verily believed that when Christ spoke +them He was thinking of him, and had them recorded to help him to overcome +the vile fear that there was no place left for him in His bosom. +But soon another fear succeeded the former. Was he truly called +of Christ? “He called to them when He would, and they came +to Him.” But they could not come unless He called them. +Had He called him? Would He call him? If He did how gladly +would he run after Him. But oh, he feared that He had no liking +to him; that He would not call him. True conversion was what he +longed for. “Could it have been gotten for gold,” +he said, “what could I have given for it! Had I a whole +world, it had all gone ten thousand times over for this, that my soul +might have been in a converted state.” All those whom he +thought to be truly converted were now lovely in his eyes. “They +shone, they walked like people that carried the broad seal of heaven +about them. Oh that he were like them, and shared in their goodly +heritage!”</p> +<p>About this time Bunyan was greatly troubled, though at the same time +encouraged in his endeavours after the blessedness he longed for so +earnestly but could not yet attain to, by “a dream or vision” +which presented itself to him, whether in his waking or sleeping hours +he does not tell us. He fancied he saw his four Bedford friends +refreshing themselves on the sunny side of a high mountain while he +was shivering with dark and cold on the other side, parted from them +by a high wall with only one small gap in it, and that not found but +after long searching, and so strait and narrow withal that it needed +long and desperate efforts to force his way through. At last he +succeeded. “Then,” he says, “I was exceeding +glad, and went and sat down in the midst of them, and so was comforted +with the light and heat of their sun.”</p> +<p>But this sunshine shone but in illusion, and soon gave place to the +old sad questioning, which filled his soul with darkness. Was +he already called, or should he be called some day? He would give +worlds to know. Who could assure him? At last some words +of the prophet Joel (chap. iii, 21) encouraged him to hope that if not +converted already, the time might come when he should be converted to +Christ. Despair began to give way to hopefulness.</p> +<p>At this crisis Bunyan took the step which he would have been wise +if he had taken long before. He sought the sympathy and counsel +of others. He began to speak his mind to the poor people in Bedford +whose words of religious experiences had first revealed to him his true +condition. By them he was introduced to their pastor, “the +godly Mr. Gifford,” who invited him to his house and gave him +spiritual counsel. He began to attend the meetings of his disciples.</p> +<p>The teaching he received here was but ill-suited for one of Bunyan’s +morbid sensitiveness. For it was based upon a constant introspection +and a scrupulous weighing of each word and action, with a torturing +suspicion of its motive, which made a man’s ever-varying spiritual +feelings the standard of his state before God, instead of leading him +off from self to the Saviour. It is not, therefore, at all surprising +that a considerable period intervened before, in the language of his +school, “he found peace.” This period, which seems +to have embraced two or three years, was marked by that tremendous inward +struggle which he has described, “as with a pen of fire,” +in that marvellous piece of religious autobiography, without a counterpart +except in “The Confessions of St. Augustine,” his “Grace +Abounding to the Chief of Sinners.” Bunyan’s first +experiences after his introduction to Mr. Gifford and the inner circle +of his disciples were most discouraging. What he heard of God’s +dealings with their souls showed him something of “the vanity +and inward wretchedness of his wicked heart,” and at the same +time roused all its hostility to God’s will. “It did +work at that rate for wickedness as it never did before.” +“The Canaanites <i>would</i> dwell in the land.” “His +heart hankered after every foolish vanity, and hung back both to and +in every duty, as a clog on the leg of a bird to hinder her from flying.” +He thought that he was growing “worse and worse,” and was +“further from conversion than ever before.” Though +he longed to let Christ into his heart, “his unbelief would, as +it were, set its shoulder to the door to keep Him out.”</p> +<p>Yet all the while he was tormented with the most perverse scrupulosity +of conscience. “As to the act of sinning, I never was more +tender than now; I durst not take a pin or a stick, though but so big +as a straw, for my conscience now was sore, and would smart at every +twist. I could not now tell how to speak my words, for fear I +should misplace them. Oh! how gingerly did I then go in all I +did or said: I found myself in a miry bog, that shook if I did but stir, +and was as those left both of God, and Christ, and the Spirit, and all +good things.” All the misdoings of his earlier years rose +up against him. There they were, and he could not rid himself +of them. He thought that no one could be so bad as he was; “not +even the Devil could be his equal: he was more loathsome in his own +eyes than a toad.” What then must God think of him? +Despair seized fast hold of him. He thought he was “forsaken +of God and given up to the Devil, and to a reprobate mind.” +Nor was this a transient fit of despondency. “Thus,” +he writes, “I continued a long while, even for some years together.”</p> +<p>This is not the place minutely to pursue Bunyan’s religious +history through the sudden alternations of hopes and fears, the fierce +temptations, the torturing illusions, the strange perversions of isolated +scraps of Bible language—texts torn from their context—the +harassing doubts as to the truth of Christianity, the depths of despair +and the elevations of joy, which he has portrayed with his own inimitable +graphic power. It is a picture of fearful fascination that he +draws. “A great storm” at one time comes down upon +him, “piece by piece,” which “handled him twenty times +worse than all he had met with before,” while “floods of +blasphemies were poured upon his spirit,” and would “bolt +out of his heart.” He felt himself driven to commit the +unpardonable sin and blaspheme the Holy Ghost, “whether he would +or no.” “No sin would serve but that.” +He was ready to “clap his hand under his chin,” to keep +his mouth shut, or to leap head-foremost “into some muckhill-hole,” +to prevent his uttering the fatal words. At last he persuaded +himself that he had committed the sin, and a good but not overwise man, +“an ancient Christian,” whom he consulted on his sad case, +told him he thought so too, “which was but cold comfort.” +He thought himself possessed by the devil, and compared himself to a +child “carried off under her apron by a gipsy.” “Kick +sometimes I did, and also shriek and cry, but yet I was as bound in +the wings of the temptation, and the wind would carry me away.” +He wished himself “a dog or a toad,” for they “had +no soul to be lost as his was like to be;” and again a hopeless +callousness seemed to settle upon him. “If I would have +given a thousand pounds for a tear I could not shed one; no, nor sometimes +scarce desire to shed one.” And yet he was all the while +bewailing this hardness of heart, in which he thought himself singular. +“This much sunk me. I thought my condition was alone; but +how to get out of, or get rid of, these things I could not.” +Again the very ground of his faith was shaken. “Was the +Bible true, or was it not rather a fable and cunning story?” +All thought “their own religion true. Might not the Turks +have as good Scriptures to prove their Mahomet Saviour as Christians +had for Christ? What if all we believed in should be but ‘a +think-so’ too?” So powerful and so real were his illusions +that he had hard work to keep himself from praying to things about him, +to “a bush, a bull, a besom, or the like,” or even to Satan +himself. He heard voices behind him crying out that Satan desired +to have him, and that “so loud and plain that he would turn his +head to see who was calling him;” when on his knees in prayer +he fancied he felt the foul fiend pull his clothes from behind, bidding +him “break off, make haste; you have prayed enough.”</p> +<p>This “horror of great darkness” was not always upon him. +Bunyan had his intervals of “sunshine-weather” when Giant +Despair’s fits came on him, and the giant “lost the use +of his hand.” Texts of Scripture would give him a “sweet +glance,” and flood his soul with comfort. But these intervals +of happiness were but short-lived. They were but “hints, +touches, and short visits,” sweet when present, but “like +Peter’s sheet, suddenly caught up again into heaven.” +But, though transient, they helped the burdened Pilgrim onward. +So vivid was the impression sometimes made, that years after he could +specify the place where these beams of sunlight fell on him—“sitting +in a neighbour’s house,”—“travelling into the +country,”—as he was “going home from sermon.” +And the joy was real while it lasted. The words of the preacher’s +text, “Behold, thou art fair, my love,” kindling his spirit, +he felt his “heart filled with comfort and hope.” +“Now I could believe that my sins would be forgiven.” +He was almost beside himself with ecstasy. “I was now so +taken with the love and mercy of God that I thought I could have spoken +of it even to the very crows that sat upon the ploughed lands before +me, had they been capable to have understood me.” “Surely,” +he cried with gladness, “I will not forget this forty years hence.” +“But, alas! within less than forty days I began to question all +again.” It was the Valley of the Shadow of Death which Bunyan, +like his own Pilgrim, was travelling through. But, as in his allegory, +“by and by the day broke,” and “the Lord did more +fully and graciously discover Himself unto him.” “One +day,” he writes, “as I was musing on the wickedness and +blasphemy of my heart, that scripture came into my mind, ‘He hath +made peace by the Blood of His Cross.’ By which I was made +to see, both again and again and again that day, that God and my soul +were friends by this blood: Yea, I saw the justice of God and my sinful +soul could embrace and kiss each other. This was a good day to +me. I hope I shall not forget it.” At another time +the “glory and joy” of a passage in the Hebrews (ii. 14-15) +were “so weighty” that “I was once or twice ready +to swoon as I sat, not with grief and trouble, but with solid joy and +peace.” “But, oh! now how was my soul led on from +truth to truth by God; now had I evidence of my salvation from heaven, +with many golden seals thereon all banging in my sight, and I would +long that the last day were come, or that I were fourscore years old, +that I might die quickly that my soul might be at rest.”</p> +<p>At this time he fell in with an old tattered copy of Luther’s +“Commentary on the Galatians,” “so old that it was +ready to fall piece from piece if I did but turn it over.” +As he read, to his amazement and thankfulness, he found his own spiritual +experience described. “It was as if his book had been written +out of my heart.” It greatly comforted him to find that +his condition was not, as he had thought, solitary, but that others +had known the same inward struggles. “Of all the books that +ever he had seen,” he deemed it “most fit for a wounded +conscience.” This book was also the means of awakening an +intense love for the Saviour. “Now I found, as I thought, +that I loved Christ dearly. Oh, methought my soul cleaved unto +Him, my affections cleaved unto Him; I felt love to Him as hot as fire.”</p> +<p>And very quickly, as he tells us, his “love was tried to some +purpose.” He became the victim of an extraordinary temptation—“a +freak of fancy,” Mr. Froude terms it—“fancy resenting +the minuteness with which he watched his own emotions.” +He had “found Christ” and felt Him “most precious +to his soul.” He was now tempted to give Him up, “to +sell and part with this most blessed Christ, to exchange Him for the +things of this life; for anything.” Nor was this a mere +passing, intermittent delusion. “It lay upon me for the +space of a year, and did follow me so continually that I was not rid +of it one day in a month, no, not sometimes one hour in many days together, +except when I was asleep.” Wherever he was, whatever he +was doing day and night, in bed, at table, at work, a voice kept sounding +in his ears, bidding him “sell Christ” for this or that. +He could neither “eat his food, stoop for a pin, chop a stick, +or cast his eyes on anything” but the hateful words were heard, +“not once only, but a hundred times over, as fast as a man could +speak, ‘sell Him, sell Him, sell Him,’” and, like +his own Christian in the dark valley, he could not determine whether +they were suggestions of the Wicked One, or came from his own heart. +The agony was so intense, while, for hours together, he struggled with +the temptation, that his whole body was convulsed by it. It was +no metaphorical, but an actual, wrestling with a tangible enemy. +He “pushed and thrust with his hands and elbows,” and kept +still answering, as fast as the destroyer said “sell Him,” +“No, I will not, I will not, I will not! not for thousands, thousands, +thousands of worlds!” at least twenty times together. But +the fatal moment at last came, and the weakened will yielded, against +itself. One morning as he lay in his bed, the voice came again +with redoubled force, and would not be silenced. He fought against +it as long as he could, “even until I was almost out of breath,” +when “without any conscious action of his will” the suicidal +words shaped themselves in his heart, “Let Him go if He will.”</p> +<p>Now all was over. He had spoken the words and they could not +be recalled. Satan had “won the battle,” and “as +a bird that is shot from the top of a tree, down fell he into great +guilt and fearful despair.” He left his bed, dressed, and +went “moping into the field,” where for the next two hours +he was “like a man bereft of life, and as one past all recovery +and bound to eternal punishment.” The most terrible examples +in the Bible came trooping before him. He had sold his birthright +like Esau. He a betrayed his Master like Judas—“I +was ashamed that I should be like such an ugly man as Judas.” +There was no longer any place for repentance. He was past all +recovery; shut up unto the judgment to come. He dared hardly pray. +When he tried to do so, he was “as with a tempest driven away +from God,” while something within said, “’Tis too +late; I am lost; God hath let me fall.” The texts which +once had comforted him gave him no comfort now; or, if they did, it +was but for a brief space. “About ten or eleven o’clock +one day, as I was walking under a hedge and bemoaning myself for this +hard hap that such a thought should arise within me, suddenly this sentence +bolted upon me, ‘The blood of Christ cleanseth from all sin,’” +and gave me “good encouragement.” But in two or three +hours all was gone. The terrible words concerning Esau’s +selling his birthright took possession of his mind, and “held +him down.” This “stuck with him.” Though +he “sought it carefully with tears,” there was no restoration +for him. His agony received a terrible aggravation from a highly +coloured narrative of the terrible death of Francis Spira, an Italian +lawyer of the middle of the sixteenth century, who, having embraced +the Protestant religion, was induced by worldly motives to return to +the Roman Catholic Church, and died full of remorse and despair, from +which Bunyan afterwards drew the awful picture of “the man in +the Iron Cage” at “the Interpreter’s house.” +The reading of this book was to his “troubled spirit” as +“salt when rubbed into a fresh wound,” “as knives +and daggers in his soul.” We cannot wonder that his health +began to give way under so protracted a struggle. His naturally +sturdy frame was “shaken by a continual trembling.” +He would “wind and twine and shrink under his burden,” the +weight of which so crushed him that he “could neither stand, nor +go, nor lie, either at rest or quiet.” His digestion became +disordered, and a pain, “as if his breastbone would have split +asunder,” made him fear that as he had been guilty of Judas’ +sin, so he was to perish by Judas’ end, and “burst asunder +in the midst.” In the trembling of his limbs he saw Cain’s +mark set upon him; God had marked him out for his curse. No one +was ever so bad as he. No one had ever sinned so flagrantly. +When he compared his sins with those of David and Solomon and Manasseh +and others which had been pardoned, he found his sin so much exceeded +theirs that he could have no hope of pardon. Theirs, “it +was true, were great sins; sins of a bloody colour. But none of +them were of the nature of his. He had sold his Saviour. +His sin was point blank against Christ.” “Oh, methought +this sin was bigger than the sins of a country, of a kingdom, or of +the whole world; not all of them together was able to equal mine; mine +outwent them every one.”</p> +<p>It would be wearisome to follow Bunyan through all the mazes of his +self-torturing illusions. Fierce as the storm was, and long in +its duration—for it was more than two years before the storm became +a calm—the waves, though he knew it not, in their fierce tossings +which threatened to drive his soul like a broken vessel headlong on +the rocks of despair, were bearing him nearer and nearer to the “haven +where he would be.” His vivid imagination, as we have seen, +surrounded him with audible voices. He had heard, as he thought, +the tempter bidding him “Sell Christ;” now he thought he +heard God “with a great voice, as it were, over his shoulder behind +him,” saying, “Return unto Me, for I have redeemed thee;” +and though he felt that the voice mocked him, for he could not return, +there was “no place of repentance” for him, and fled from +it, it still pursued him, “holloaing after him, ‘Return, +return!’” And return he did, but not all at once, +or without many a fresh struggle. With his usual graphic power +he describes the zigzag path by which he made his way. His hot +and cold fits alternated with fearful suddenness. “As Esau +beat him down, Christ raised him up.” “His life hung +in doubt, not knowing which way he should tip.” More sensible +evidence came. “One day,” he tells us, “as I +walked to and fro in a good man’s shop”—we can hardly +be wrong in placing it in Bedford—“bemoaning myself for +this hard hap of mine, for that I should commit so great a sin, greatly +fearing that I should not be pardoned, and ready to sink with fear, +suddenly there was as if there had rushed in at the window the noise +of wind upon me, but very pleasant, and I heard a voice speaking, ‘Did’st +ever refuse to be justified by the Blood of Christ?’” +Whether the voice were supernatural or not, he was not, “in twenty +years’ time,” able to determine. At the time he thought +it was. It was “as if an angel had come upon me.” +“It commanded a great calm upon me. It persuaded me there +might be hope.” But this persuasion soon vanished. +“In three or four days I began to despair again.” +He found it harder than ever to pray. The devil urged that God +was weary of him; had been weary for years past; that he wanted to get +rid of him and his “bawlings in his ears,” and therefore +He had let him commit this particular sin that he might be cut off altogether. +For such an one to pray was but to add sin to sin. There was no +hope for him. Christ might indeed pity him and wish to help him; +but He could not, for this sin was unpardonable. He had said “let +Him go if He will,” and He had taken him at his word. “Then,” +he says, “I was always sinking whatever I did think or do.” +Years afterwards he remembered how, in this time of hopelessness, having +walked one day, to a neighbouring town, wearied out with his misery, +he sat down on a settle in the street to ponder over his fearful state. +As he looked up, everything he saw seemed banded together for the destruction +of so vile a sinner. The “sun grudged him its light, the +very stones in the streets and the tiles on the house-roofs seemed to +bend themselves against him.” He burst forth with a grievous +sigh, “How can God comfort such a wretch as I?” Comfort +was nearer than he imagined. “No sooner had I said it, but +this returned to me, as an echo doth answer a voice, ‘This sin +is not unto death.’” This breathed fresh life into +his soul. He was “as if he had been raised out of a grave.” +“It was a release to me from my former bonds, a shelter from my +former storm.” But though the storm was allayed it was by +no means over. He had to struggle hard to maintain his ground. +“Oh, how did Satan now lay about him for to bring me down again. +But he could by no means do it, for this sentence stood like a millpost +at my back.” But after two days the old despairing thoughts +returned, “nor could his faith retain the word.” A +few hours, however, saw the return of his hopes. As he was on +his knees before going to bed, “seeking the Lord with strong cries,” +a voice echoed his prayer, “I have loved Thee with an everlasting +love.” “Now I went to bed at quiet, and when I awaked +the next morning it was fresh upon my soul and I believed it.”</p> +<p>These voices from heaven—whether real or not he could not tell, +nor did he much care, for they were real to him—were continually +sounding in his ears to help him out of the fresh crises of his spiritual +disorder. At one time “O man, great is thy faith,” +“fastened on his heart as if one had clapped him on the back.” +At another, “He is able,” spoke suddenly and loudly within +his heart; at another, that “piece of a sentence,” “My +grace is sufficient,” darted in upon him “three times together,” +and he was “as though he had seen the Lord Jesus look down through +the tiles upon him,” and was sent mourning but rejoicing home. +But it was still with him like an April sky. At one time bright +sunshine, at another lowering clouds. The terrible words about +Esau “returned on him as before,” and plunged him in darkness, +and then again some good words, “as it seemed writ in great letters,” +brought back the light of day. But the sunshine began to last +longer than before, and the clouds were less heavy. The “visage” +of the threatening texts was changed; “they looked not on him +so grimly as before;” “that about Esau’s birthright +began to wax weak and withdraw and vanish.” “Now remained +only the hinder part of the tempest. The thunder was gone; only +a few drops fell on him now and then.”</p> +<p>The long-expected deliverance was at hand. As he was walking +in the fields, still with some fears in his heart, the sentence fell +upon his soul, “Thy righteousness is in heaven.” He +looked up and “saw with the eyes of his soul our Saviour at God’s +right hand.” “There, I say, was my righteousness; +so that wherever I was, or whatever I was a-doing, God could not say +of me, ‘He wants my righteousness,’ for that was just before +Him. Now did the chains fall off from my legs. I was loosed +from my affliction and irons. My temptations also fled away, so +that from that time those dreadful Scriptures left off to trouble me. +Oh methought Christ, Christ, there was nothing but Christ that was before +mine eyes. I could look from myself to Him, and should reckon +that all those graces of God that now were green upon me, were yet but +like those crack-groats, and fourpence-halfpennies that rich men carry +in their purses, while their gold is in their trunks at home. +Oh, I saw my gold was in my trunk at home. In Christ my Lord and +Saviour. Further the Lord did lead me into the mystery of union +with the Son of God. His righteousness was mine, His merits mine, +His victory also mine. Now I could see myself in heaven and earth +at once; in heaven by my Christ, by my Head, by my Righteousness and +Life, though on earth by my body or person. These blessed considerations +were made to spangle in mine eyes. Christ was my all; all my Wisdom, +all my Righteousness, all my Sanctification, and all my Redemption.”</p> +<h2>CHAPTER III.</h2> +<p>The Pilgrim, having now floundered through the Slough of Despond, +passed through the Wicket Gate, climbed the Hill Difficulty, and got +safe by the Lions, entered the Palace Beautiful, and was “had +in to the family.” In plain words, Bunyan united himself +to the little Christian brotherhood at Bedford, of which the former +loose-living royalist major, Mr. Gifford, was the pastor, and was formally +admitted into their society. In Gifford we recognize the prototype +of the Evangelist of “The Pilgrim’s Progress,” while +the Prudence, Piety, and Charity of Bunyan’s immortal narrative +had their human representatives in devout female members of the congregation, +known in their little Bedford world as Sister Bosworth, Sister Munnes, +and Sister Fenne, three of the poor women whose pleasant words on the +things of God, as they sat at a doorway in the sun, “as if joy +did make them speak,” had first opened Bunyan’s eyes to +his spiritual ignorance. He was received into the church by baptism, +which, according to his earliest biographer, Charles Doe “the +Struggler,” was performed publicly by Mr. Gifford, in the river +Ouse, the “Bedford river” into which Bunyan tells us he +once fell out of a boat, and barely escaped drowning. This was +about the year 1653. The exact date is uncertain. Bunyan +never mentions his baptism himself, and the church books of Gifford’s +congregation do not commence till May, 1656, the year after Gifford’s +death. He was also admitted to the Holy Communion, which for want, +as he deemed, of due reverence in his first approach to it, became the +occasion of a temporary revival of his old temptations. While +actually at the Lord’s Table he was “forced to bend himself +to pray” to be kept from uttering blasphemies against the ordinance +itself, and cursing his fellow communicants. For three-quarters +of a year he could “never have rest or ease” from this shocking +perversity. The constant strain of beating off this persistent +temptation seriously affected his health. “Captain Consumption,” +who carried off his own “Mr. Badman,” threatened his life. +But his naturally robust constitution “routed his forces,” +and brought him through what at one time he anticipated would prove +a fatal illness. Again and again, during his period of indisposition, +the Tempter took advantage of his bodily weakness to ply him with his +former despairing questionings as to his spiritual state. That +seemed as bad as bad could be. “Live he must not; die he +dare not.” He was repeatedly near giving up all for lost. +But a few words of Scripture brought to his mind would revive his drooping +spirits, with a natural reaction on his physical health, and he became +“well both in body and mind at once.” “My sickness +did presently vanish, and I walked comfortably in my work for God again.” +At another time, after three or four days of deep dejection, some words +from the Epistle to the Hebrews “came bolting in upon him,” +and sealed his sense of acceptance with an assurance he never afterwards +entirely lost. “Then with joy I told my wife, ‘Now +I know, I know.’ That night was a good night to me; I never +had but few better. I could scarce lie in my bed for joy and peace +and triumph through Christ.”</p> +<p>During this time Bunyan, though a member of the Bedford congregation, +continued to reside at Elstow, in the little thatched wayside tenement, +with its lean-to forge at one end, already mentioned, which is still +pointed out as “Bunyan’s Cottage.” There his +two children, Mary, his passionately loved blind daughter, and Elizabeth +were born; the one in 1650, and the other in 1654. It was probably +in the next year, 1655, that he finally quitted his native village and +took up his residence in Bedford, and became a deacon of the congregation. +About this time also he must have lost the wife to whom he owed so much. +Bunyan does not mention the event, and our only knowledge of it is from +the conversation of his second wife, Elizabeth, with Sir Matthew Hale. +He sustained also an even greater loss in the death of his friend and +comrade, Mr. Gifford, who died in September, 1655. The latter +was succeeded by a young man named John Burton, of very delicate health, +who was taken by death from his congregation, by whom he was much beloved, +in September, 1660, four months after the restoration of the Monarchy +and the Church. Burton thoroughly appreciated Bunyan’s gifts, +and stood sponsor for him on the publication of his first printed work. +This was a momentous year for Bunyan, for in it Dr. Brown has shown, +by a “comparison of dates,” that we may probably place the +beginning of Bunyan’s ministerial life. Bunyan was now in +his twenty-seventh year, in the prime of his manly vigour, with a vivid +imagination, ready speech, minute textual knowledge of the Bible, and +an experience of temptation and the wiles of the evil one, such as few +Christians of double his years have ever reached. “His gifts +could not long be hid.” The beginnings of that which was +to prove the great work of his life were slender enough. As Mr. +Froude says, “he was modest, humble, shrinking.” The +members of his congregation, recognizing that he had “the gift +of utterance” asked him to speak “a word of exhortation” +to them. The request scared him. The most truly gifted are +usually the least conscious of their gifts. At first it did much +“dash and abash his spirit.” But after earnest entreaty +he gave way, and made one or two trials of his gift in private meetings, +“though with much weakness and infirmity.” The result +proved the correctness of his brethren’s estimate. The young +tinker showed himself no common preacher. His words came home +with power to the souls of his hearers, who “protested solemnly, +as in the sight of God, that they were both affected and comforted by +them, and gave thanks to the Father of mercies for the grace bestowed +on him.” After this, as the brethren went out on their itinerating +rounds to the villages about, they began to ask Bunyan to accompany +them, and though he “durst not make use of his gift in an open +way,” he would sometimes, “yet more privately still, speak +a word of admonition, with which his hearers professed their souls edified.” +That he had a real Divine call to the ministry became increasingly evident, +both to himself and to others. His engagements of this kind multiplied. +An entry in the Church book records “that Brother Bunyan being +taken off by the preaching of the gospel” from his duties as deacon, +another member was appointed in his room. His appointment to the +ministry was not long delayed. After “some solemn prayer +with fasting,” he was “called forth and appointed a preacher +of the word,” not, however, so much for the Bedford congregation +as for the neighbouring villages. He did not however, like some, +neglect his business, or forget to “show piety at home.” +He still continued his craft as a tinker, and that with industry and +success. “God,” writes an early biographer, “had +increased his stores so that he lived in great credit among his neighbours.” +He speedily became famous as a preacher. People “came in +by hundreds to hear the word, and that from all parts, though upon sundry +and divers accounts,”—“some,” as Southey writes, +“to marvel, and some perhaps to mock.” Curiosity to +hear the once profane tinker preach was not one of the least prevalent +motives. But his word proved a word of power to many. Those +“who came to scoff remained to pray.” “I had +not preached long,” he says, “before some began to be touched +and to be greatly afflicted in their minds.” His success +humbled and amazed him, as it must every true man who compares the work +with the worker. “At first,” he says, “I could +not believe that God should speak by me to the heart of any man, still +counting myself unworthy; and though I did put it from me that they +should be awakened by me, still they would confess it and affirm it +before the saints of God. They would also bless God for me—unworthy +wretch that I am—and count me God’s instrument that showed +to them the way of salvation.” He preached wherever he found +opportunity, in woods, in barns, on village greens, or even in churches. +But he liked best to preach “in the darkest places of the country, +where people were the furthest off from profession,” where he +could give the fullest scope to “the awakening and converting +power” he possessed. His success as a preacher might have +tempted him to vanity. But the conviction that he was but an instrument +in the hand of a higher power kept it down. He saw that if he +had gifts and wanted grace he was but as a “tinkling cymbal.” +“What, thought I, shall I be proud because I am a sounding brass? +Is it so much to be a fiddle?” This thought was, “as +it were, a maul on the head of the pride and vainglory” which +he found “easily blown up at the applause and commendation of +every unadvised christian.” His experiences, like those +of every public speaker, especially the most eloquent, were very varied, +even in the course of the same sermon. Sometimes, he tells us, +he would begin “with much clearness, evidence, and liberty of +speech,” but, before he had done, he found himself “so straitened +in his speech before the people,” that he “scarce knew or +remembered what he had been about,” and felt “as if his +head had been in a bag all the time of the exercise.” He +feared that he would not be able to “speak sense to the hearers,” +or he would be “seized with such faintness and strengthlessness +that his legs were hardly able to carry him to his place of preaching.” +Old temptations too came back. Blasphemous thoughts formed themselves +into words, which he had hard work to keep himself from uttering from +the pulpit. Or the tempter tried to silence him by telling him +that what he was going to say would condemn himself, and he would go +“full of guilt and terror even to the pulpit door.” +“‘What,’ the devil would say, ‘will you preach +this? Of this your own soul is guilty. Preach not of it +at all, or if you do, yet so mince it as to make way for your own escape.’” +All, however, was in vain. Necessity was laid upon him. +“Woe,” he cried, “is me, if I preach not the gospel.” +His heart was “so wrapped up in the glory of this excellent work, +that he counted himself more blessed and honoured of God than if he +had made him emperor of the Christian world.” Bunyan was +no preacher of vague generalities. He knew that sermons miss their +mark if they hit no one. Self-application is their object. +“Wherefore,” he says, “I laboured so to speak the +word, as that the sin and person guilty might be particularized by it.” +And what he preached he knew and felt to be true. It was not what +he read in books, but what he had himself experienced. Like Dante +he had been in hell himself, and could speak as one who knew its terrors, +and could tell also of the blessedness of deliverance by the person +and work of Christ. And this consciousness gave him confidence +and courage in declaring his message. It was “as if an angel +of God had stood at my back.” “Oh it hath been with +such power and heavenly evidence upon my own soul while I have been +labouring to fasten it upon the conscience of others, that I could not +be contented with saying, ‘I believe and am sure.’ +Methought I was more than sure, if it be lawful so to express myself, +that the things I asserted were true.”</p> +<p>Bunyan, like all earnest workers for God, had his disappointments +which wrung his heart. He could be satisfied with nothing less +than the conversion and sanctification of his hearers. “If +I were fruitless, it mattered not who commanded me; but if I were fruitful, +I cared not who did condemn.” And the result of a sermon +was often very different from what he anticipated: “When I thought +I had done no good, then I did the most; and when I thought I should +catch them, I fished for nothing.” “A word cast in +by-the-bye sometimes did more execution than all the Sermon besides.” +The tie between him and his spiritual children was very close. +The backsliding of any of his converts caused him the most extreme grief; +“it was more to me than if one of my own children were going to +the grave. Nothing hath gone so near me as that, unless it was +the fear of the loss of the salvation of my own soul.”</p> +<p>A story, often repeated, but too characteristic to be omitted, illustrates +the power of his preaching even in the early days of his ministry. +“Being to preach in a church in a country village in Cambridgeshire”—it +was before the Restoration—“and the public being gathered +together in the churchyard, a Cambridge scholar, and none of the soberest +neither, inquired what the meaning of that concourse of people was (it +being a week-day); and being told that one Bunyan, a tinker, was to +preach there, he gave a lad twopence to hold his horse, saying he was +resolved to hear the tinker prate; and so he went into the church to +hear him. But God met him there by His ministry, so that he came +out much changed; and would by his good will hear none but the tinker +for a long time after, he himself becoming a very eminent preacher in +that country afterwards.” “This story,” continues +the anonymous biographer, “I know to be true, having many times +discoursed with the man.” To the same ante-Restoration period, +Dr. Brown also assigns the anecdote of Bunyan’s encounter, on +the road near Cambridge, with the university man who asked him how he +dared to preach not having the original Scriptures. With ready +wit, Bunyan turned the tables on the scholar by asking whether he had +the actual originals, the copies written by the apostles and prophets. +The scholar replied, “No,” but they had what they believed +to be a true copy of the original. “And I,” said Bunyan, +“believe the English Bible to be a true copy, too.” +“Then away rid the scholar.”</p> +<p>The fame of such a preacher, naturally, soon spread far and wide; +all the countryside flocked eagerly to hear him. In some places, +as at Meldreth in Cambridgeshire, and Yelden in his own county of Bedfordshire, +the pulpits of the parish churches were opened to him. At Yelden, +the Rector, Dr. William Dell, the Puritan Master of Caius College, Cambridge, +formerly Chaplain to the army under Fairfax, roused the indignation +of his orthodox parishioners by allowing him—“one Bunyon +of Bedford, a tinker,” as he is ignominiously styled in the petition +sent up to the House of Lords in 1660—to preach in his parish +church on Christmas Day. But, generally, the parochial clergy +were his bitterest enemies. “When I first went to preach +the word abroad,” he writes, “the Doctors and priests of +the country did open wide against me.” Many were envious +of his success where they had so signally failed. In the words +of Mr. Henry Deane, when defending Bunyan against the attacks of Dr. +T. Smith, Professor of Arabic and Keeper of the University Library at +Cambridge, who had come upon Bunyan preaching in a barn at Toft, they +were “angry with the tinker because he strove to mend souls as +well as kettles and pans,” and proved himself more skilful in +his craft than those who had graduated at a university. Envy is +ever the mother of detraction. Slanders of the blackest dye against +his moral character were freely circulated, and as readily believed. +It was the common talk that he was a thorough reprobate. Nothing +was too bad for him. He was “a witch, a Jesuit, a highwayman, +and the like.” It was reported that he had “his misses +and his bastards; that he had two wives at once,” &c. +Such charges roused all the man in Bunyan. Few passages in his +writings show more passion than that in “Grace Abounding,” +in which he defends himself from the “fools or knaves” who +were their authors. He “begs belief of no man, and if they +believe him or disbelieve him it is all one to him. But he would +have them know how utterly baseless their accusations are.” +“My foes,” he writes, “have missed their mark in their +open shooting at me. I am not the man. If all the fornicators +and adulterers in England were hanged by the neck till they be dead, +John Bunyan would be still alive. I know not whether there is +such a thing as a woman breathing under the copes of the whole heaven +but by their apparel, their children, or by common fame, except my wife.” +He calls not only men, but angels, nay, even God Himself, to bear testimony +to his innocence in this respect. But though they were so absolutely +baseless, nay, the rather because they were so baseless, the grossness +of these charges evidently stung Bunyan very deeply.</p> +<p>So bitter was the feeling aroused against him by the marvellous success +of his irregular ministry, that his enemies, even before the restoration +of the Church and Crown, endeavoured to put the arm of the law in motion +to restrain him. We learn from the church books that in March, +1658, the little Bedford church was in trouble for “Brother Bunyan,” +against whom an indictment had been laid at the Assizes for “preaching +at Eaton Socon.” Of this indictment we hear no more; so +it was probably dropped. But it is an instructive fact that, even +during the boasted religious liberty of the Protectorate, irregular +preaching, especially that of the much dreaded Anabaptists, was an indictable +offence. But, as Dr. Brown observes, “religious liberty +had not yet come to mean liberty all round, but only liberty for a certain +recognized section of Christians.” That there was no lack +of persecution during the Commonwealth is clear from the cruel treatment +to which Quakers were subjected, to say nothing of the intolerance shown +to Episcopalians and Roman Catholics. In Bunyan’s own county +of Bedford, Quakeresses were sentenced to be whipped and sent to Bridewell +for reproving a parish priest, perhaps well deserving of it, and exhorting +the folks on a market day to repentance and amendment of life. +“The simple truth is,” writes Robert Southey, “all +parties were agreed on the one catholic opinion that certain doctrines +were not to be tolerated:” the only points of difference between +them were “what those doctrines were,” and how far intolerance +might be carried. The withering lines are familiar to us, in which +Milton denounces the “New Forcers of Conscience,” who by +their intolerance and “super-metropolitan and hyperarchiepiscopal +tyranny,” proved that in his proverbial words, “New Presbyter +is but old Priest writ large”—</p> +<blockquote><p>“Because you have thrown off your prelate lord,<br /> +And with stiff vows renounce his liturgy<br /> +Dare ye for this adjure the civil sword<br /> +To force our consciences that Christ set free!”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>How Bunyan came to escape we know not. But the danger he was +in was imminent enough for the church at Bedford to meet to pray “for +counsail what to doe” in respect of it.</p> +<p>It was in these closing years of the Protectorate that Bunyan made +his first essay at authorship. He was led to it by a long and +tiresome controversy with the Quakers, who had recently found their +way to Bedford. The foundations of the faith, he thought, were +being undermined. The Quakers’ teaching as to the inward +light seemed to him a serious disparagement of the Holy Scriptures, +while their mystical view of the spiritual Christ revealed to the soul +and dwelling in the heart, came perilously near to a denial of the historic +reality of the personal Christ. He had had public disputations +with male and female Quakers from time to time, at the Market Cross +at Bedford, at “Paul’s Steeple-house in Bedford town,” +and other places. One of them, Anne Blackley by name, openly bade +him throw away the Scriptures, to which Bunyan replied, “No; for +then the devil would be too hard for me.” The same enthusiast +charged him with “preaching up an idol, and using conjuration +and witchcraft,” because of his assertion of the bodily presence +of Christ in heaven.</p> +<p>The first work of one who was to prove himself so voluminous an author, +cannot but be viewed with much interest. It was a little volume +in duodecimo, of about two hundred pages, entitled “Some Gospel +Truths Opened, by that unworthy servant of Christ, John Bunyan, of Bedford, +by the Grace of God, preacher of the Gospel of His dear Son,” +published in 1656. The little book, which, as Dr. Brown says, +was “evidently thrown off at a heat,” was printed in London +and published at Newport Pagnel. Bunyan being entirely unknown +to the world, his first literary venture was introduced by a commendatory +“Epistle” written by Gifford’s successor, John Burton. +In this Burton speaks of the young author—Bunyan was only in his +twenty-ninth year—as one who had “neither the greatness +nor the wisdom of the world to commend him,” “not being +chosen out of an earthly but out of a heavenly university, the Church +of Christ,” where “through grace he had taken three heavenly +degrees, to wit, union with Christ, the anointing of the Spirit, and +experience of the temptations of Satan,” and as one of whose “soundness +in the faith, godly conversation, and his ability to preach the Gospel, +not by human aid, but by the Spirit of the Lord,” he “with +many other saints had had experience.” This book must be +pronounced a very remarkable production for a young travelling tinker, +under thirty, and without any literary or theological training but such +as he had gained for himself after attaining to manhood. Its arrangement +is excellent, the arguments are ably marshalled, the style is clear, +the language pure and well chosen. It is, in the main, a well-reasoned +defence of the historical truth of the Articles of the Creed relating +to the Second Person of the Trinity, against the mystical teaching of +the followers of George Fox, who, by a false spiritualism, sublimated +the whole Gospel narrative into a vehicle for the representation of +truths relating to the inner life of the believer. No one ever +had a firmer grasp than Bunyan of the spiritual bearing of the facts +of the recorded life of Christ on the souls of men. But he would +not suffer their “subjectivity”—to adopt modern terms—to +destroy their “objectivity.” If the Son of God was +not actually born of the Virgin Mary, if He did not live in a real human +body, and in that body die, lie in the grave, rise again, and ascend +up into heaven, whence He would return—and that Bunyan believed +shortly—in the same Body He took of His mortal mother, His preaching +was vain; their faith was vain; they were yet in their sins. Those +who “cried up a Christ within, <i>in opposition</i> to a Christ +without,” who asserted that Christ had no other Body but the Church, +that the only Crucifixion, rising again, and ascension of Christ was +that <i>within</i> the believer, and that every man had, as an inner +light, a measure of Christ’s Spirit within him sufficient to guide +him to salvation, he asserted were “possessed with a spirit of +delusion;” deceived themselves, they were deceiving others to +their eternal ruin. To the refutation of such fundamental errors, +substituting a mystical for an historical faith, Bunyan’s little +treatise is addressed; and it may be truly said the work is done effectually. +To adopt Coleridge’s expression concerning Bunyan’s greater +and world-famous work, it is an admirable “<i>Summa Theologiæ +Evangelicæ</i>,” which, notwithstanding its obsolete style +and old-fashioned arrangement, may be read even now with advantage.</p> +<p>Bunyan’s denunciation of the tenets of the Quakers speedily +elicited a reply. This was written by a certain Edward Burrough, +a young man of three and twenty, fearless, devoted, and ardent in the +propagation of the tenets of his sect. Being subsequently thrown +into Newgate with hundreds of his co-religionists, at the same time +that his former antagonist was imprisoned in Bedford Gaol, Burrough +met the fate Bunyan’s stronger constitution enabled him to escape; +and in the language of the times, “rotted in prison,” a +victim to the loathsome foulness of his place of incarceration, in the +year of the “Bartholomew Act,” 1662.</p> +<p>Burrough entitled his reply, “The Gospel of Peace, contended +for in the Spirit of Meekness and Love against the secret opposition +of John Bunyan, a professed minister in Bedfordshire.” His +opening words, too characteristic of the entire treatise, display but +little of the meekness professed. “How long, ye crafty fowlers, +will ye prey upon the innocent? How long shall the righteous be +a prey to your teeth, ye subtle foxes! Your dens are in darkness, +and your mischief is hatched upon your beds of secret whoredoms?” +Of John Burton and the others who recommended Bunyan’s treatise, +he says, “They have joined themselves with the broken army of +Magog, and have showed themselves in the defence of the dragon against +the Lamb in the day of war betwixt them.” We may well echo +Dr. Brown’s wish that “these two good men could have had +a little free and friendly talk face to face. There would probably +have been better understanding, and fewer hard words, for they were +really not so far apart as they thought. Bunyan believed in the +inward light, and Burrough surely accepted an objective Christ. +But failing to see each other’s exact point of view, Burrough +thunders at Bunyan, and Bunyan swiftly returns the shot.”</p> +<p>The rapidity of Bunyan’s literary work is amazing, especially +when we take his antecedents into account. Within a few weeks +he published his rejoinder to Friend Burrough, under the title of “A +Vindication of Gospel Truths Opened.” In this work, which +appeared in 1667, Bunyan repays Burrough in his own coin, styling him +“a proved enemy to the truth,” a “grossly railing +Rabshakeh, who breaks out with a taunt and a jeer,” is very “censorious +and utters many words without knowledge.” In vigorous, nervous +language, which does not spare his opponent, he defends himself from +Burrough’s charges, and proves that the Quakers are “deceivers.” +“As for you thinking that to drink water, and wear no hatbands +is not walking after your own lusts, I say that whatsoever man do make +a religion out of, having no warrant for it in Scripture, is but walking +after their own lusts, and not after the Spirit of God.” +Burrough had most unwarrantably stigmatized Bunyan as one of “the +false prophets, who love the wages of unrighteousness, and through covetousness +make merchandise of souls.” Bunyan calmly replies, “Friend, +dost thou speak this as from thy own knowledge, or did any other tell +thee so? However that spirit that led thee out this way is a lying +spirit. For though I be poor and of no repute in the world as +to outward things, yet through grace I have learned by the example of +the Apostle to preach the truth, and also to work with my hands both +for mine own living, and for those that are with me, when I have opportunity. +And I trust that the Lord Jesus who hath helped me to reject the wages +of unrighteousness hitherto, will also help me still so that I shall +distribute that which God hath given me freely, and not for filthy lucre’s +sake.” The fruitfulness of his ministry which Burrough had +called in question, charging him with having “run before he was +sent,” he refuses to discuss. Bunyan says, “I shall +leave it to be taken notice of by the people of God and the country +where I dwell, who will testify the contrary for me, setting aside the +carnal ministry with their retinue who are so mad against me as thyself.”</p> +<p>In his third book, published in 1658, at “the King’s +Head, in the Old Bailey,” a few days before Oliver Cromwell’s +death, Bunyan left the thorny domain of polemics, for that of Christian +exhortation, in which his chief work was to be done. This work +was an exposition of the parable of “the Rich Man and Lazarus,” +bearing the horror-striking title, “A Few Sighs from Hell, or +the Groans of a Damned Soul.” In this work, as its title +would suggest, Bunyan, accepting the literal accuracy of the parable +as a description of the realities of the world beyond the grave, gives +full scope to his vivid imagination in portraying the condition of the +lost. It contains some touches of racy humour, especially in the +similes, and is written in the nervous homespun English of which he +was master. Its popularity is shown by its having gone through +nine editions in the author’s lifetime. To take an example +or two of its style: dealing with the excuses people make for not hearing +the Gospel, “O, saith one, I dare not for my master, my brother, +my landlord; I shall lose his favour, his house of work, and so decay +my calling. O, saith another, I would willingly go in this way +but for my father; he chides me and tells me he will not stand my friend +when I come to want; I shall never enjoy a pennyworth of his goods; +he will disinherit me—And I dare not, saith another, for my husband, +for he will be a-railing, and tells me he will turn me out of doors, +he will beat me and cut off my legs;” and then turning from the +hindered to the hinderers: “Oh, what red lines will there be against +all those rich ungodly landlords that so keep under their poor tenants +that they dare not go out to hear the word for fear that their rent +should be raised or they turned out of their houses. Think on +this, you drunken proud rich, and scornful landlords; think on this, +you madbrained blasphemous husbands, that are against the godly and +chaste conversation of your wives; also you that hold your servants +so hard to it that you will not spare them time to hear the Word, unless +it will be where and when your lusts will let you.” He bids +the ungodly consider that “the profits, pleasures, and vanities +of the world” will one day “give thee the slip, and leave +thee in the sands and the brambles of all that thou hast done.” +The careless man lies “like the smith’s dog at the foot +of the anvil, though the fire sparks flee in his face.” +The rich man remembers how he once despised Lazarus, “scrubbed +beggarly Lazarus. What, shall I dishonour my fair sumptuous and +gay house with such a scabbed creephedge as he? The Lazaruses +are not allowed to warn them of the wrath to come, because they are +not gentlemen, because they cannot with Pontius Pilate speak Hebrew, +Greek, and Latin. Nay, they must not, shall not, speak to them, +and all because of this.”</p> +<p>The fourth production of Bunyan’s pen, his last book before +his twelve years of prison life began, is entitled, “The Doctrine +of Law and Grace Unfolded.” With a somewhat overstrained +humility which is hardly worthy of him, he describes himself in the +title-page as “that poor contemptible creature John Bunyan, of +Bedford.” It was given to the world in May, 1659, and issued +from the same press in the Old Bailey as his last work. It cannot +be said that this is one of Bunyan’s most attractive writings. +It is as he describes it, “a parcel of plain yet sound, true, +and home sayings,” in which with that clearness of thought and +accuracy of arrangement which belongs to him, and that marvellous acquaintance +with Scripture language which he had gained by his constant study of +the Bible, he sets forth the two covenants—the covenant of works, +and the covenant of Grace—“in their natures, ends, bounds, +together with the state and condition of them that are under the one, +and of them that are under the other.” Dr. Brown describes +the book as “marked by a firm grasp of faith and a strong view +of the reality of Christ’s person and work as the one Priest and +Mediator for a sinful world.” To quote a passage, “Is +there righteousness in Christ? that is mine. Is there perfection +in that righteousness? that is mine. Did He bleed for sin? +It was for mine. Hath He overcome the law, the devil, and hell? +The victory is mine, and I am come forth conqueror, nay, more than a +conqueror through Him that hath loved me. . . Lord, show me continually +in the light of Thy Spirit, through Thy word, that Jesus that was born +in the days of Cæsar Augustus, when Mary, a daughter of Judah, +went with Joseph to be taxed in Bethlehem, that He is the very Christ. +Let me not rest contented without such a faith that is so wrought even +by the discovery of His Birth, Crucifying Death, Blood, Resurrection, +Ascension, and Second—which is His Personal—Coming again, +that the very faith of it may fill my soul with comfort and holiness.” +Up and down its pages we meet with vivid reminiscences of his own career, +of which he can only speak with wonder and thankfulness. In the +“Epistle to the Reader,” which introduces it, occurs the +passage already referred to describing his education. “I +never went to school to Aristotle or Plato, but was brought up at my +father’s house in a very mean condition, among a company of poor +countrymen.” Of his own religious state before his conversion +he thus speaks: “When it pleased the Lord to begin to instruct +my soul, He found me one of the black sinners of the world. He +found me making a sport of oaths, and also of lies; and many a soul-poisoning +meal did I make out of divers lusts, such as drinking, dancing, playing, +pleasure with the wicked ones of the world; and so wedded was I to my +sins, that thought I to myself, ‘I will have them though I lose +my soul.’” And then, after narrating the struggles +he had had with his conscience, the alternations of hope and fear which +he passed through, which are more fully described in his “Grace +Abounding,” he thus vividly depicts the full assurance of faith +he had attained to: “I saw through grace that it was the Blood +shed on Mount Calvary that did save and redeem sinners, as clearly and +as really with the eyes of my soul as ever, methought, I had seen a +penny loaf bought with a penny. . . O let the saints know that unless +the devil can pluck Christ out of heaven he cannot pull a true believer +out of Christ.” In a striking passage he shows how, by turning +Satan’s temptations against himself, Christians may “Get +the art as to outrun him in his own shoes, and make his own darts pierce +himself.” “What! didst thou never learn to outshoot +the devil in his own bow, and cut off his head with his own sword as +David served Goliath?” The whole treatise is somewhat wearisome, +but the pious reader will find much in it for spiritual edification.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER IV.</h2> +<p>We cannot doubt that one in whom loyalty was so deep and fixed a +principle as Bunyan, would welcome with sincere thankfulness the termination +of the miserable interval of anarchy which followed the death of the +Protector and the abdication of his indolent and feeble son, by the +restoration of monarchy in the person of Charles the Second. Even +if some forebodings might have arisen that with the restoration of the +old monarchy the old persecuting laws might be revived, which made it +criminal for a man to think for himself in the matters which most nearly +concerned his eternal interests, and to worship in the way which he +found most helpful to his spiritual life, they would have been silenced +by the promise, contained in Charles’s “Declaration from +Breda,” of liberty to tender consciences, and the assurance that +no one should be disquieted for differences of opinion in religion, +so long as such differences did not endanger the peace and well-being +of the realm. If this declaration meant anything, it meant a breadth +of toleration larger and more liberal than had been ever granted by +Cromwell. Any fears of the renewal of persecution must be groundless.</p> +<p>But if such dreams of religious liberty were entertained they were +speedily and rudely dispelled, and Bunyan was one of the first to feel +the shock of the awakening. The promise was coupled with a reference +to the “mature deliberation of Parliament.” With such +a promise Charles’s easy conscience was relieved of all responsibility. +Whatever he might promise, the nation, and Parliament which was its +mouthpiece, might set his promise aside. And if he knew anything +of the temper of the people he was returning to govern, he must have +felt assured that any scheme of comprehension was certain to be rejected +by them. As Mr. Froude has said, “before toleration is possible, +men must have learnt to tolerate toleration,” and this was a lesson +the English nation was very far from having learnt; at no time, perhaps, +were they further from it. Puritanism had had its day, and had +made itself generally detested. Deeply enshrined as it was in +many earnest and devout hearts, such as Bunyan’s, it was necessarily +the religion not of the many, but of the few; it was the religion not +of the common herd, but of a spiritual aristocracy. Its stern +condemnation of all mirth and pastime, as things in their nature sinful, +of which we have so many evidences in Bunyan’s own writings; its +repression of all that makes life brighter and more joyous, and the +sour sanctimoniousness which frowned upon innocent relaxation, had rendered +its yoke unbearable to ordinary human nature, and men took the earliest +opportunity of throwing the yoke off and trampling it under foot. +They hailed with rude and boisterous rejoicings the restoration of the +Monarchy which they felt, with a true instinct, involved the restoration +of the old Church of England, the church of their fathers and of the +older among themselves, with its larger indulgence for the instincts +of humanity, its wider comprehensiveness, and its more dignified and +decorous ritual.</p> +<p>The reaction from Puritanism pervaded all ranks. In no class, +however, was its influence more powerful than among the country gentry. +Most of them had been severe sufferers both in purse and person during +the Protectorate. Fines and sequestrations had fallen heavily +upon them, and they were eager to retaliate on their oppressors. +Their turn had come; can we wonder that they were eager to use it? +As Mr. J. R. Green has said: “The Puritan, the Presbyterian, the +Commonwealthsman, all were at their feet. . . Their whole policy appeared +to be dictated by a passionate spirit of reaction. . . The oppressors +of the parson had been the oppressors of the squire. The sequestrator +who had driven the one from his parsonage had driven the other from +his manor-house. Both had been branded with the same charge of +malignity. Both had suffered together, and the new Parliament +was resolved that both should triumph together.”</p> +<p>The feeling thus eloquently expressed goes far to explain the harshness +which Bunyan experienced at the hands of the administrators of justice +at the crisis of his life at which we have now arrived. Those +before whom he was successively arraigned belonged to this very class, +which, having suffered most severely during the Puritan usurpation, +was least likely to show consideration to a leading teacher of the Puritan +body. Nor were reasons wanting to justify their severity. +The circumstances of the times were critical. The public mind +was still in an excitable state, agitated by the wild schemes of political +and religious enthusiasts plotting to destroy the whole existing framework +both of Church and State, and set up their own chimerical fabric. +We cannot be surprised that, as Southey has said, after all the nation +had suffered from fanatical zeal, “The government, rendered suspicious +by the constant sense of danger, was led as much by fear as by resentment +to seventies which are explained by the necessities of self-defence,” +and which the nervous apprehensions of the nation not only condoned, +but incited. Already Churchmen in Wales had been taking the law +into their own hands, and manifesting their orthodoxy by harrying Quakers +and Nonconformists. In the May and June of this year, we hear +of sectaries being taken from their beds and haled to prison, and brought +manacled to the Quarter Sessions and committed to loathsome dungeons. +Matters had advanced since then. The Church had returned in its +full power and privileges together with the monarchy, and everything +went back into its old groove. Every Act passed for the disestablishment +and disendowment of the Church was declared a dead letter. Those +of the ejected incumbents who remained alive entered again into their +parsonages, and occupied their pulpits as of old; the surviving bishops +returned to their sees; and the whole existing statute law regarding +the Church revived from its suspended animation. No new enactment +was required to punish Nonconformists and to silence their ministers; +though, to the disgrace of the nation and its parliament, many new ones +were subsequently passed, with ever-increasing disabilities. The +various Acts of Elizabeth supplied all that was needed. Under +these Acts all who refused to attend public worship in their parish +churches were subject to fines; while those who resorted to conventicles +were to be imprisoned till they made their submissions; if at the end +of three months they refused to submit they were to be banished the +realm, and if they returned from banishment, without permission of the +Crown, they were liable to execution as felons. This long-disused +sword was now drawn from its rusty sheath to strike terror into the +hearts of Nonconformists. It did not prove very effectual. +All the true-hearted men preferred to suffer rather than yield in so +sacred a cause. Bunyan was one of the earliest of these, as he +proved one of the staunchest.</p> +<p>Early in October, 1660, the country magistrates meeting in Bedford +issued an order for the public reading of the Liturgy of the Church +of England. Such an order Bunyan would not regard as concerning +him. Anyhow he would not give obeying it a thought. One +of the things we least like in Bunyan is the feeling he exhibits towards +the Book of Common Prayer. To him it was an accursed thing, the +badge and token of a persecuting party, a relic of popery which he exhorted +his adherents to “take heed that they touched not” if they +would be “steadfast in the faith of Jesus Christ.” +Nothing could be further from his thoughts than to give any heed to +the magistrates’ order to go to church and pray “after the +form of men’s inventions.”</p> +<p>The time for testing Bunyan’s resolution was now near at hand. +Within six months of the king’s landing, within little more than +a month of the issue of the magistrate’s order for the use of +the Common Prayer Book, his sturdy determination to yield obedience +to no authority in spiritual matters but that of his own conscience +was put to the proof. Bunyan may safely be regarded as at that +time the most conspicuous of the Nonconformists of the neighbourhood. +He had now preached for five or six years with ever-growing popularity. +No name was so rife in men’s mouths as his. At him, therefore, +as the representative of his brother sectaries, the first blow was levelled. +It is no cause of surprise that in the measures taken against him he +recognized the direct agency of Satan to stop the course of the truth: +“That old enemy of man’s salvation,” he says, “took +his opportunity to inflame the hearts of his vassals against me, insomuch +that at the last I was laid out for the warrant of a justice.” +The circumstances were these, on November 12, 1660, Bunyan had engaged +to go to the little hamlet of Lower Samsell near Harlington, to hold +a religious service. His purpose becoming known, a neighbouring +magistrate, Mr. Francis Wingate, of Harlington House, was instructed +to issue a warrant for his apprehension under the Act of Elizabeth. +The meeting being represented to him as one of seditious persons bringing +arms, with a view to the disturbance of the public peace, he ordered +that a strong watch should be kept about the house, “as if,” +Bunyan says, “we did intend to do some fearful business to the +destruction of the country.” The intention to arrest him +oozed out, and on Bunyan’s arrival the whisperings of his friends +warned him of his danger. He might have easily escaped if he “had +been minded to play the coward.” Some advised it, especially +the brother at whose house the meeting was to take place. He, +“living by them,” knew “what spirit” the magistrates +“were of,” before whom Bunyan would be taken if arrested, +and the small hope there would be of his avoiding being committed to +gaol. The man himself, as a “harbourer of a conventicle,” +would also run no small danger of the same fate, but Bunyan generously +acquits him of any selfish object in his warning: “he was, I think, +more afraid of (for) me, than of (for) himself.” The matter +was clear enough to Bunyan. At the same time it was not to be +decided in a hurry. The time fixed for the service not being yet +come, Bunyan went into the meadow by the house, and pacing up and down +thought the question well out. “If he who had up to this +time showed himself hearty and courageous in his preaching, and had +made it his business to encourage others, were now to run and make an +escape, it would be of an ill savour in the country. If he were +now to flee because there was a warrant out for him, would not the weak +and newly-converted brethren be afraid to stand when great words only +were spoken to them. God had, in His mercy, chosen him to go on +the forlorn hope; to be the first to be opposed for the gospel; what +a discouragement it must be to the whole body if he were to fly. +No, he would never by any cowardliness of his give occasion to the enemy +to blaspheme the gospel.” So back to the house he came with +his mind made up. He had come to hold the meeting, and hold the +meeting he would. He was not conscious of saying or doing any +evil. If he had to suffer it was the Lord’s will, and he +was prepared for it. He had a full hour before him to escape if +he had been so minded, but he was resolved “not to go away.” +He calmly waited for the time fixed for the brethren to assemble, and +then, without hurry or any show of alarm, he opened the meeting in the +usual manner, with prayer for God’s blessing. He had given +out his text, the brethren had just opened their Bibles and Bunyan was +beginning to preach, when the arrival of the constable with the warrant +put an end to the exercise. Bunyan requested to be allowed to +say a few parting words of encouragement to the terrified flock. +This was granted, and he comforted the little company with the reflection +that it was a mercy to suffer in so good a cause; and that it was better +to be the persecuted than the persecutors; better to suffer as Christians +than as thieves or murderers. The constable and the justice’s +servant soon growing weary of listening to Bunyan’s exhortations, +interrupted him and “would not be quiet till they had him away” +from the house.</p> +<p>The justice who had issued the warrant, Mr. Wingate, not being at +home that day, a friend of Bunyan’s residing on the spot offered +to house him for the night, undertaking that he should be forthcoming +the next day. The following morning this friend took him to the +constable’s house, and they then proceeded together to Mr. Wingate’s. +A few inquiries showed the magistrate that he had entirely mistaken +the character of the Samsell meeting and its object. Instead of +a gathering of “Fifth Monarchy men,” or other turbulent +fanatics as he had supposed, for the disturbance of the public peace, +he learnt from the constable that they were only a few peaceable, harmless +people, met together “to preach and hear the word,” without +any political meaning. Wingate was now at a nonplus, and “could +not well tell what to say.” For the credit of his magisterial +character, however, he must do something to show that he had not made +a mistake in issuing the warrant. So he asked Bunyan what business +he had there, and why it was not enough for him to follow his own calling +instead of breaking the law by preaching. Bunyan replied that +his only object in coming there was to exhort his hearers for their +souls’ sake to forsake their sinful courses and close in with +Christ, and this he could do and follow his calling as well. Wingate, +now feeling himself in the wrong, lost his temper, and declared angrily +that he would “break the neck of these unlawful meetings,” +and that Bunyan must find securities for his good behaviour or go to +gaol. There was no difficulty in obtaining the security. +Bail was at once forthcoming. The real difficulty lay with Bunyan +himself. No bond was strong enough to keep him from preaching. +If his friends gave them, their bonds would be forfeited, for he “would +not leave speaking the word of God.” Wingate told him that +this being so, he must be sent to gaol to be tried at the next Quarter +Sessions, and left the room to make out his mittimus. While the +committal was preparing, one whom Bunyan bitterly styles “an old +enemy to the truth,” Dr. Lindall, Vicar of Harlington, Wingate’s +father-in-law, came in and began “taunting at him with many reviling +terms,” demanding what right he had to preach and meddle with +that for which he had no warrant, charging him with making long prayers +to devour widows houses, and likening him to “one Alexander the +Coppersmith he had read of,” “aiming, ’tis like,” +says Bunyan, “at me because I was a tinker.” The mittimus +was now made out, and Bunyan in the constable’s charge was on +his way to Bedford, when he was met by two of his friends, who begged +the constable to wait a little while that they might use their interest +with the magistrate to get Bunyan released. After a somewhat lengthened +interview with Wingate, they returned with the message that if Bunyan +would wait on the magistrate and “say certain words” to +him, he might go free. To satisfy his friends, Bunyan returned +with them, though not with any expectation that the engagement proposed +to him would be such as he could lawfully take. “If the +words were such as he could say with a good conscience he would say +them, or else he would not.”</p> +<p>After all this coming and going, by the time Bunyan and his friends +got back to Harlington House, night had come on. As he entered +the hall, one, he tells us, came out of an inner room with a lighted +candle in his hand, whom Bunyan recognized as one William Foster, a +lawyer of Bedford, Wingate’s brother-in-law, afterwards a fierce +persecutor of the Nonconformists of the district. With a simulated +affection, “as if he would have leapt on my neck and kissed me,” +which put Bunyan on his guard, as he had ever known him for “a +close opposer of the ways of God,” he adopted the tone of one +who had Bunyan’s interest at heart, and begged him as a friend +to yield a little from his stubbornness. His brother-in-law, he +said, was very loath to send him to gaol. All he had to do was +only to promise that he would not call people together, and he should +be set at liberty and might go back to his home. Such meetings +were plainly unlawful and must be stopped. Bunyan had better follow +his calling and leave off preaching, especially on week-days, which +made other people neglect their calling too. God commanded men +to work six days and serve Him on the seventh. It was vain for +Bunyan to reply that he never summoned people to hear him, but that +if they came he could not but use the best of his skill and wisdom to +counsel them for their soul’s salvation; that he could preach +and the people could come to hear without neglecting their callings, +and that men were bound to look out for their souls’ welfare on +week-days as well as Sundays. Neither could convince the other. +Bunyan’s stubbornness was not a little provoking to Foster, and +was equally disappointing to Wingate. They both evidently wished +to dismiss the case, and intentionally provided a loophole for Bunyan’s +escape. The promise put into his mouth—“that he would +not call the people together”—was purposely devised to meet +his scrupulous conscience. But even if he could keep the promise +in the letter, Bunyan knew that he was fully purposed to violate its +spirit. He was the last man to forfeit self-respect by playing +fast and loose with his conscience. All evasion was foreign to +his nature. The long interview came to an end at last. Once +again Wingate and Foster endeavoured to break down Bunyan’s resolution; +but when they saw he was “at a point, and would not be moved or +persuaded,” the mittimus was again put into the constable’s +hands, and he and his prisoner were started on the walk to Bedford gaol. +It was dark, as we have seen, when this protracted interview began. +It must have now been deep in the night. Bunyan gives no hint +whether the walk was taken in the dark or in the daylight. There +was however no need for haste. Bedford was thirteen miles away, +and the constable would probably wait till the morning to set out for +the prison which was to be Bunyan’s home for twelve long years, +to which he went carrying, he says, the “peace of God along with +me, and His comfort in my poor soul.”</p> +<h2>CHAPTER V.</h2> +<p>A long-standing tradition has identified Bunyan’s place of +imprisonment with a little corporation lock-up-house, some fourteen +feet square, picturesquely perched on one of the mid-piers of the many-arched +mediæval bridge which, previously to 1765, spanned the Ouse at +Bedford, and as Mr. Froude has said, has “furnished a subject +for pictures,” both of pen and pencil, “which if correct +would be extremely affecting.” Unfortunately, however, for +the lovers of the sensational, these pictures are not “correct,” +but are based on a false assumption which grew up out of a desire to +heap contumely on Bunyan’s enemies by exaggerating the severity +of his protracted, but by no means harsh imprisonment. Being arrested +by the warrant of a county magistrate for a county offence, Bunyan’s +place of incarceration was naturally the county gaol. There he +undoubtedly passed the twelve years of his captivity, and there the +royal warrant for his release found him “a prisoner in the common +gaol for our county of Bedford.” But though far different +from the pictures which writers, desirous of exhibiting the sufferings +of the Puritan confessor in the most telling form, have drawn—if +not “a damp and dreary cell” into which “a narrow +chink admits a few scanty rays of light to render visible the prisoner, +pale and emaciated, seated on the humid earth, pursuing his daily task +to earn the morsel which prolongs his existence and his confinement +together,”—“the common gaol” of Bedford must +have been a sufficiently strait and unwholesome abode, especially for +one, like the travelling tinker, accustomed to spend the greater part +of his days in the open-air in unrestricted freedom. Prisons in +those days, and indeed long afterwards, were, at their best, foul, dark, +miserable places. A century later Howard found Bedford gaol, though +better than some, in what would now be justly deemed a disgraceful condition. +One who visited Bunyan during his confinement speaks of it as “an +uncomfortable and close prison.” Bunyan however himself, +in the narrative of his imprisonment, makes no complaint of it, nor +do we hear of his health having in any way suffered from the conditions +of his confinement, as was the case with not a few of his fellow-sufferers +for the sake of religion in other English gaols, some of them even unto +death. Bad as it must have been to be a prisoner, as far as his +own testimony goes, there is no evidence that his imprisonment, though +varying in its strictness with his various gaolers, was aggravated by +any special severity; and, as Mr. Froude has said, “it is unlikely +that at any time he was made to suffer any greater hardships than were +absolutely inevitable.”</p> +<p>The arrest of one whose work as a preacher had been a blessing to +so many, was not at once tamely acquiesced in by the religious body +to which he belonged. A few days after Bunyan’s committal +to gaol, some of “the brethren” applied to Mr. Crompton, +a young magistrate at Elstow, to bail him out, offering the required +security for his appearance at the Quarter Sessions. The magistrate +was at first disposed to accept the bail; but being a young man, new +in his office, and thinking it possible that there might be more against +Bunyan than the “mittimus” expressed, he was afraid of compromising +himself by letting him go at large. His refusal, though it sent +him back to prison, was received by Bunyan with his usual calm trust +in God’s overruling providence. “I was not at all +daunted, but rather glad, and saw evidently that the Lord had heard +me.” Before he set out for the justice’s house, he +tells us he had committed the whole event to God’s ordering, with +the prayer that “if he might do more good by being at liberty +than in prison,” the bail might be accepted, “but if not, +that His will might be done.” In the failure of his friends’ +good offices he saw an answer to his prayer, encouraging the hope that +the untoward event, which deprived them of his personal ministrations, +“might be an awaking to the saints in the country,” and +while “the slender answer of the justice,” which sent him +back to his prison, stirred something akin to contempt, his soul was +full of gladness. “Verily I did meet my God sweetly again, +comforting of me, and satisfying of me, that it was His will and mind +that I should be there.” The sense that he was being conformed +to the image of his great Master was a stay to his soul. “This +word,” he continues, “did drop in upon my heart with some +life, for he knew that ‘for envy they had delivered him.’”</p> +<p>Seven weeds after his committal, early in January, 1661, the Quarter +Sessions came on, and “John Bunyan, of the town of Bedford, labourer,” +was indicted in the customary form for having “devilishly and +perniciously abstained from coming to church to hear Divine Service,” +and as “a common upholder of several unlawful meetings and conventions, +to the great disturbance and distraction of the good subjects of the +kingdom.” The chairman of the bench was the brutal and blustering +Sir John Keeling, the prototype of Bunyan’s Lord Hategood in Faithful’s +trial at Vanity Fair, who afterwards, by his base subserviency to an +infamous government, climbed to the Lord Chief Justice’s seat, +over the head of Sir Matthew Hale. Keeling had suffered much from +the Puritans during the great Rebellion, when, according to Clarendon, +he was “always in gaol,” and was by no means disposed to +deal leniently with an offender of that persuasion. His brethren +of the bench were country gentlemen hating Puritanism from their heart, +and eager for retaliation for the wrongs it had wrought them. +From such a bench, even if Bunyan had been less uncompromising, no leniency +was to be anticipated. But Bunyan’s attitude forbade any +leniency. As the law stood he had indisputably broken it, and +he expressed his determination, respectfully but firmly, to take the +first opportunity of breaking it again. “I told them that +if I was let out of prison today I would preach the gospel again to-morrow +by the help of God.” We may dislike the tone adopted by +the magistrates towards the prisoner; we may condemn it as overbearing +and contemptuous; we may smile at Keeling’s expositions of Scripture +and his stock arguments against unauthorized prayer and preaching, though +we may charitably believe that Bunyan misunderstood him when he makes +him say that “the Book of Common Prayer had been ever since the +apostles’ time”; we may think that the prisoner, in his +“canting pedlar’s French,” as Keeling called it, had +the better of his judges in knowledge of the Bible, in Christian charity, +as well as in dignity and in common sense, and that they showed their +wisdom in silencing him in court—“Let him speak no further,” +said one of them, “he will do harm,”—since they could +not answer him more convincingly: but his legal offence was clear. +He confessed to the indictment, if not in express terms, yet virtually. +He and his friends had held “many meetings together, both to pray +to God and to exhort one another. I confessed myself guilty no +otherwise.” Such meetings were forbidden by the law, which +it was the duty of the justices to administer, and they had no choice +whether they would convict or no. Perhaps they were not sorry +they had no such choice. Bunyan was a most “impracticable” +prisoner, and as Mr. Froude says, the “magistrates being but unregenerate +mortals may be pardoned if they found him provoking.” The +sentence necessarily followed. It was pronounced, not, we are +sure reluctantly, by Keeling, in the terms of the Act. “He +was to go back to prison for three months. If at three months’ +end he still refused to go to church to hear Divine service and leave +his preaching, he was to be banished the realm,”—in modern +language “transported,” and if “he came back again +without special royal license,” he must “stretch by the +neck for it.”</p> +<p>“This,” said Keeling, “I tell you plainly.” +Bunyan’s reply that “as to that matter he was at a point +with the judge,” for “that he would repeat the offence the +first time he could,” provoked a rejoinder from one of the bench, +and the unseemly wrangling might have been still further prolonged, +had it not been stopped by the gaoler, who “pulling him away to +be gone,” had him back to prison, where he says, and “blesses +the Lord Jesus Christ for it,” his heart was as “sweetly +refreshed” in returning to it as it had “been during his +examination. So that I find Christ’s words more than bare +trifles, where He saith, He will give a mouth and wisdom, even such +as all the adversaries shall not gainsay or resist. And that His +peace no man can take from us.”</p> +<p>The magistrates, however, though not unnaturally irritated by what +seemed to them Bunyan’s unreasonable obstinacy, were not desirous +to push matters to extremity. The three months named in his sentence, +at the expiration of which he was either to conform or be banished the +realm, were fast drawing to an end, without any sign of submission on +his part. As a last resort Mr. Cobb, the Clerk of the Peace, was +sent to try what calm and friendly reasoning might effect. Cobb, +who evidently knew Bunyan personally, did his best, as a kind-hearted, +sensible man, to bring him to reason. Cobb did not profess to +be “a man that could dispute,” and Bunyan had the better +of him in argument. His position, however, was unassailable. +The recent insurrection of Venner and his Fifth Monarchy men, he said, +had shown the danger to the public peace there was in allowing fanatical +gatherings to assemble unchecked. Bunyan, whose loyalty was unquestioned, +must acknowledge the prudence of suppressing meetings which, however +good their ostensible aim, might issue in nothing less than the ruin +of the kingdom and commonwealth. Bunyan had confessed his readiness +to obey the apostolic precept by submitting himself to the king as supreme. +The king forbade the holding of private meetings, which, under colour +of religion, might be prejudicial to the State. Why then did he +not submit? This need not hinder him from doing good in a neighbourly +way. He might continue to use his gifts and exhort his neighbours +in private discourse, provided he did not bring people together in public +assemblies. The law did not abridge him of this liberty. +Why should he stand so strictly on public meetings? Or why should +he not come to church and hear? Was his gift so far above that +of others that he could learn of no one? If he could not be persuaded, +the judges were resolved to prosecute the law against him. He +would be sent away beyond the seas to Spain or Constantinople—either +Cobb’s or Bunyan’s colonial geography was rather at fault +here—or some other remote part of the world, and what good could +he do to his friends then? “Neighbour Bunyan” had +better consider these things seriously before the Quarter Session, and +be ruled by good advice. The gaoler here put in his word in support +of Cobb’s arguments: “Indeed, sir, I hope he will be ruled.” +But all Cobb’s friendly reasonings and expostulations were ineffectual +to bend Bunyan’s sturdy will. He would yield to no-one in +his loyalty to his sovereign, and his readiness to obey the law. +But, he said, with a hairsplitting casuistry he would have indignantly +condemned in others, the law provided two ways of obeying, “one +to obey actively, and if his conscience forbad that, then to obey passively; +to lie down and suffer whatever they might do to him.” The +Clerk of the Peace saw that it was no use to prolong the argument any +further. “At this,” writes Bunyan, “he sat down, +and said no more; which, when he had done, I did thank him for his civil +and meek discoursing with me; and so we parted: O that we might meet +in heaven!”</p> +<p>The Coronation which took place very soon after this interview, April +13, 1661, afforded a prospect of release without unworthy submission. +The customary proclamation, which allowed prisoners under sentence for +any offence short of felony to sue out a pardon for twelve months from +that date, suspended the execution of the sentence of banishment and +gave a hope that the prison doors might be opened for him. The +local authorities taking no steps to enable him to profit by the royal +clemency, by inserting his name in the list of pardonable offenders, +his second wife, Elizabeth, travelled up to London,—no slight +venture for a young woman not so long raised from the sick bed on which +the first news of her husband’s arrest had laid her,—and +with dauntless courage made her way to the House of Lords, where she +presented her petition to one of the peers, whom she calls Lord Barkwood, +but whom unfortunately we cannot now identify. He treated her +kindly, and showed her petition to other peers, who appear to have been +acquainted with the circumstances of Bunyan’s case. They +replied that the matter was beyond their province, and that the question +of her husband’s release was committed to the judges at the next +assizes. These assizes were held at Bedford in the following August. +The judges of the circuit were Twisden and Sir Matthew Hale. From +the latter—the friend of Richard Baxter, who, as Burnet records, +took great care to “cover the Nonconformists, whom he thought +too hardly used, all he could from the seventies some designed; and +discouraged those who were inclined to stretch the laws too much against +them”—Bunyan’s case would be certain to meet with +sympathetic consideration. But being set to administer the law, +not according to his private wishes, but according to its letter and +its spirit, he was powerless to relieve him. Three several times +did Bunyan’s noble-hearted wife present her husband’s petition +that he might be heard, and his case taken impartially into consideration. +But the law forbad what Burnet calls Sir Matthew Hale’s “tender +and compassionate nature” to have free exercise. He “received +the petition very mildly at her hand, telling her that he would do her +and her husband the best good he could; but he feared he could do none.” +His brother judge’s reception of her petition was very different. +Having thrown it into the coach, Twisden “snapt her up,” +telling her, what after all was no more than the truth, that her husband +was a convicted person, and could not be released unless he would promise +to obey the law and abstain from preaching. On this the High Sheriff, +Edmund Wylde, of Houghton Conquest, spoke kindly to the poor woman, +and encouraged her to make a fresh application to the judges before +they left the town. So she made her way, “with abashed face +and trembling heart,” to the large chamber at the Old Swan Inn +at the Bridge Foot, where the two judges were receiving a large number +of the justices of the peace and other gentry of the county. Addressing +Sir Matthew Hale she said, “My lord, I make bold to come again +to your lordship to know what may be done with my husband.” +Hale received her with the same gentleness as before, repeated what +he had said previously, that as her husband had been legally convicted, +and his conviction was recorded, unless there was something to undo +that he could do her no good. Twisden, on the other hand, got +violently angry, charged her brutally with making poverty her cloak, +told her that her husband was a breaker of the peace, whose doctrine +was the doctrine of the devil, and that he ran up and down and did harm, +while he was better maintained by his preaching than by following his +tinker’s craft. At last he waxed so violent that “withal +she thought he would have struck her.” In the midst of all +his coarse abuse, however, Twisden hit the mark when he asked: “What! +you think we can do what we list?” And when we find Hale, +confessedly the soundest lawyer of the time, whose sympathies were all +with the prisoner, after calling for the Statute Book, thus summing +up the matter: “I am sorry, woman, that I can do thee no good. +Thou must do one of these three things, viz., either apply thyself to +the king, or sue out his pardon, or get a writ of error,” which +last, he told her, would be the cheapest course—we may feel sure +that Bunyan’s Petition was not granted because it could not be +granted legally. The blame of his continued imprisonment lay, +if anywhere, with the law, not with its administrators. This is +not always borne in mind as it ought to be. As Mr. Froude remarks, +“Persons often choose to forget that judges are sworn to administer +the law which they find, and rail at them as if the sentences which +they are obliged by their oath to pass were their own personal acts.” +It is not surprising that Elizabeth Bunyan was unable to draw this distinction, +and that she left the Swan chamber in tears, not, however, so much at +what she thought the judges’ “hardheartedness to her and +her husband,” as at the thought of “the sad account such +poor creatures would have to give” hereafter, for what she deemed +their “opposition to Christ and His gospel.”</p> +<p>No steps seem to have been taken by Bunyan’s wife, or any of +his influential friends, to carry out either of the expedients named +by Hale. It may have been that the money needed was not forthcoming, +or, what Southey remarks is “quite probable,”—“because +it is certain that Bunyan, thinking himself in conscience bound to preach +in defiance of the law, would soon have made his case worse than it +then was.”</p> +<p>At the next assizes, which were held in January, 1662, Bunyan again +made strenuous efforts to get his name put on the calendar of felons, +that he might have a regular trial before the king’s judges and +be able to plead his cause in person. This, however, was effectually +thwarted by the unfriendly influence of the county magistrates by whom +he had been committed, and the Clerk of the Peace, Mr. Cobb, who having +failed in his kindly meant attempt to induce “Neighbour Bunyan” +to conform, had turned bitterly against him and become one of his chief +enemies. “Thus,” writes Bunyan, “was I hindered +and prevented at that time also from appearing before the judge, and +left in prison.” Of this prison, the county gaol of Bedford, +he remained an inmate, with one, short interval in 1666, for the next +twelve years, till his release by order of the Privy Council, May 17, +1672.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER VI.</h2> +<p>The exaggeration of the severity of Bunyan’s imprisonment long +current, now that the facts are better known, has led, by a very intelligible +reaction, to an undue depreciation of it. Mr. Froude thinks that +his incarceration was “intended to be little more than nominal,” +and was really meant in kindness by the authorities who “respected +his character,” as the best means of preventing him from getting +himself into greater trouble by “repeating an offence that would +compel them to adopt harsh measures which they were earnestly trying +to avoid.” If convicted again he must be transported, and +“they were unwilling to drive him out of the country.” +It is, however, to be feared that it was no such kind consideration +for the tinker-preacher which kept the prison doors closed on Bunyan. +To the justices he was simply an obstinate law-breaker, who must be +kept in prison as long as he refused compliance with the Act. +If he rotted in gaol, as so many of his fellow sufferers for conscience’ +sake did in those unhappy times, it was no concern of theirs. +He and his stubbornness would be alone to blame.</p> +<p>It is certainly true that during a portion of his captivity, Bunyan, +in Dr. Brown’s words, “had an amount of liberty which in +the case of a prisoner nowadays would be simply impossible.” +But the mistake has been made of extending to the whole period an indulgence +which belonged only to a part, and that a very limited part of it. +When we are told that Bunyan was treated as a prisoner at large, and +like one “on parole,” free to come and go as he pleased, +even as far as London, we must remember that Bunyan’s own words +expressly restrict this indulgence to the six months between the Autumn +Assizes of 1661 and the Spring Assizes of 1662. “Between +these two assizes,” he says, “I had by my jailer some liberty +granted me more than at the first.” This liberty was certainly +of the largest kind consistent with his character of a prisoner. +The church books show that he was occasionally present at their meetings, +and was employed on the business of the congregation. Nay, even +his preaching, which was the cause of his imprisonment, was not forbidden. +“I followed,” he says, writing of this period, “my +wonted course of preaching, taking all occasions that were put into +my hand to visit the people of God.” But this indulgence +was very brief and was brought sharply to an end. It was plainly +irregular, and depended on the connivance of his jailer. We cannot +be surprised that when it came to the magistrates’ ears—“my +enemies,” Bunyan rather unworthily calls them—they were +seriously displeased. Confounding Bunyan with the Fifth Monarchy +men and other turbulent sectaries, they imagined that his visits to +London had a political object, “to plot, and raise division, and +make insurrections,” which, he honestly adds, “God knows +was a slander.” The jailer was all but “cast out of +his place,” and threatened with an indictment for breach of trust, +while his own liberty was so seriously “straitened” that +he was prohibited even “to look out at the door.” +The last time Bunyan’s name appears as present at a church meeting +is October 28, 1661, nor do we see it again till October 9, 1668, only +four years before his twelve years term of imprisonment expired.</p> +<p>But though his imprisonment was not so severe, nor his prison quite +so narrow and wretched as some word-painters have described them, during +the greater part of the time his condition was a dreary and painful +one, especially when spent, as it sometimes was, “under cruel +and oppressive jailers.” The enforced separation from his +wife and children, especially his tenderly loved blind daughter, Mary, +was a continually renewed anguish to his loving heart. “The +parting with them,” he writes, “hath often been to me as +pulling the flesh from the bones; and that not only because I am somewhat +too fond of these great mercies, but also because I should often have +brought to my mind the many hardships, miseries, and wants my poor family +was like to meet with, should I be taken from them; especially my poor +blind child, who lay nearer to my heart than all beside. Poor +child, thought I, thou must be beaten, thou must beg, thou must suffer +hunger, cold, nakedness, and a thousand calamities, though I cannot +now endure the wind should blow on thee. O, the thoughts of the +hardships my blind one might go under would break my heart to pieces.” +He seemed to himself like a man pulling down his house on his wife and +children’s head, and yet he felt, “I must do it; O, I must +do it.” He was also, he tells us, at one time, being but +“a young prisoner,” greatly troubled by the thoughts that +“for aught he could tell,” his “imprisonment might +end at the gallows,” not so much that he dreaded death as that +he was apprehensive that when it came to the point, even if he made +“a scrabbling shift to clamber up the ladder,” he might +play the coward and so do discredit to the cause of religion. +“I was ashamed to die with a pale face and tottering knees for +such a cause as this.” The belief that his imprisonment +might be terminated by death on the scaffold, however groundless, evidently +weighed long on his mind. The closing sentences of his third prison +book, “Christian Behaviour,” published in 1663, the second +year of his durance, clearly point to such an expectation. “Thus +have I in few words written to you before I die, . . . not knowing the +shortness of my life, nor the hindrances that hereafter I may have of +serving my God and you.” The ladder of his apprehensions +was, as Mr. Froude has said, “an imaginary ladder,” but +it was very real to Bunyan. “Oft I was as if I was on the +ladder with a rope about my neck.” The thought of it, as +his autobiography shows, caused him some of his deepest searchings of +heart, and noblest ventures of faith. He was content to suffer +by the hangman’s hand if thus he might have an opportunity of +addressing the crowd that he thought would come to see him die. +“And if it must be so, if God will but convert one soul by my +very last words, I shall not count my life thrown away or lost.” +And even when hours of darkness came over his soul, and he was tempted +to question the reality of his Christian profession, and to doubt whether +God would give him comfort at the hour of death, he stayed himself up +with such bold words as these. “I was bound, but He was +free. Yea, ’twas my duty to stand to His word whether He +would ever look on me or no, or save me at the last. If God doth +not come in, thought I, I will leap off the ladder even blindfold into +Eternity, sink or swim, come heaven, come hell. Lord Jesus, if +Thou wilt catch me, do. If not, I will venture for Thy name.”</p> +<p>Bunyan being precluded by his imprisonment from carrying on his brazier’s +craft for the support of his wife and family, and his active spirit +craving occupation, he got himself taught how to make “long tagged +laces,” “many hundred gross” of which, we are told +by one who first formed his acquaintance in prison, he made during his +captivity, for “his own and his family’s necessities.” +“While his hands were thus busied,” writes Lord Macaulay, +“he had often employment for his mind and for his lips.” +“Though a prisoner he was a preacher still.” As with +St. Paul in his Roman chains, “the word of God was not bound.” +The prisoners for conscience’ sake, who like him, from time to +time, were cooped up in Bedford gaol, including several of his brother +ministers and some of his old friends among the leading members of his +own little church, furnished a numerous and sympathetic congregation. +At one time a body of some sixty, who had met for worship at night in +a neighbouring wood, were marched off to gaol, with their minister at +their head. But while all about him was in confusion, his spirit +maintained its even calm, and he could at once speak the words of strength +and comfort that were needed. In the midst of the hurry which +so many “newcomers occasioned,” writes the friend to whom +we are indebted for the details of his prison life, “I have heard +Mr. Bunyan both preach and pray with that mighty spirit of faith and +plerophory of Divine assistance that has made me stand and wonder.” +These sermons addressed to his fellow prisoners supplied, in many cases, +the first outlines of the books which, in rapid succession, flowed from +his pen during the earlier years of his imprisonment, relieving the +otherwise insupportable tedium of his close confinement. Bunyan +himself tells us that this was the case with regard to his “Holy +City,” the first idea of which was borne in upon his mind when +addressing “his brethren in the prison chamber,” nor can +we doubt that the case was the same with other works of his. To +these we shall hereafter return. Nor was it his fellow prisoners +only who profited by his counsels. In his “Life and Death +of Mr. Badman,” he gives us a story of a woman who came to him +when he was in prison, to confess how she had robbed her master, and +to ask his help. Hers was probably a representative case. +The time spared from his handicraft, and not employed in religious counsel +and exhortation, was given to study and composition. For this +his confinement secured him the leisure which otherwise he would have +looked for in vain. The few books he possessed he studied indefatigably. +His library was, at least at one period, a very limited one,—“the +least and the best library,” writes a friend who visited him in +prison, “that I ever saw, consisting only of two books—the +Bible, and Foxe’s ‘Book of Martyrs.’” +“But with these two books,” writes Mr. Froude, “he +had no cause to complain of intellectual destitution.” Bunyan’s +mode of composition, though certainly exceedingly rapid,—thoughts +succeeding one another with a quickness akin to inspiration,—was +anything but careless. The “limæ labor” with +him was unsparing. It was, he tells us, “first with doing, +and then with undoing, and after that with doing again,” that +his books were brought to completion, and became what they are, a mine +of Evangelical Calvinism of the richest ore, entirely free from the +narrow dogmatism and harsh predestinarianism of the great Genevan divine; +books which for clearness of thought, lucidity of arrangement, felicity +of language, rich even if sometimes homely force of illustration, and +earnestness of piety have never been surpassed.</p> +<p>Bunyan’s prison life when the first bitterness of it was past, +and habit had done away with its strangeness, was a quiet and it would +seem, not an unhappy one. A manly self-respect bore him up and +forbade his dwelling on the darker features of his position, or thinking +or speaking harshly of the authors of his durance. “He was,” +writes one who saw him at this time, “mild and affable in conversation; +not given to loquacity or to much discourse unless some urgent occasion +required. It was observed he never spoke of himself or his parents, +but seemed low in his own eyes. He was never heard to reproach +or revile, whatever injury he received, but rather rebuked those who +did so. He managed all things with such exactness as if he had +made it his study not to give offence.”</p> +<p>According to his earliest biographer, Charles Doe, in 1666, the year +of the Fire of London, after Bunyan had lain six years in Bedford gaol, +“by the intercession of some interest or power that took pity +on his sufferings,” he enjoyed a short interval of liberty. +Who these friends and sympathisers were is not mentioned, and it would +be vain to conjecture. This period of freedom, however, was very +short. He at once resumed his old work of preaching, against which +the laws had become even more stringent during his imprisonment, and +was apprehended at a meeting just as he was about to preach a sermon. +He had given out his text, “Dost thou believe on the Son of God?” +(John ix. 35), and was standing with his open Bible in his hand, when +the constable came in to take him. Bunyan fixed his eyes on the +man, who turned pale, let go his hold, and drew back, while Bunyan exclaimed, +“See how this man trembles at the word of God!” This +is all we know of his second arrest, and even this little is somewhat +doubtful. The time, the place, the circumstances, are as provokingly +vague as much else of Bunyan’s life. The fact, however, +is certain. Bunyan returned to Bedford gaol, where he spent another +six years, until the issuing of the “Declaration of Indulgence” +early in 1672 opened the long-closed doors, and he walked out a free +man, and with what he valued far more than personal liberty, freedom +to deliver Christ’s message as he understood it himself, none +making him afraid, and to declare to his brother sinners what their +Saviour had done for them, and what he expected them to do that they +might obtain the salvation He died to win.</p> +<p>From some unknown cause, perhaps the depressing effect of protracted +confinement, during this second six years Bunyan’s pen was far +less prolific than during the former period. Only two of his books +are dated in these years. The last of these, “A Defence +of the Doctrine of Justification by Faith,” a reply to a work +of Edward Fowler, afterwards Bishop of Gloucester, the rector of Northill, +was written in hot haste immediately before his release, and issued +from the press contemporaneously with it, the prospect of liberty apparently +breathing new life into his wearied soul. When once Bunyan became +a free man again, his pen recovered its former copiousness of production, +and the works by which he has been immortalized, “The Pilgrim’s +Progress”—which has been erroneously ascribed to Bunyan’s +twelve years’ imprisonment—and its sequel, “The Holy +War,” and the “Life and Death of Mr. Badman,” and +a host of more strictly theological works, followed one another in rapid +succession.</p> +<p>Bunyan’s second term of imprisonment was certainly less severe +than that which preceded it. At its commencement we learn that, +like Joseph in Egypt, he found favour in his jailer’s eyes, who +“took such pity of his rigorous suffering, that he put all care +and trust into his hands.” Towards the close of his imprisonment +its rigour was still further relaxed. The Bedford church book +begins its record again in 1688, after an interval of ominous silence +of five years, when the persecution was at the hottest. In its +earliest entries we find Bunyan’s name, which occurs repeatedly +up to the date of his final release in 1672. Not one of these +notices gives the slightest allusion of his being a prisoner. +He is deputed with others to visit and remonstrate with backsliding +brethren, and fulfil other commissions on behalf of the congregation, +as if he were in the full enjoyment of his liberty. This was in +the two years’ interval between the expiration of the Conventicle +Act, March 2, 1667-8, and the passing of the new Act, styled by Marvell, +“the quintessence of arbitrary malice,” April 11, 1670. +After a few months of hot persecution, when a disgraceful system of +espionage was set on foot and the vilest wretches drove a lucrative +trade as spies on “meetingers,” the severity greatly lessened. +Charles II. was already meditating the issuing of a Declaration of Indulgence, +and signified his disapprobation of the “forceable courses” +in which, “the sad experience of twelve years” showed, there +was “very little fruit.” One of the first and most +notable consequences of this change of policy was Bunyan’s release.</p> +<p>Mr. Offor’s patient researches in the State Paper Office have +proved that the Quakers, than whom no class of sectaries had suffered +more severely from the persecuting edicts of the Crown, were mainly +instrumental in throwing open the prison doors to those who, like Bunyan, +were in bonds for the sake of their religion. Gratitude to John +Groves, the Quaker mate of Tattersall’s fishing boat, in which +Charles had escaped to France after the battle of Worcester, had something, +and the untiring advocacy of George Whitehead, the Quaker, had still +more, to do with this act of royal clemency. We can readily believe +that the good-natured Charles was not sorry to have an opportunity of +evidencing his sense of former services rendered at a time of his greatest +extremity. But the main cause lay much deeper, and is connected +with what Lord Macaulay justly styles “one of the worst acts of +one of the worst governments that England has ever seen”—that +of the Cabal. Our national honour was at its lowest ebb. +Charles had just concluded the profligate Treaty of Dover, by which, +in return for the “protection” he sought from the French +king, he declared himself a Roman Catholic at heart, and bound himself +to take the first opportunity of “changing the present state of +religion in England for a better,” and restoring the authority +of the Pope. The announcement of his conversion Charles found +it convenient to postpone. Nor could the other part of his engagement +be safely carried into effect at once. It called for secret and +cautious preparation. But to pave the way for it, by an unconstitutional +exercise of his prerogative he issued a Declaration of Indulgence which +suspended all penal laws against “whatever sort of Nonconformists +or Recusants.” The latter were evidently the real object +of the indulgence; the former class were only introduced the better +to cloke his infamous design. Toleration, however, was thus at +last secured, and the long-oppressed Nonconformists hastened to profit +by it. “Ministers returned,” writes Mr. J. R. Green, +“after years of banishment, to their homes and their flocks. +Chapels were re-opened. The gaols were emptied. Men were +set free to worship God after their own fashion. John Bunyan left +the prison which had for twelve years been his home.” More +than three thousand licenses to preach were at once issued. One +of the earliest of these, dated May 9, 1672, four months before his +formal pardon under the Great Seal, was granted to Bunyan, who in the +preceding January had been chosen their minister by the little congregation +at Bedford, and “giving himself up to serve Christ and His Church +in that charge, had received of the elders the right hand of fellowship.” +The place licensed for the exercise of Bunyan’s ministry was a +barn standing in an orchard, once forming part of the Castle Moat, which +one of the congregation, Josias Roughead, acting for the members of +his church, had purchased. The license bears date May 9, 1672. +This primitive place of worship, in which Bunyan preached regularly +till his death, was pulled down in 1707, when a “three-ridged +meeting-house” was erected in its place. This in its turn +gave way, in 1849, to the existing more seemly chapel, to which the +present Duke of Bedford, in 1876, presented a pair of noble bronze doors +bearing scenes, in high relief, from “The Pilgrim’s Progress,” +the work of Mr. Frederick Thrupp. In the vestry are preserved +Bunyan’s chair, and other relics of the man who has made the name +of Bedford famous to the whole civilized world.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER VII.</h2> +<p>Mr. Green has observed that Bunyan “found compensation for +the narrow bounds of his prison in the wonderful activity of his pen. +Tracts, controversial treatises, poems, meditations, his ‘Grace +Abounding,’ and his ‘Holy War,’ followed each other +in quick succession.” Bunyan’s literary fertility +in the earlier half of his imprisonment was indeed amazing. Even +if, as seems almost certain, we have been hitherto in error in assigning +the First Part of “The Pilgrim’s Progress” to this +period, while the “Holy War” certainly belongs to a later, +the works which had their birth in Bedford Gaol during the first six +years of his confinement, are of themselves sufficient to make the reputation +of any ordinary writer. As has been already remarked, for some +unexplained cause, Bunyan’s gifts as an author were much more +sparingly called into exercise during the second half of his captivity. +Only two works appear to have been written between 1666 and his release +in 1672.</p> +<p>Mr. Green has spoken of “poems” as among the products +of Bunyan’s pen during this period. The compositions in +verse belonging to this epoch, of which there are several, hardly deserve +to be dignified with so high a title. At no part of his life had +Bunyan much title to be called a poet. He did not aspire beyond +the rank of a versifier, who clothed his thoughts in rhyme or metre +instead of the more congenial prose, partly for the pleasure of the +exercise, partly because he knew by experience that the lessons he wished +to inculcate were more likely to be remembered in that form. Mr. +Froude, who takes a higher estimate of Bunyan’s verse than is +commonly held, remarks that though it is the fashion to apply the epithet +of “doggerel” to it, the “sincere and rational meaning” +which pervades his compositions renders such an epithet improper. +“His ear for rhythm,” he continues, “though less true +than in his prose, is seldom wholly at fault, and whether in prose or +verse, he had the superlative merit that he could never write nonsense.” +Bunyan’s earliest prison work, entitled “Profitable Meditations,” +was in verse, and neither this nor his later metrical ventures before +his release—his “Four Last Things,” his “Ebal +and Gerizim,” and his “Prison Meditations”—can +be said to show much poetical power. At best he is a mere rhymester, +to whom rhyme and metre, even when self-chosen, were as uncongenial +accoutrements “as Saul’s armour was to David.” +The first-named book, which is entitled a “Conference between +Christ and a Sinner,” in the form of a poetical dialogue, according +to Dr. Brown has “small literary merit of any sort.” +The others do not deserve much higher commendation. There is an +individuality about the “Prison Meditations” which imparts +to it a personal interest, which is entirely wanting in the other two +works, which may be characterized as metrical sermons, couched in verse +of the Sternhold and Hopkins type. A specimen or two will suffice. +The “Four Last Things” thus opens:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“These lines I at this time present<br /> +To all that will them heed,<br /> +Wherein I show to what intent<br /> +God saith, ‘Convert with speed.’<br /> +For these four things come on apace,<br /> +Which we should know full well,<br /> +Both death and judgment, and, in place<br /> +Next to them, heaven and hell.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The following lines are from “Ebal and Gerizim”:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“Thou art like one that hangeth by a thread<br /> +Over the mouth of hell, as one half dead;<br /> +And oh, how soon this thread may broken be,<br /> +Or cut by death, is yet unknown to thee.<br /> +But sure it is if all the weight of sin,<br /> +And all that Satan too hath doing been<br /> +Or yet can do, can break this crazy thread,<br /> +’Twill not be long before among the dead<br /> +Thou tumble do, as linkèd fast in chains,<br /> +With them to wait in fear for future pains.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The poetical effusion entitled “Prison Meditations” does +not in any way rise above the prosaic level of its predecessors. +But it can be read with less weariness from the picture it presents +of Bunyan’s prison life, and of the courageous faith which sustained +him. Some unnamed friend, it would appear, fearing he might flinch, +had written him a letter counselling him to keep “his head above +the flood.” Bunyan replied in seventy stanzas in ballad +measure, thanking his correspondent for his good advice, of which he +confesses he stood in need, and which he takes it kindly of him to send, +even though his feet stand upon Mount Zion, and the gaol is to him like +a hill from which he could see beyond this world, and take his fill +of the blessedness of that which remains for the Christian. Though +in bonds his mind is free, and can wander where it will.</p> +<blockquote><p>“For though men keep my outward man<br /> +Within their locks and bars,<br /> +Yet by the faith of Christ, I can<br /> +Mount higher than the stars.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Meanwhile his captivity is sweetened by the thought of what it was +that brought him there:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“I here am very much refreshed<br /> +To think, when I was out,<br /> +I preachèd life, and peace, and rest,<br /> +To sinners round about.</p> +<p>My business then was souls to save<br /> +By preaching grace and faith,<br /> +Of which the comfort now I have<br /> +And have it shall till death.</p> +<p>That was the work I was about<br /> +When hands on me they laid.<br /> +’Twas this for which they plucked me out<br /> +And vilely to me said,</p> +<p>‘You heretic, deceiver, come,<br /> +To prison you must go,<br /> +You preach abroad, and keep not home,<br /> +You are the Church’s foe.’</p> +<p>Wherefore to prison they me sent,<br /> +Where to this day I lie,<br /> +And can with very much content<br /> +For my profession die.</p> +<p>The prison very sweet to me<br /> +Hath been since I came here,<br /> +And so would also hanging be<br /> +If God would there appear.</p> +<p>To them that here for evil lie<br /> +The place is comfortless;<br /> +But not to me, because that I<br /> +Lie here for righteousness.</p> +<p>The truth and I were both here cast<br /> +Together, and we do<br /> +Lie arm in arm, and so hold fast<br /> +Each other, this is true.</p> +<p>Who now dare say we throw away<br /> +Our goods or liberty,<br /> +When God’s most holy Word doth say<br /> +We gain thus much thereby?”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>It will be seen that though Bunyan’s verses are certainly not +high-class poetry, they are very far removed from doggerel. Nothing +indeed that Bunyan ever wrote, however rugged the rhymes and limping +the metre, can be so stigmatized. The rude scribblings on the +margins of the copy of the “Book of Martyrs,” which bears +Bunyan’s signature on the title-pages, though regarded by Southey +as “undoubtedly” his, certainly came from a later and must +less instructed pen. And as he advanced in his literary career, +his claim to the title of a poet, though never of the highest, was much +strengthened. The verses which diversify the narrative in the +Second Part of “The Pilgrim’s Progress” are decidedly +superior to those in the First Part, and some are of high excellence. +Who is ignorant of the charming little song of the Shepherd Boy in the +Valley of Humiliation, “in very mean clothes, but with a very +fresh and well-favoured countenance, and wearing more of the herb called +Heartsease in his bosom than he that is clad in silk and velvet?”—</p> +<blockquote><p>“He that is down need fear no fall;<br /> +He that is low, no pride;<br /> +He that is humble, ever shall<br /> +Have God to be his guide.</p> +<p>I am content with what I have,<br /> +Little be it or much,<br /> +And, Lord, contentment still I crave,<br /> +Because Thou savest such.</p> +<p>Fulness to such a burden is<br /> +That go on Pilgrimage,<br /> +Here little, and hereafter Bliss<br /> +Is best from age to age.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Bunyan reaches a still higher flight in Valiant-for-Truth’s +song, later on, the Shakesperian ring of which recalls Amiens’ +in “As You Like It,”</p> +<blockquote><p>“Under the greenwood tree,<br /> +Who loves to lie with me. . .<br /> +Come hither, come hither,”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>and has led some to question whether it can be Bunyan’s own. +The resemblance, as Mr. Froude remarks, is “too near to be accidental.” +“Perhaps he may have heard the lines, and the rhymes may have +clung to him without his knowing whence they came.”</p> +<blockquote><p>“Who would true Valour see,<br /> +Let him come hither,<br /> +One here will constant be,<br /> +Come wind, come weather.<br /> +There’s no discouragement<br /> +Shall make him once relent<br /> +His first avowed intent<br /> +To be a Pilgrim.</p> +<p>Who so beset him round<br /> +With dismal stories,<br /> +Do but themselves confound<br /> +His strength the more is.<br /> +No lion can him fright,<br /> +He’ll with a giant fight,<br /> +But he will have a right<br /> +To be a Pilgrim.</p> +<p>Hobgoblin nor foul fiend<br /> +Can daunt his spirit,<br /> +He knows he at the end<br /> +Shall life inherit.<br /> +Then fancies fly away<br /> +He’ll fear not what men say,<br /> +He’ll labour night and day<br /> +To be a Pilgrim.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>All readers of “The Pilgrim’s Progress” and “The +Holy War” are familiar with the long metrical compositions giving +the history of these works by which they are prefaced and the latter +work is closed. No more characteristic examples of Bunyan’s +muse can be found. They show his excellent command of his native +tongue in racy vernacular, homely but never vulgar, and his power of +expressing his meaning “with sharp defined outlines and without +the waste of a word.”</p> +<p>Take this account of his perplexity, when the First Part of his “Pilgrim’s +Progress” was finished, whether it should be given to the world +or no, and the characteristic decision with which he settled the question +for himself:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“Well, when I had then put mine ends together,<br /> +I show’d them others that I might see whether<br /> +They would condemn them, or them justify;<br /> +And some said Let them live; some, Let them die.<br /> +Some said, John, print it; others said, Not so;<br /> +Some said it might do good; others said No.<br /> +Now was I in a strait, and did not see<br /> +Which was the best thing to be done by me;<br /> +At last I thought since you are thus divided<br /> +I print it will; and so the case decided;”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>or the lines in which he introduces the Second Part of the Pilgrim +to the readers of the former part:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“Go now, my little Book, to every place<br /> +Where my first Pilgrim hath but shown his face:<br /> +Call at their door: If any say, ‘Who’s there?’<br /> +Then answer that Christiana is here.<br /> +If they bid thee come in, then enter thou<br /> +With all thy boys. And then, as thou knowest how,<br /> +Tell who they are, also from whence they came;<br /> +Perhaps they’ll know them by their looks or name.<br /> +But if they should not, ask them yet again<br /> +If formerly they did not entertain<br /> +One Christian, a pilgrim. If they say<br /> +They did, and were delighted in his way:<br /> +Then let them know that these related are<br /> +Unto him, yea, his wife and children are.<br /> +Tell them that they have left their house and home,<br /> +Are turned Pilgrims, seek a world to come;<br /> +That they have met with hardships on the way,<br /> +That they do meet with troubles night and day.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>How racy, even if the lines are a little halting, is the defence +of the genuineness of his Pilgrim in “The Advertisement to the +Reader” at the end of “The Holy War.”</p> +<blockquote><p>“Some say the Pilgrim’s Progress is not mine,<br /> +Insinuating as if I would shine<br /> +In name or fame by the worth of another,<br /> +Like some made rich by robbing of their brother;<br /> +Or that so fond I am of being sire<br /> +I’ll father bastards; or if need require,<br /> +I’ll tell a lie or print to get applause.<br /> +I scorn it. John such dirt-heap never was<br /> +Since God converted him. . .<br /> +Witness my name, if anagram’d to thee<br /> +The letters make <i>Nu hony in a B</i>.<br /> +IOHN BUNYAN.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>How full of life and vigour his sketch of the beleaguerment and deliverance +of “Mansoul,” as a picture of his own spiritual experience, +in the introductory verses to “The Holy War”!—</p> +<blockquote><p>“For my part I, myself, was in the town,<br /> +Both when ’twas set up, and when pulling down;<br /> +I saw Diabolus in possession,<br /> +And Mansoul also under his oppression.<br /> +Yes, I was there when she crowned him for lord,<br /> +And to him did submit with one accord.<br /> +When Mansoul trampled upon things divine,<br /> +And wallowed in filth as doth a swine,<br /> +When she betook herself unto her arms,<br /> +Fought her Emmanuel, despised his charms:<br /> +Then I was there, and did rejoice to see<br /> +Diabolus and Mansoul so agree.<br /> +I saw the prince’s armed men come down<br /> +By troops, by thousands, to besiege the town,<br /> +I saw the captains, heard the trumpets sound,<br /> +And how his forces covered all the ground,<br /> +Yea, how they set themselves in battle array,<br /> +I shall remember to my dying day.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Bunyan’s other essays in the domain of poetry need not detain +us long. The most considerable of these—at least in bulk—if +it be really his, is a version of some portions of the Old and New Testaments: +the life of Joseph, the Book of Ruth, the history of Samson, the Book +of Jonah, the Sermon on the Mount, and the General Epistle of St. James. +The attempt to do the English Bible into verse has been often made and +never successfully: in the nature of things success in such a task is +impossible, nor can this attempt be regarded as happier than that of +others. Mr. Froude indeed, who undoubtingly accepts their genuineness, +is of a different opinion. He styles the “Book of Ruth” +and the “History of Joseph” “beautiful idylls,” +of such high excellence that, “if we found them in the collected +works of a poet laureate, we should consider that a difficult task had +been accomplished successfully.” It would seem almost doubtful +whether Mr. Froude can have read the compositions that he commends so +largely, and so much beyond their merit. The following specimen, +taken haphazard, will show how thoroughly Bunyan or the rhymester, whoever +he may be, has overcome what Mr. Froude regards as an almost insuperable +difficulty, and has managed to “spoil completely the faultless +prose of the English translation”:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“Ruth replied,<br /> +Intreat me not to leave thee or return;<br /> +For where thou goest I’ll go, where thou sojourn<br /> +I’ll sojourn also—and what people’s thine,<br /> +And who thy God, the same shall both be mine.<br /> +Where thou shalt die, there will I die likewise,<br /> +And I’ll be buried where thy body lies.<br /> +The Lord do so to me and more if I<br /> +Do leave thee or forsake thee till I die.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The more we read of these poems, not given to the world till twelve +years after Bunyan’s death, and that by a publisher who was “a +repeated offender against the laws of honest dealing,” the more +we are inclined to agree with Dr. Brown, that the internal evidence +of their style renders their genuineness at the least questionable. +In the dull prosaic level of these compositions there is certainly no +trace of the “force and power” always present in Bunyan’s +rudest rhymes, still less of the “dash of genius” and the +“sparkle of soul” which occasionally discover the hand of +a master.</p> +<p>Of the authenticity of Bunyan’s “Divine Emblems,” +originally published three years after his death under the title of +“Country Rhymes for Children,” there is no question. +The internal evidence confirms the external. The book is thoroughly +in Bunyan’s vein, and in its homely naturalness of imagery recalls +the similitudes of the “Interpreter’s House,” especially +those expounded to Christiana and her boys. As in that “house +of imagery” things of the most common sort, the sweeping of a +room, the burning of a fire, the drinking of a chicken, a robin with +a spider in his mouth, are made the vehicle of religious teaching; so +in this “Book for Boys and Girls,” a mole burrowing in the +ground, a swallow soaring in the air, the cuckoo which can do nothing +but utter two notes, a flaming and a blinking candle, or a pound of +candles falling to the ground, a boy chasing a butterfly, the cackling +of a hen when she has laid her egg, all, to his imaginative mind, set +forth some spiritual truth or enforce some wholesome moral lesson. +How racy, though homely, are these lines on a Frog!—</p> +<blockquote><p>“The Frog by nature is but damp and cold,<br /> +Her mouth is large, her belly much will hold,<br /> +She sits somewhat ascending, loves to be<br /> +Croaking in gardens, though unpleasantly.</p> +<p>The hypocrite is like unto this Frog,<br /> +As like as is the puppy to the dog.<br /> +He is of nature cold, his mouth is wide<br /> +To prate, and at true goodness to deride.<br /> +And though this world is that which he doth love,<br /> +He mounts his head as if he lived above.<br /> +And though he seeks in churches for to croak,<br /> +He neither seeketh Jesus nor His yoke.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>There is some real poetry in those on the Cuckoo, though we may be +inclined to resent his harsh treatment of our universal favourite:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“Thou booby says’t thou nothing but Cuckoo?<br /> +The robin and the wren can that outdo.<br /> +They to us play thorough their little throats<br /> +Not one, but sundry pretty tuneful notes.<br /> +But thou hast fellows, some like thee can do<br /> +Little but suck our eggs, and sing Cuckoo.</p> +<p>Thy notes do not first welcome in our spring,<br /> +Nor dost thou its first tokens to us bring.<br /> +Birds less than thee by far like prophets do<br /> +Tell us ’tis coming, though not by Cuckoo,<br /> +Nor dost thou summer bear away with thee<br /> +Though thou a yawling bawling Cuckoo be.<br /> +When thou dost cease among us to appear,<br /> +Then doth our harvest bravely crown our year.<br /> +But thou hast fellows, some like thee can do<br /> +Little but suck our eggs, and sing Cuckoo.</p> +<p>Since Cuckoos forward not our early spring<br /> +Nor help with notes to bring our harvest in,<br /> +And since while here, she only makes a noise<br /> +So pleasing unto none as girls and boys,<br /> +The Formalist we may compare her to,<br /> +For he doth suck our eggs and sing Cuckoo.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>A perusal of this little volume with its roughness and quaintness, +sometimes grating on the ear but full of strong thought and picturesque +images, cannot fail to raise Bunyan’s pretensions as a poet. +His muse, it is true, as Alexander Smith has said, is a homely one. +She is “clad in russet, wears shoes and stockings, has a country +accent, and walks along the level Bedfordshire roads.” But +if the lines are unpolished, “they have pith and sinew, like the +talk of a shrewd peasant,” with the “strong thought and +the knack of the skilled workman who can drive by a single blow the +nail home to the head.”</p> +<p>During his imprisonment Bunyan’s pen was much more fertile +in prose than in poetry. Besides his world-famous “Grace +Abounding,” he produced during the first six years of his gaol +life a treatise on prayer, entitled “Praying in the Spirit;” +a book on “Christian Behaviour,” setting forth with uncompromising +plainness the relative duties of husbands and wives, parents and children, +masters and servants, by which those who profess a true faith are bound +to show forth its reality and power; the “Holy City,” an +exposition of the vision in the closing chapters of the Book of Revelation, +brilliant with picturesque description and rich in suggestive thought, +which, he tells us, had its origin in a sermon preached by him to his +brethren in bonds in their prison chamber; and a work on the “Resurrection +of the Dead and Eternal Judgment.” On these works we may +not linger. There is not one of them which is not marked by vigour +of thought, clearness of language, accuracy of arrangement, and deep +spiritual experience. Nor is there one which does not here and +there exhibit specimens of Bunyan’s picturesque imaginative power, +and his command of forcible and racy language. Each will reward +perusal. His work on “Prayer” is couched in the most +exalted strain, and is evidently the production of one who by long and +agonizing experience had learnt the true nature of prayer, as a pouring +out of the soul to God, and a wrestling with Him until the blessing, +delayed not denied, is granted. It is, however, unhappily deformed +by much ignorant reviling of the Book of Common Prayer. He denounces +it as “taken out of the papistical mass-book, the scraps and fragments +of some popes, some friars, and I know not what;” and ridicules +the order of service it propounds to the worshippers. “They +have the matter and the manner of their prayer at their fingers’ +ends; they set such a prayer for such a day, and that twenty years before +it comes: one for Christmas, another for Easter, and six days after +that. They have also bounded how many syllables must be said in +every one of them at their public exercises. For each saint’s +day also they have them ready for the generations yet unborn to say. +They can tell you also when you shall kneel, when you shall stand, when +you should abide in your seats, when you should go up into the chancel, +and what you should do when you come there. All which the apostles +came short of, as not being able to compose so profound a manner.” +This bitter satirical vein in treating of sacred things is unworthy +of its author, and degrading to his sense of reverence. It has +its excuse in the hard measure he had received from those who were so +unwisely endeavouring to force the Prayer Book on a generation which +had largely forgotten it. In his mind, the men and the book were +identified, and the unchristian behaviour of its advocates blinded his +eyes to its merits as a guide to devotion. Bunyan, when denouncing +forms in worship, forgot that the same apostle who directs that in our +public assemblies everything should be done “to edification,” +directs also that everything should be done “decently and in order.”</p> +<p>By far the most important of these prison works—“The +Pilgrim’s Progress,” belonging, as will be seen, to a later +period—is the “Grace Abounding,” in which with inimitable +earnestness and simplicity Bunyan gives the story of his early life +and his religious history. This book, if he had written no other, +would stamp Bunyan as one of the greatest masters of the English language +of his own or any other age. In graphic delineation of the struggles +of a conscience convicted of sin towards a hardly won freedom and peace, +the alternations of light and darkness, of hope and despair, which chequered +its course, its morbid self-torturing questionings of motive and action, +this work of the travelling tinker, as a spiritual history, has never +been surpassed. Its equal can hardly be found, save perhaps in +the “Confessions of St. Augustine.” These, however, +though describing a like spiritual conflict, are couched in a more cultured +style, and rise to a higher metaphysical region than Bunyan was capable +of attaining to. His level is a lower one, but on that level Bunyan +is without a rival. Never has the history of a soul convinced +of the reality of eternal perdition in its most terrible form as the +most certain of all possible facts, and of its own imminent danger of +hopeless, irreversible doom—seeing itself, to employ his own image, +hanging, as it were, over the pit of hell by a thin line, which might +snap any moment—been portrayed in more nervous and awe-inspiring +language. And its awfulness is enhanced by its self-evident truth. +Bunyan was drawing no imaginary picture of what others might feel, but +simply telling in plain unadorned language what he had felt. The +experience was a very tremendous reality to him. Like Dante, if +he had not actually been in hell, he had been on the very threshold +of it; he had in very deed traversed “the Valley of the Shadow +of Death,” had heard its “hideous noises,” and seen +“the Hobgoblins of the Pit.” He “spake what +he knew and testified what he had seen.” Every sentence +breathes the most tremendous earnestness. His words are the plainest, +drawn from his own homely vernacular. He says in his preface, +which will amply repay reading, as one of the most characteristic specimens +of his style, that he could have stepped into a higher style, and adorned +his narrative more plentifully. But he dared not. “God +did not play in convincing him. The devil did not play in tempting +him. He himself did not play when he sunk as into a bottomless +pit, and the pangs of hell caught hold on him. Nor could he play +in relating them. He must be plain and simple and lay down the +thing as it was. He that liked it might receive it. He that +did not might produce a better.” The remembrance of “his +great sins, his great temptations, his great fears of perishing for +ever, recalled the remembrance of his great help, his great support +from heaven, the great grace God extended to such a wretch as he was.” +Having thus enlarged on his own experience, he calls on his spiritual +children, for whose use the work was originally composed and to whom +it is dedicated,—“those whom God had counted him worthy +to beget to Faith by his ministry in the Word”—to survey +their own religious history, to “work diligently and leave no +corner unsearched.” He would have them “remember their +tears and prayers to God; how they sighed under every hedge for mercy. +Had they never a hill Mizar (Psa. xlii. 6) to remember? Had they +forgotten the close, the milkhouse, the stable, the barn, where God +visited their souls? Let them remember the Word on which the Lord +had caused them to hope. If they had sinned against light, if +they were tempted to blaspheme, if they were down in despair, let them +remember that it had been so with him, their spiritual father, and that +out of them all the Lord had delivered him.” This dedication +ends thus: “My dear children, the milk and honey is beyond this +wilderness. God be merciful to you, and grant you be not slothful +to go in to possess the land.”</p> +<p>This remarkable book, as we learn from the title-page, was “written +by his own hand in prison.” It was first published by George +Larkin in London, in 1666, the sixth year of his imprisonment, the year +of the Fire of London, about the time that he experienced his first +brief release. As with “The Pilgrim’s Progress,” +the work grew in picturesque detail and graphic power in the author’s +hand after its first appearance. The later editions supply some +of the most interesting personal facts contained in the narrative, which +were wanting when it first issued from the press. His two escapes +from drowning, and from the supposed sting of an adder; his being drawn +as a soldier, and his providential deliverance from death; the graphic +account of his difficulty in giving up bell-ringing at Elstow Church, +and dancing on Sundays on Elstow Green—these and other minor touches +which give a life and colour to the story, which we should be very sorry +to lose, are later additions. It is impossible to over-estimate +the value of the “Grace Abounding,” both for the facts of +Bunyan’s earlier life and for the spiritual experience of which +these facts were, in his eyes only the outward framework. Beginning +with his parentage and boyhood, it carries us down to his marriage and +life in the wayside-cottage at Elstow, his introduction to Mr. Gifford’s +congregation at Bedford, his joining that holy brotherhood, and his +subsequent call to the work of the ministry among them, and winds up +with an account of his apprehension, examinations, and imprisonment +in Bedford gaol. The work concludes with a report of the conversation +between his noble-hearted wife and Sir Matthew Hale and the other judges +at the Midsummer assizes, narrated in a former chapter, “taken +down,” he says, “from her own mouth.” The whole +story is of such sustained interest that our chief regret on finishing +it is that it stops where it does, and does not go on much further. +Its importance for our knowledge of Bunyan as a man, as distinguished +from an author, and of the circumstances of his life, is seen by a comparison +of our acquaintance with his earlier and with his later years. +When he laid down his pen no one took it up, and beyond two or three +facts, and a few hazy anecdotes we know little or nothing of all that +happened between his final release and his death.</p> +<p>The value of the “Grace Abounding,” however, as a work +of experimental religion may be easily over-estimated. It is not +many who can study Bunyan’s minute history of the various stages +of his spiritual life with real profit. To some temperaments, +especially among the young, the book is more likely to prove injurious +than beneficial; it is calculated rather to nourish morbid imaginations, +and a dangerous habit of introspection, than to foster the quiet growth +of the inner life. Bunyan’s unhappy mode of dealing with +the Bible as a collection of texts, each of Divine authority and declaring +a definite meaning entirely irrespective of its context, by which the +words hide the Word, is also utterly destructive of the true purpose +of the Holy Scriptures as a revelation of God’s loving and holy +mind and will. Few things are more touching than the eagerness +with which, in his intense self-torture, Bunyan tried to evade the force +of those “fearful and terrible Scriptures” which appeared +to seal his condemnation, and to lay hold of the promises to the penitent +sinner. His tempest-tossed spirit could only find rest by doing +violence to the dogma, then universally accepted and not quite extinct +even in our own days, that the authority of the Bible—that “Divine +Library”—collectively taken, belongs to each and every sentence +of the Bible taken for and by itself, and that, in Coleridge’s +words, “detached sentences from books composed at the distance +of centuries, nay, sometimes at a millenium from each other, under different +dispensations and for different objects,” are to be brought together +“into logical dependency.” But “where the Spirit +of the Lord is there is liberty.” The divinely given life +in the soul of man snaps the bonds of humanly-constructed logical systems. +Only those, however, who have known by experience the force of Bunyan’s +spiritual combat, can fully appreciate and profit by Bunyan’s +narrative. He tells us on the title-page that it was written “for +the support of the weak and tempted people of God.” For +such the “Grace Abounding to the chief of sinners” will +ever prove most valuable. Those for whom it was intended will +find in it a message—of comfort and strength.</p> +<p>As has been said, Bunyan’s pen was almost idle during the last +six years of his imprisonment. Only two of his works were produced +in this period: his “Confession of Faith,” and his “Defence +of the Doctrine of Justification by Faith.” Both were written +very near the end of his prison life, and published in the same year, +1672, only a week or two before his release. The object of the +former work was, as Dr. Brown tells us, “to vindicate his teaching, +and if possible, to secure his liberty.” Writing as one +“in bonds for the Gospel,” his professed principles, he +asserts, are “faith, and holiness springing therefrom, with an +endeavour so far as in him lies to be at peace with all men.” +He is ready to hold communion with all whose principles are the same; +with all whom he can reckon as children of God. With these he +will not quarrel about “things that are circumstantial,” +such as water baptism, which he regards as something quite indifferent, +men being “neither the better for having it, nor the worse for +having it not.” “He will receive them in the Lord +as becometh saints. If they will not have communion with him, +the neglect is theirs not his. But with the openly profane and +ungodly, though, poor people! they have been christened and take the +communion, he will have no communion. It would be a strange community, +he says, that consisted of men and beasts. Men do not receive +their horse or their dog to their table; they put them in a room by +themselves.” As regards forms and ceremonies, he “cannot +allow his soul to be governed in its approach to God by the superstitious +inventions of this world. He is content to stay in prison even +till the moss grows on his eyelids rather than thus make of his conscience +a continual butchery and slaughter-shop by putting out his eyes and +committing himself to the blind to lead him. Eleven years’ +imprisonment was a weighty argument to pause and pause again over the +foundation of the principles for which he had thus suffered. Those +principles he had asserted at his trial, and in the tedious tract of +time since then he had in cold blood examined them by the Word of God +and found them good; nor could he dare to revolt from or deny them on +pain of eternal damnation.”</p> +<p>The second-named work, the “Defence of the Doctrine of Justification +by Faith,” is entirely controversial. The Rev. Edward Fowler, +afterwards Bishop of Gloucester, then Rector of Northill, had published +in the early part of 1671, a book entitled “The Design of Christianity.” +A copy having found its way into Bunyan’s hands, he was so deeply +stirred by what he deemed its subversion of the true foundation of Evangelical +religion that he took up his pen and in the space of six weeks composed +a long and elaborate examination of the book, chapter by chapter, and +a confutation of its teaching. Fowler’s doctrines as Bunyan +understood them—or rather misunderstood them—awoke the worst +side of his impetuous nature. His vituperation of the author and +his book is coarse and unmeasured. He roundly charges Fowler with +having “closely, privily, and devilishly turned the grace of God +into a licentious doctrine, bespattering it with giving liberty to lasciviousness;” +and he calls him “a pretended minister of the Word,” who, +in “his cursed blasphemous book vilely exposes to public view +the rottenness of his heart, in principle diametrically opposite to +the simplicity of the Gospel of Christ, a glorious latitudinarian that +can, as to religion, turn and twist like an eel on the angle, or rather +like the weathercock that stands on the steeple;” and describes +him as “contradicting the wholesome doctrine of the Church of +England.” He “knows him not by face much less his +personal practise.” He may have “kept himself clear +of the ignorant Sir Johns who had for a long time, as a judgment of +God, been made the mouth to the people—men of debauched lives +who for the love of filthy lucre and the pampering of their idle carcases +had made shipwreck of their former faith;” but he does know that +having been ejected as a Nonconformist in 1662, he had afterwards gone +over to the winning side, and he fears that “such an unstable +weathercock spirit as he had manifested would stumble the work and give +advantage to the adversary to speak vilifyingly of religion.” +No excuse can be offered for the coarse violence of Bunyan’s language +in this book; but it was too much the habit of the time to load a theological +opponent with vituperation, to push his assertions to the furthest extreme, +and make the most unwarrantable deductions from them. It must +be acknowledged that Bunyan does not treat Fowler and his doctrines +with fairness, and that, if the latter may be thought to depreciate +unduly the sacrifice of the Death of Christ as an expiation for man’s +guilt, and to lay too great a stress on the moral faculties remaining +in the soul after the Fall, Bunyan errs still more widely on the other +side in asserting the absolute, irredeemable corruption of human nature, +leaving nothing for grace to work upon, but demanding an absolutely +fresh creation, not a revivification of the Divine nature grievously +marred but not annihilated by Adam’s sin.</p> +<p>A reply to Bunyan’s severe strictures was not slow to appear. +The book bears the title, characteristic of the tone and language of +its contents, of “<i>Dirt wip’t off</i>; or, a manifest +discovery of the Gross Ignorance, Erroneousness, and most Unchristian +and Wicked Spirit of one John Bunyan, Lay-preacher in Bedford.” +It professes to be written by a friend of Fowler’s, but Fowler +was generally accredited with it. Its violent tirades against +one who, he says, had been “near these twenty years or longer +very infamous in the Town and County of Bedford as a very Pestilent +Schismatick,” and whom he suggests the authorities have done wrong +in letting out of prison, and had better clap in gaol again as “an +impudent and malicious Firebrand,” have long since been consigned +to a merciful oblivion, where we may safely leave them.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER VIII.</h2> +<p>Bunyan’s protracted imprisonment came to an end in 1672. +The exact date of his actual liberation is uncertain. His pardon +under the Great Seal bears date September 13th. But we find from +the church books that he had been appointed pastor of the congregation +to which he belonged as early as the 21st of January of that year, and +on the 9th of May his ministerial position was duly recognized by the +Government, and a license was granted to him to act “as preacher +in the house of Josias Roughead,” for those “of the Persuasion +commonly called Congregational.” His release would therefore +seem to have anticipated the formal issue of his pardon by four months. +Bunyan was now half way through his forty-fourth year. Sixteen +years still remained to him before his career of indefatigable service +in the Master’s work was brought to a close. Of these sixteen +years, as has already been remarked, we have only a very general knowledge. +Details are entirely wanting; nor is there any known source from which +they can be recovered. If he kept any diary it has not been preserved. +If he wrote letters—and one who was looked up to by so large a +circle of disciples as a spiritual father and guide, and whose pen was +so ready of exercise, cannot fail to have written many—not one +has come down to us. The pages of the church books during his +pastorate are also provokingly barren of record, and little that they +contain is in Bunyan’s handwriting. As Dr. Brown has said, +“he seems to have been too busy to keep any records of his busy +life.” Nor can we fill up the blank from external authorities. +The references to Bunyan in contemporary biographies are far fewer than +we might have expected; certainly far fewer than we could have desired. +But the little that is recorded is eminently characteristic. We +see him constantly engaged in the great work to which he felt God had +called him, and for which, “with much content through grace,” +he had suffered twelve years’ incarceration. In addition +to the regular discharge of his pastoral duties to his own congregation, +he took a general oversight of the villages far and near which had been +the scene of his earlier ministry, preaching whenever opportunity offered, +and, ever unsparing of his own personal labour, making long journeys +into distant parts of the country for the furtherance of the gospel. +We find him preaching at Leicester in the year of his release. +Reading also is mentioned as receiving occasional visits from him, and +that not without peril after the revival of persecution; while the congregations +in London had the benefit of his exhortations at stated intervals. +Almost the first thing Bunyan did, after his liberation from gaol, was +to make others sharers in his hardly won “liberty of prophesying,” +by applying to the Government for licenses for preachers and preaching +places in Bedfordshire and the neighbouring counties, under the Declaration +of Indulgence. The still existing list sent in to the authorities +by him, in his own handwriting, contains the names of twenty-five preachers +and thirty buildings, besides “Josias Roughead’s House in +his orchard at Bedford.” Nineteen of these were in his own +native county, three in Northamptonshire, three in Buckinghamshire, +two in Cambridgeshire, two in Huntingdonshire, and one in Hertfordshire. +The places sought to be licensed were very various, barns, malthouses, +halls belonging to public companies, &c., but more usually private +houses. Over these religious communities, bound together by a +common faith and common suffering, Bunyan exercised a quasi-episcopal +superintendence, which gained for him the playful title of “Bishop +Bunyan.” In his regular circuits,—“visitations” +we may not improperly term them,—we are told that he exerted himself +to relieve the temporal wants of the sufferers under the penal laws,—so +soon and so cruelly revived,—ministered diligently to the sick +and afflicted, and used his influence in reconciling differences between +“professors of the gospel,” and thus prevented the scandal +of litigation among Christians. The closing period of Bunyan’s +life was laborious but happy, spent “honourably and innocently” +in writing, preaching, visiting his congregations, and planting daughter +churches. “Happy,” writes Mr. Froude, “in his +work; happy in the sense that his influence was daily extending—spreading +over his own country and to the far-off settlements of America,—he +spent his last years in his own land of Beulah, Doubting Castle out +of sight, and the towers and minarets of Immanuel’s Land growing +nearer and clearer as the days went on.”</p> +<p>With his time so largely occupied in his spiritual functions, he +could have had but small leisure to devote to his worldly calling. +This, however, one of so honest and independent a spirit is sure not +to have neglected, it was indeed necessary that to a certain extent +he should work for his living. He had a family to maintain. +His congregation were mostly of the poorer sort, unable to contribute +much to their pastor’s support. Had it been otherwise, Bunyan +was the last man in the world to make a trade of the gospel, and though +never hesitating to avail himself of the apostolic privilege to “live +of the gospel,” he, like the apostle of the Gentiles, would never +be ashamed to “work with his own hands,” that he might “minister +to his own necessities,” and those of his family. But from +the time of his release he regarded his ministerial work as the chief +work of his life. “When he came abroad,” says one +who knew him, “he found his temporal affairs were gone to wreck, +and he had as to them to begin again as if he had newly come into the +world. But yet he was not destitute of friends, who had all along +supported him with necessaries and had been very good to his family, +so that by their assistance getting things a little about him again, +he resolved as much as possible to decline worldly business, and give +himself wholly up to the service of God.” The anonymous +writer to whom we are indebted for information concerning his imprisonment +and his subsequent life, says that Bunyan, “contenting himself +with that little God had bestowed upon him, sequestered himself from +all secular employments to follow that of his call to the ministry.” +The fact, however, that in the “deed of gift” of all his +property to his wife in 1685, he still describes himself as a “brazier,” +puts it beyond all doubt that though his ministerial duties were his +chief concern, he prudently kept fast hold of his handicraft as a certain +means of support for himself and those dependent on him. On the +whole, Bunyan’s outward circumstances were probably easy. +His wants were few and easily supplied. “Having food and +raiment” for himself, his wife, and his children, he was “therewith +content.” The house in the parish of St. Cuthbert’s +which was his home from his release to his death (unhappily demolished +fifty years back), shows the humble character of his daily life. +It was a small cottage, such as labourers now occupy, with three small +rooms on the ground floor, and a garret with a diminutive dormer window +under the high-pitched tiled roof. Behind stood an outbuilding +which served as his workshop. We have a passing glimpse of this +cottage home in the diary of Thomas Hearne, the Oxford antiquary. +One Mr. Bagford, otherwise unknown to us, had once “walked into +the country” on purpose to see “the study of John Bunyan,” +and the student who made it famous. On his arrival the interviewer—as +we should now call him—met with a civil and courteous reception +from Bunyan; but he found the contents of his study hardly larger than +those of his prison cell. They were limited to a Bible, and copies +of “The Pilgrim’s Progress,” and a few other books, +chiefly his own works, “all lying on a shelf or shelves.” +Slight as this sketch is, it puts us more in touch with the immortal +dreamer than many longer and more elaborate paragraphs.</p> +<p>Bunyan’s celebrity as a preacher, great before he was shut +up in gaol, was naturally enhanced by the circumstance of his imprisonment. +The barn in Josias Roughead’s orchard, where he was licensed as +a preacher, was “so thronged the first time he appeared there +to edify, that many were constrained to stay without; every one that +was of his persuasion striving to partake of his instructions.” +Wherever he ministered, sometimes, when troublous days returned, in +woods, and in dells, and other hiding-places, the announcement that +John Bunyan was to preach gathered a large and attentive auditory, hanging +on his lips and drinking from them the word of life. His fame +grew the more he was known and reached its climax when his work was +nearest its end. His biographer Charles Doe tells us that just +before his death, “when Mr. Bunyan preached in London, if there +were but one day’s notice given, there would be more people come +together than the meeting-house could hold. I have seen, by my +computation, about twelve hundred at a morning lecture by seven o’clock +on a working day, in the dark winter time. I also computed about +three thousand that came to hear him one Lord’s Day in London, +at a town’s-end meeting-house, so that half were fain to go back +again for want of room, and then himself was fain at a back door to +be pulled almost over people to get upstairs to his pulpit.” +This “town’s-end meeting house” has been identified +by some with a quaint straggling long building which once stood in Queen +Street, Southwark, of which there is an engraving in Wilkinson’s +“Londina Illustrata.” Doe’s account, however, +probably points to another building, as the Zoar Street meeting-house +was not opened for worship till about six months before Bunyan’s +death, and then for Presbyterian service. Other places in London +connected with his preaching are Pinners’ Hall in Old Broad Street, +where, on one of his occasional visits, he delivered his striking sermon +on “The Greatness of the Soul and the Unspeakableness of the Loss +thereof,” first published in 1683; and Dr. Owen’s meeting-house +in White’s Alley, Moorfields, which was the gathering-place for +titled folk, city merchants, and other Nonconformists of position and +degree. At earlier times, when the penal laws against Nonconformists +were in vigorous exercise, Bunyan had to hold his meetings by stealth +in private houses and other places where he might hope to escape the +lynx-eyed informer. It was at one of these furtive meetings that +his earliest biographer, the honest combmaker at the foot of London +Bridge, Charles Doe, first heard him preach. His choice of an +Old Testament text at first offended Doe, who had lately come into New +Testament light and had had enough of the “historical and doing-for-favour +of the Old Testament.” But as he went on he preached “so +New Testament like” that his hearer’s prejudices vanished, +and he could only “admire, weep for joy, and give the preacher +his affections.”</p> +<p>Bunyan was more than once urged to leave Bedford and settle in the +metropolis. But to all these solicitations he turned a deaf ear. +Bedford was the home of his deepest affections. It was there the +holy words of the poor women “sitting in the sun,” speaking +“as if joy did make them speak,” had first “made his +heart shake,” and shown him that he was still a stranger to vital +godliness. It was there he had been brought out of darkness into +light himself, and there too he had been the means of imparting the +same blessing to others. The very fact of his long imprisonment +had identified him with the town and its inhabitants. There he +had a large and loving congregation, to whom he was bound by the ties +of a common faith and common sufferings. Many of these recognized +in Bunyan their spiritual father; all, save a few “of the baser +sort,” reverenced him as their teacher and guide. No prospect +of a wider field of usefulness, still less of a larger income, could +tempt him to desert his “few sheep in the wilderness.” +Some of them, it is true, were wayward sheep, who wounded the heart +of their pastor by breaking from the fold, and displaying very un-lamb-like +behaviour. He had sometimes to realize painfully that no pale +is so close but that the enemy will creep in somewhere and seduce the +flock; and that no rules of communion, however strict, can effectually +exclude unworthy members. Brother John Stanton had to be admonished +“for abusing his wife and beating her often for very light matters” +(if the matters had been less light, would the beating in these days +have been thought justifiable?); and Sister Mary Foskett, for “privately +whispering of a horrid scandal, ‘without culler of truth,’ +against Brother Honeylove.” Evil-speaking and backbiting +set brother against brother. Dissensions and heartburnings grieved +Bunyan’s spirit. He himself was not always spared. +A letter had to be written to Sister Hawthorn “by way of reproof +for her unseemly language against Brother Scot and the whole Church.” +John Wildman was had up before the Church and convicted of being “an +abominable liar and slanderer,” “extraordinary guilty” +against “our beloved Brother Bunyan himself.” And +though Sister Hawthorn satisfied the Church by “humble acknowledgment +of her miscariag,” the bolder misdoer only made matters worse +by “a frothy letter,” which left no alternative but a sentence +of expulsion. But though Bunyan’s flock contained some whose +fleeces were not as white as he desired, these were the exception. +The congregation meeting in Josias Roughead’s barn must have been, +take them as a whole, a quiet, God-fearing, spiritually-minded folk, +of whom their pastor could think with thankfulness and satisfaction +as “his hope and joy and crown of rejoicing.” From +such he could not be severed lightly. Inducements which would +have been powerful to a meaner nature fell dead on his independent spirit. +He was not “a man that preached by way of bargain for money,” +and, writes Doe, “more than once he refused a more plentiful income +to keep his station.” As Dr. Brown says: “He was too +deeply rooted on the scene of his lifelong labours and sufferings to +think of striking his tent till the command came from the Master to +come up to the higher service for which he had been ripening so long.” +At Bedford, therefore, he remained; quietly staying on in his cottage +in St. Cuthbert’s, and ministering to his humble flock, loving +and beloved, as Mr. Froude writes, “through changes of ministry, +Popish plots, and Monmouth rebellions, while the terror of a restoration +of Popery was bringing on the Revolution; careless of kings and cabinets, +and confident that Giant Pope had lost his power for harm, and thenceforward +could only bite his nails at the passing pilgrims.”</p> +<p>Bunyan’s peace was not, however, altogether undisturbed. +Once it received a shock in a renewal of his imprisonment, though only +for a brief period, in 1675, to which we owe the world-famous “Pilgrim’s +Progress”; and it was again threatened, though not actually disturbed +ten years later, when the renewal of the persecution of the Nonconformists +induced him to make over all his property—little enough in good +sooth—to his wife by deed of gift.</p> +<p>The former of these events demands our attention, not so much for +itself as for its connection with Bishop Barlow’s interference +in Bunyan’s behalf, and, still more, for its results in the production +of “The Pilgrim’s Progress.” Until very recently +the bare fact of this later imprisonment, briefly mentioned by Charles +Doe and another of his early biographers, was all that was known to +us. They even leave the date to be gathered, though both agree +in limiting its duration to six months or thereabouts. The recent +discovery, among the Chauncey papers, by Mr. W. G. Thorpe, of the original +warrant under which Bunyan was at this time sent to gaol, supplies the +missing information. It has been already noticed that the Declaration +of Indulgence, under which Bunyan was liberated in 1672, was very short-lived. +Indeed it barely lasted in force a twelvemonth. Granted on the +15th of March of that year, it was withdrawn on the 9th of March of +the following year, at the instance of the House of Commons, who had +taken alarm at a suspension of the laws of the realm by the “inherent +power” of the sovereign, without the advice or sanction of Parliament. +The Declaration was cancelled by Charles II., the monarch, it is said, +tearing off the Great Seal with his own hands, a subsidy being promised +to the royal spendthrift as a reward for his complaisance. The +same year the Test Act became law. Bunyan therefore and his fellow +Nonconformists were in a position of greater peril, as far as the letter +of the law was concerned, than they had ever been. But, as Dr. +Stoughton has remarked, “the letter of the law is not to be taken +as an accurate index of the Nonconformists’ condition. The +pressure of a bad law depends very much upon the hands employed in its +administration.” Unhappily for Bunyan, the parties in whose +hands the execution of the penal statutes against Nonconformists rested +in Bedfordshire were his bitter personal enemies, who were not likely +to let them lie inactive. The prime mover in the matter was doubtless +Dr. William Foster, that “right Judas” whom we shall remember +holding the candle in Bunyan’s face in the hall of Harlington +House at his first apprehension, and showing such feigned affection +“as if he would have leaped on his neck and kissed him.” +He had some time before this become Chancellor of the Bishop of Lincoln, +and Commissary of the Court of the Archdeacon of Bedford, offices which +put in his hands extensive powers which he had used with the most relentless +severity. He has damned himself to eternal infamy by the bitter +zeal he showed in hunting down Dissenters, inflicting exorbitant fines, +and breaking into their houses and distraining their goods for a full +discharge, maltreating their wives and daughters, and haling the offenders +to prison. Having been chiefly instrumental in Bunyan’s +first committal to gaol, he doubtless viewed his release with indignation +as the leader of the Bedfordshire sectaries who was doing more mischief +to the cause of conformity, which it was his province at all hazards +to maintain, than any other twenty men. The church would never +be safe till he was clapped in prison again. The power to do this +was given by the new proclamation. By this act the licenses to +preach previously granted to Nonconformists were recalled. Henceforward +no conventicle had “any authority, allowance, or encouragement +from his Majesty.” We can easily imagine the delight with +which Foster would hail the issue of this proclamation. How he +would read and read again with ever fresh satisfaction its stringent +clauses. That pestilent fellow, Bunyan, was now once more in his +clutches. This time there was no chance of his escape. All +licences were recalled, and he was absolutely defenceless. It +should not be Foster’s fault if he failed to end his days in the +prison from which he ought never to have been released. The proclamation +is dated the 4th of March, 1674-5, and was published in the <i>Gazette</i> +on the 9th. It would reach Bedford on the 11th. It placed +Bunyan at the mercy of “his enemies, who struck at him forthwith.” +A warrant was issued for his apprehension, undoubtedly written by our +old friend, Paul Cobb, the clerk of the peace, who, it will be remembered, +had acted in the same capacity on Bunyan’s first committal. +It is dated the 4th of March, and bears the signature of no fewer than +thirteen magistrates, ten of them affixing their seals.</p> +<p>That so unusually large a number took part in the execution of this +warrant, is sufficient indication of the importance attached to Bunyan’s +imprisonment by the gentry of the county. The following is the +document:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“To the Constables of Bedford and to every of them</p> +<p>Whereas information and complaint is made unto us that (notwithstanding +the Kings Majties late Act of most gracious generall and free pardon +to all his subjects for past misdemeanours that by his said clemencie +and indulgent grace and favor they might bee mooved and induced for +the time to come more carefully to observe his Highenes lawes and Statutes +and to continue in theire loyall and due obedience to his Majtie) Yett +one John Bunnyon of youre said Towne Tynker hath divers times within +one month last past in contempt of his Majtie’s good Lawes preached +or teached at a Conventicle Meeting or Assembly under color or ptence +of exercise of Religion in other manner than according to the Liturgie +or practiss of the Church of England These are therefore in his +Majties name to comand you forthwith to apprehend and bring the Body +of the said John Bunnion before us or any of us or other his Majties +Justice of Peace within the said County to answer the premisses and +further to doo and receave as to Lawe and Justice shall appertaine and +hereof you are not to faile. Given under our handes and seales +this ffourth day of March in the seven and twentieth yeare of the Raigne +of our most gracious Soveraigne Lord King Charles the Second A +que Dni., juxta &c 1674</p> +<p>J Napier W Beecher +G Blundell Hum: Monoux<br /> +Will ffranklin John Ventris<br /> +Will Spencer<br /> +Will Gery St Jo Chernocke +Wm Daniels<br /> +T Browne W ffoster<br /> +Gaius Squire”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>There would be little delay in the execution of the warrant.</p> +<p>John Bunyan was a marked man and an old offender, who, on his arrest, +would be immediately committed for trial. Once more, then, Bunyan +became a prisoner, and that, there can be little doubt, in his old quarters +in the Bedford gaol. Errors die hard, and those by whom they have +been once accepted find it difficult to give them up. The long-standing +tradition of Bunyan’s twelve years’ imprisonment in the +little lock-up-house on the Ouse bridge, having been scattered to the +winds by the logic of fact and common sense, those to whom the story +is dear, including the latest and ablest of his biographers, Dr. Brown, +see in this second brief imprisonment a way to rehabilitate it. +Probability pointing to this imprisonment as the time of the composition +of “The Pilgrim’s Progress,” they hold that on this +occasion Bunyan was committed to the bridge-gaol, and that he there +wrote his immortal work, though they fail to bring forward any satisfactory +reasons for the change of the place of his confinement. The circumstances, +however, being the same, there can be no reasonable ground for questioning +that, as before, Bunyan was imprisoned in the county gaol.</p> +<p>This last imprisonment of Bunyan’s lasted only half as many +months as his former imprisonment had lasted years. At the end +of six months he was again a free man. His release was due to +the good officers of Owen, Cromwell’s celebrated chaplain, with +Barlow, Bishop of Lincoln. The suspicion which hung over this +intervention from its being erroneously attributed to his release in +1672, three years before Barlow became a bishop, has been dispelled +by the recently discovered warrant. The dates and circumstances +are now found to tally. The warrant for Bunyan’s apprehension +bears date March 4, 1675. On the 14th of the following May the +supple and time-serving Barlow, after long and eager waiting for a mitre, +was elected to the see of Lincoln vacated by the death of Bishop Fuller, +and consecrated on the 27th of June. Barlow, a man of very dubious +churchmanship, who had succeeded in keeping his university appointments +undisturbed all through the Commonwealth, and who was yet among the +first with effusive loyalty to welcome the restoration of monarchy, +had been Owen’s tutor at Oxford, and continued to maintain friendly +relations with him. As bishop of the diocese to which Bedfordshire +then, and long after, belonged, Barlow had the power, by the then existing +law, of releasing a prisoner for nonconformity on a bond given by two +persons that he would conform within half a year. A friend of +Bunyan’s, probably Ichabod Chauncey, obtained a letter from Owen +to the bishop requesting him to employ this prerogative in Bunyan’s +behalf. Barlow with hollow complaisance expressed his particular +kindness for Dr. Owen, and his desire to deny him nothing he could legally +grant. He would even strain a point to serve him. But he +had only just been made a bishop, and what was asked was a new thing +to him. He desired a little time to consider of it. If he +could do it, Owen might be assured of his readiness to oblige him. +A second application at the end of a fortnight found this readiness +much cooled. It was true that on inquiry he found he might do +it; but the times were critical, and he had many enemies. It would +be safer for him not to take the initiative. Let them apply to +the Lord Chancellor, and get him to issue an order for him to release +Bunyan on the customary bond. Then he would do what Owen asked. +It was vain to tell Barlow that the way he suggested was chargeable, +and Bunyan poor. Vain also to remind him that there was no point +to be strained. He had satisfied himself that he might do the +thing legally. It was hoped he would remember his promise. +But the bishop would not budge from the position he had taken up. +They had his ultimatum; with that they must be content. If Bunyan +was to be liberated, his friends must accept Barlow’s terms. +“This at last was done, and the poor man was released. But +little thanks to the bishop.”</p> +<p>This short six months’ imprisonment assumes additional importance +from the probability, first suggested by Dr. Brown, which the recovery +of its date renders almost a certainty, that it was during this period +that Bunyan began, if he did not complete, the first part of “The +Pilgrim’s Progress.” We know from Bunyan’s own +words that the book was begun in gaol, and its composition has been +hitherto unhesitatingly assigned to his twelve years’ confinement. +Dr. Brown was, we believe, the first to call this in question. +Bunyan’s imprisonment, we know, ended in 1672. The first +edition of “The Pilgrim’s Progress” did not appear +till 1678. If written during his earlier imprisonment, six years +must have elapsed between its writing and its publication. But +it was not Bunyan’s way to keep his works in manuscript so long +after their completion. His books were commonly put in the printers’ +hands as soon as they were finished. There are no sufficient reasons—though +some have been suggested—for his making an exception to this general +habit in the case of “The Pilgrim’s Progress.” +Besides we should certainly conclude, from the poetical introduction, +that there was little delay between the finishing of the book and its +being given to the world. After having written the book, he tells +us, simply to gratify himself, spending only “vacant seasons” +in his “scribble,” to “divert” himself “from +worser thoughts,” he showed it to his friends to get their opinion +whether it should be published or not. But as they were not all +of one mind, but some counselled one thing and some another, after some +perplexity, he took the matter into his own hands.</p> +<blockquote><p>“Now was I in a strait, and did not see<br /> +Which was the best thing to be done by me;<br /> +At last I thought, Since you are so divided,<br /> +I print it will, and so the case decided.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>We must agree with Dr. Brown that “there is a briskness about +this which, to say the least, is not suggestive of a six years’ +interval before publication.” The break which occurs in +the narrative after the visit of the Pilgrims to the Delectable Mountains, +which so unnecessarily interrupts the course of the story—“So +I awoke from my dream; and I slept and dreamed again”—has +been not unreasonably thought by Dr. Brown to indicate the point Bunyan +had reached when his six months’ imprisonment ended, and from +which he continued the book after his release.</p> +<p>The First Part of “The Pilgrim’s Progress” issued +from the press in 1678. A second edition followed in the same +year, and a third with large and important additions in 1679. +The Second Part, after an interval of seven years, followed early in +1685. Between the two parts appeared two of his most celebrated +works—the “Life and Death of Mr. Badman,” published +in 1680, originally intended to supply a contrast and a foil to “The +Pilgrim’s Progress,” by depicting a life which was scandalously +bad; and, in 1682, that which Macaulay, with perhaps exaggerated eulogy, +has said, “would have been our greatest allegory if the earlier +allegory had never been written,” the “Holy War made by +Shaddai upon Diabolus.” Superior to “The Pilgrim’s +Progress” as a literary composition, this last work must be pronounced +decidedly inferior to it in attractive power. For one who reads +the “Holy War,” five hundred read the “Pilgrim.” +And those who read it once return to it again and again, with ever fresh +delight. It is a book that never tires. One or two perusals +of the “Holy War” satisfy: and even these are not without +weariness. As Mr. Froude has said, “The ‘Holy War’ +would have entitled Bunyan to a place among the masters of English literature. +It would never have made his name a household word in every English-speaking +family on the globe.”</p> +<p>Leaving the further notice of these and his other chief literary +productions to another chapter, there is little more to record in Bunyan’s +life. Though never again seriously troubled for his nonconformity, +his preaching journeys were not always without risk. There is +a tradition that when he visited Reading to preach, he disguised himself +as a waggoner carrying a long whip in his hand to escape detection. +The name of “Bunyan’s Dell,” in a wood not very far +from Hitchin, tells of the time when he and his hearers had to conceal +their meetings from their enemies’ quest, with scouts planted +on every side to warn them of the approach of the spies and informers, +who for reward were actively plying their odious trade. Reference +has already been made to Bunyan’s “deed of gift” of +all that he possessed in the world—his “goods, chattels, +debts, ready money, plate, rings, household stuff, apparel, utensils, +brass, pewter, bedding, and all other his substance whatsoever—to +his well-beloved wife Elizabeth Bunyan.” Towards the close +of the first year of James the Second, 1685, the apprehensions under +which Bunyan executed this document were far from groundless. +At no time did the persecution of Nonconformists rage with greater fierceness. +Never, not even under the tyranny of Laud, as Lord Macaulay records +had the condition of the Puritans been so deplorable. Never had +spies been so actively employed in detecting congregations. Never +had magistrates, grand-jurors, rectors, and churchwardens been so much +on the alert. Many Nonconformists were cited before the ecclesiastical +courts. Others found it necessary to purchase the connivance of +the agents of the Government by bribes. It was impossible for +the sectaries to pray together without precautions such as are employed +by coiners and receivers of stolen goods. Dissenting ministers, +however blameless in life, however eminent in learning, could not venture +to walk the streets for fear of outrages which were not only not repressed, +but encouraged by those whose duty it was to preserve the peace. +Richard Baxter was in prison. Howe was afraid to show himself +in London for fear of insult, and had been driven to Utrecht. +Not a few who up to that time had borne up boldly lost heart and fled +the kingdom. Other weaker spirits were terrified into a show of +conformity. Through many subsequent years the autumn of 1685 was +remembered as a time of misery and terror. There is, however, +no indication of Bunyan having been molested. The “deed +of gift” by which he sought to avoid the confiscation of his goods +was never called into exercise. Indeed its very existence was +forgotten by his wife in whose behalf it had been executed. Hidden +away in a recess in his house in St. Cuthbert’s, this interesting +document was accidentally discovered at the beginning of the present +century, and is preserved among the most valued treasures of the congregation +which bears his name.</p> +<p>Quieter times for Nonconformists were however at hand. Active +persecution was soon to cease for them, and happily never to be renewed +in England. The autumn of 1685 showed the first indications of +a great turn of fortune, and before eighteen months had elapsed, the +intolerant king and the intolerant Church were eagerly bidding against +each other for the support of the party which both had so deeply injured. +A new form of trial now awaited the Nonconformists. Peril to their +personal liberty was succeeded by a still greater peril to their honesty +and consistency of spirit. James the Second, despairing of employing +the Tories and the Churchmen as his tools, turned, as his brother had +turned before him, to the Dissenters. The snare was craftily baited +with a Declaration of Indulgence, by which the king, by his sole authority, +annulled a long series of statutes and suspended all penal laws against +Nonconformists of every sort. These lately political Pariahs now +held the balance of power. The future fortunes of England depended +mainly on the course they would adopt. James was resolved to convert +the House of Commons from a free deliberative assembly into a body subservient +to his wishes, and ready to give parliamentary sanction to any edict +he might issue. To obtain this end the electors must be manipulated. +Leaving the county constituencies to be dealt with by the lords-lieutenants, +half of whom preferred dismissal to carrying out the odious service +peremptorily demanded of them, James’s next concern was to “regulate” +the Corporations. In those days of narrowly restricted franchise, +the municipalities virtually returned the town members. To obtain +an obedient parliament, he must secure a roll of electors pledged to +return the royal nominees. A committee of seven privy councillors, +all Roman Catholics but the infamous Jeffreys, presided over the business, +with local sub-committees scattered over the country to carry out the +details. Bedford was dealt with in its turn. Under James’s +policy of courting the Puritans, the leading Dissenters were the first +persons to be approached. Two are specially named, a Mr. Margetts, +formerly Judge-Advocate-General of the Army under General Monk, and +John Bunyan. It is no matter of surprise that Bunyan, who had +been so severe a sufferer under the old penal statutes, should desire +their abrogation, and express his readiness to “steer his friends +and followers” to support candidates who would pledge themselves +to vote for their repeal. But no further would he go. The +Bedford Corporation was “regulated,” which means that nearly +the whole of its members were removed and others substituted by royal +order. Of these new members some six or seven were leading persons +of Bunyan’s congregation. But, with all his ardent desire +for religious liberty, Bunyan was too keen-witted not to see through +James’s policy, and too honest to give it any direct insidious +support. “In vain is the net spread in the sight of any +bird.” He clearly saw that it was not for any love of the +Dissenters that they were so suddenly delivered from their persecutions, +and placed on a kind of equality with the Church. The king’s +object was the establishment of Popery. To this the Church was +the chief obstacle. That must be undermined and subverted first. +That done, all other religious denominations would follow. All +that the Nonconformists would gain by yielding, was the favour Polyphemus +promised Ulysses, to be devoured last. Zealous as he was for the +“liberty of prophesying,” even that might be purchased at +too high a price. The boon offered by the king was “good +in itself,” but not “so intended.” So, as his +biographer describes, when the regulators came, “he expressed +his zeal with some weariness as perceiving the bad consequences that +would ensue, and laboured with his congregation” to prevent their +being imposed on by the fair promises of those who were at heart the +bitterest enemies of the cause they professed to advocate. The +newly-modelled corporation of Bedford seems like the other corporations +through the country, to have proved as unmanageable as the old. +As Macaulay says, “The sectaries who had declared in favour of +the Indulgence had become generally ashamed of their error, and were +desirous to make atonement.” Not knowing the man they had +to deal with, the “regulators” are said to have endeavoured +to buy Bunyan’s support by the offer of some place under government. +The bribe was indignantly rejected. Bunyan even refused to see +the government agent who offered it,—“he would, by no means +come to him, but sent his excuse.” Behind the treacherous +sunshine he saw a black cloud, ready to break. The Ninevites’ +remedy he felt was now called for. So he gathered his congregation +together and appointed a day of fasting and prayer to avert the danger +that, under a specious pretext, again menaced their civil and religious +liberties. A true, sturdy Englishman, Bunyan, with Baxter and +Howe, “refused an indulgence which could only be purchased by +the violent overthrow of the law.”</p> +<p>Bunyan did not live to see the Revolution. Four months after +he had witnessed the delirious joy which hailed the acquittal of the +seven bishops, the Pilgrim’s earthly Progress ended, and he was +bidden to cross the dark river which has no bridge. The summons +came to him in the very midst of his religious activity, both as a preacher +and as a writer. His pen had never been more busy than when he +was bidden to lay it down finally. Early in 1688, after a two +years’ silence, attributable perhaps to the political troubles +of the times, his “Jerusalem Sinner Saved, or a Help to Despairing +Souls,” one of the best known and most powerfully characteristic +of his works, had issued from the press, and had been followed by four +others between March and August, the month of his death. These +books were, “The Work of Jesus Christ as an Advocate;” a +poetical composition entitled “The Building, Nature, and Excellency +of the House of God,” a discourse on the constitution and government +of the Christian Church; the “Water of Life,” and “Solomon’s +Temple Spiritualized.” At the time of his death he was occupied +in seeing through the press a sixth book, “The Acceptable Sacrifice,” +which was published after his funeral. In addition to these, Bunyan +left behind him no fewer than fourteen works in manuscript, written +at this time, as the fruit of his fertile imagination and untiring pen. +Ten of these were given to the world soon after Bunyan’s death, +by one of Bunyan’s most devoted followers, Charles Doe, the combmaker +of London Bridge (who naively tells us how one day between the stairhead +and the middle of the stairs, he resolved that the best work he could +do for God was to get Bunyan’s books printed and sell them—adding, +“I have sold about 3,000”), and others, a few years later, +including one of the raciest of his compositions, “The Heavenly +Footman,” bought by Doe of Bunyan’s eldest son, and, he +says, “put into the World in Print Word for Word as it came from +him to Me.”</p> +<p>At the time that death surprised him, Bunyan had gained no small +celebrity in London as a popular preacher, and approached the nearest +to a position of worldly honour. Though we must probably reject +the idea that he ever filled the office of Chaplain to the Lord Mayor +of London, Sir John Shorter, the fact that he is styled “his Lordship’s +teacher” proves that there was some relation more than that of +simple friendship between the chief magistrate and the Bedford minister. +But the society of the great was never congenial to him. If they +were godly as well as great, he would not shrink from intercourse, with +those of a rank above his own, but his heart was with his own humble +folk at Bedford. Worldly advancement he rejected for his family +as well as for himself. A London merchant, it is said, offered +to take his son Joseph into his house of business without the customary +premium. But the offer was declined with what we may consider +an overstrained independence. “God,” he said, “did +not send me to advance my family but to preach the gospel.” +“An instance of other-worldliness,” writes Dr. Brown, “perhaps +more consistent with the honour of the father than with the prosperity +of the son.”</p> +<p>Bunyan’s end was in keeping with his life. He had ever +sought to be a peacemaker and to reconcile differences, and thus had +“hindered many mishaps and saved many families from ruin.” +His last effort of the kind caused his death. The father of a +young man in whom he took an interest, had resolved, on some offence, +real or supposed, to disinherit his son. The young man sought +Bunyan’s mediation. Anxious to heal the breach, Bunyan mounted +his horse and took the long journey to the father’s house at Reading—the +scene, as we have noticed, of his occasional ministrations—where +he pleaded the offender’s cause so effectually as to obtain a +promise of forgiveness. Bunyan returned homewards through London, +where he was appointed to preach at Mr. Gamman’s meeting-house +near Whitechapel. His forty miles’ ride to London was through +heavy driving rain. He was weary and drenched to the skin when +he reached the house of his “very loving friend,” John Strudwick, +grocer and chandler, at the sign of the Star, Holborn Bridge, at the +foot of Snow Hill, and deacon of the Nonconformist meeting in Red Cross +Street. A few months before Bunyan had suffered from the sweating +sickness. The exposure caused a return of the malady, and though +well enough to fulfil his pulpit engagement on Sunday, the 19th of August, +on the following Tuesday dangerous symptoms declared themselves, and +in ten days the disease proved fatal. He died within two months +of completing his sixtieth year, on the 31st of August, 1688, just a +month before the publication of the Declaration of the Prince of Orange +opened a new era of civil and religious liberty, and between two and +three months before the Prince’s landing in Torbay. He was +buried in Mr. Strudwick’s newly-purchased vault, in what Southey +has termed the Campo Santo of Nonconformists, the burial-ground in Finsbury, +taking its name of Bunhill or Bonehill Field, from a vast mass of human +remains removed to it from the charnel house of St. Paul’s Cathedral +in 1549. At a later period it served as a place of interment for +those who died in the Great Plague of 1665. The day after Bunyan’s +funeral, his powerful friend, Sir John Shorter, the Lord Mayor, had +a fatal fall from his horse in Smithfield, and “followed him across +the river.”</p> +<p>By his first wife, whose Christian name is nowhere recorded, Bunyan +had four children—two sons and two daughters; and by his second +wife, the heroic Elizabeth, one son and one daughter. All of these +survived him except his eldest daughter Mary, his tenderly-loved blind +child, who died before him. His wife only survived him for a brief +period, “following her faithful pilgrim from this world to the +other whither he was gone before her” either in 1691 or 1692. +Forgetful of the “deed of gift,” or ignorant of its bearing, +Bunyan’s widow took out letters of administration of her late +husband’s estate, which appears from the Register Book to have +amounted to no more than, £42 19s. On this, and the proceeds +of his books, she supported herself till she rejoined him.</p> +<p>Bunyan’s character and person are thus described by Charles +Doe: “He appeared in countenance to be of a stern and rough temper. +But in his conversation he was mild and affable, not given to loquacity +or much discourse in company, unless some urgent occasion required it. +Observing never to boast of himself or his parts, but rather to seem +low in his own eyes and submit himself to the judgment of others. +Abhorring lying and swearing, being just, in all that lay in his power, +to his word. Not seeming to revenge injuries; loving to reconcile +differences and make friendship with all. He had a sharp, quick +eye, with an excellent discerning of persons, being of good judgment +and quick wit. He was tall of stature, strong-boned, though not +corpulent; somewhat of a ruddy face, with sparkling eyes, wearing his +hair on his upper lip after the old British fashion. His hair +reddish, but in his later days time had sprinkled it with grey. +His nose well set, but not declining or bending. His mouth moderately +large, his forehead something high, and his habit always plain and modest. +Not puffed up in prosperity, nor shaken in adversity, always holding +the golden mean.”</p> +<p>We may add the portrait drawn by one who had been his companion and +fellow-sufferer for many years, John Nelson: “His countenance +was grave and sedate, and did so to the life discover the inward frame +of his heart, that it was convincing to the beholders and did strike +something of awe into them that had nothing of the fear of God.”</p> +<p>The same friend speaks thus of Bunyan’s preaching: “As +a minister of Christ he was laborious in his work of preaching, diligent +in his preparation for it, and faithful in dispensing the Word, not +sparing reproof whether in the pulpit or no, yet ready to succour the +tempted; a son of consolation to the broken-hearted, yet a son of thunder +to secure and dead sinners. His memory was tenacious, it being +customary with him to commit his sermons to writing after he had preached +them. A rich anointing of the Spirit was upon him, yet this great +saint was always in his own eyes the chiefest of sinners and the least +of saints.”</p> +<p>An anecdote is told which, Southey says, “authenticates itself,” +that one day when he had preached “with peculiar warmth and enlargement,” +one of his hearers remarked “what a sweet sermon he had delivered.” +“Ay,” was Bunyan’s reply, “you have no need +to tell me that, for the devil whispered it to me before I was well +out of the pulpit.” As an evidence of the estimation in +which Bunyan was held by the highly-educated, it is recorded that Charles +the Second expressed his surprise to Dr. Owen that “a learned +man such as he could sit and listen to an illiterate tinker.” +“May it please your Majesty,” Owen replied. “I +would gladly give up all my learning if I could preach like that tinker.”</p> +<p>Although much of Bunyan’s literary activity was devoted to +controversy, he had none of the narrowness or bitter spirit of a controversialist. +It is true that his zeal for what he deemed to be truth led him into +vehemence of language in dealing with those whom he regarded as its +perverters. But this intensity of speech was coupled with the +utmost charity of spirit towards those who differed from him. +Few ever had less of the sectarian temper which lays greater stress +on the infinitely small points on which all true Christians differ than +on the infinitely great truths on which they are agreed. Bunyan +inherited from his spiritual father, John Gifford, a truly catholic +spirit. External differences he regarded as insignificant where +he found real Christian faith and love. “I would be,” +he writes, “as I hope I am, a Christian. But for those factious +titles of Anabaptist, Independent, Presbyterian, and the like, I conclude +that they come neither from Jerusalem nor from Antioch, but from Hell +or from Babylon.” “He was,” writes one of his +early biographers, “a true lover of all that love our Lord Jesus, +and did often bewail the different and distinguishing appellations that +are among the godly, saying he did believe a time would come when they +should be all buried.” The only persons he scrupled to hold +communion with were those whose lives were openly immoral. “Divisions +about non-essentials,” he said, “were to churches what wars +were to countries. Those who talked most about religion cared +least for it; and controversies about doubtful things and things of +little moment, ate up all zeal for things which were practical and indisputable.” +His last sermon breathed the same catholic spirit, free from the trammels +of narrow sectarianism. “If you are the children of God +live together lovingly. If the world quarrel with you it is no +matter; but it is sad if you quarrel together. If this be among +you it is a sign of ill-breeding. Dost thou see a soul that has +the image of God in him? Love him, love him. Say, ‘This +man and I must go to heaven one day.’ Serve one another. +Do good for one another. If any wrong you pray to God to right +you, and love the brotherhood.” The closing words of this +his final testimony are such as deserve to be written in letters of +gold as the sum of all true Christian teaching: “Be ye holy in +all manner of conversation: Consider that the holy God is your Father, +and let this oblige you to live like the children of God, that you may +look your Father in the face with comfort another day.” +“There is,” writes Dean Stanley, “no compromise in +his words, no faltering in his convictions; but his love and admiration +are reserved on the whole for that which all good men love, and his +detestation on the whole is reserved for that which all good men detest.” +By the catholic spirit which breathes through his writings, especially +through “The Pilgrim’s Progress,” the tinker of Elstow +“has become the teacher not of any particular sect, but of the +Universal Church.”</p> +<h2>CHAPTER IX.</h2> +<p>We have, in this concluding chapter, to take a review of Bunyan’s +merits as a writer, with especial reference to the works on which his +fame mainly rests, and, above all, to that which has given him his chief +title to be included in a series of Great Writers, “The Pilgrim’s +Progress.” Bunyan, as we have seen, was a very copious author. +His works, as collected by the late industrious Mr. Offor, fill three +bulky quarto volumes, each of nearly eight hundred double-columned pages +in small type. And this copiousness of production is combined +with a general excellence in the matter produced. While few of +his books approach the high standard of “The Pilgrim’s Progress” +or “Holy War,” none, it may be truly said, sink very far +below that standard. It may indeed be affirmed that it was impossible +for Bunyan to write badly. His genius was a native genius. +As soon as he began to write at all, he wrote well. Without any +training, is he says, in the school of Aristotle or Plato, or any study +of the great masters of literature, at one bound he leapt to a high +level of thought and composition. His earliest book, “Some +Gospel Truths Opened,” “thrown off,” writes Dr. Brown, +“at a heat,” displays the same ease of style and directness +of speech and absence of stilted phraseology which he maintained to +the end. The great charm which pervades all Bunyan’s writings +is their naturalness. You never feel that he is writing for effect, +still less to perform an uncongenial piece of task-work. He writes +because he had something to say which was worth saying, a message to +deliver on which the highest interests of others were at stake, which +demanded nothing more than a straightforward earnestness and plainness +of speech, such as coming from the heart might best reach the hearts +of others. He wrote as he spoke, because a necessity was laid +upon him which he dared not evade. As he says in a passage quoted +in a former chapter, he might have stepped into a much higher style, +and have employed more literary ornament. But to attempt this +would be, to one of his intense earnestness, to degrade his calling. +He dared not do it. Like the great Apostle, “his speech +and preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but +in demonstration of the Spirit and in power.” God had not +played with him, and he dared not play with others. His errand +was much too serious, and their need and danger too urgent to waste +time in tricking out his words with human skill. And it is just +this which, with all their rudeness, their occasional bad grammar, and +homely colloquialisms, gives to Bunyan’s writings a power of riveting +the attention and stirring the affections which few writers have attained +to. The pent-up fire glows in every line, and kindles the hearts +of his readers. “Beautiful images, vivid expressions, forcible +arguments all aglow with passion, tender pleadings, solemn warnings, +make those who read him all eye, all ear, all soul.” This +native vigour is attributable, in no small degree, to the manner in +which for the most part Bunyan’s works came into being. +He did not set himself to compose theological treatises upon stated +subjects, but after he had preached with satisfaction to himself and +acceptance with his audience, he usually wrote out the substance of +his discourse from memory, with the enlargements and additions it might +seem to require. And thus his religious works have all the glow +and fervour of the unwritten utterances of a practised orator, united +with the orderliness and precision of a theologian, and are no less +admirable for the excellence of their arrangement than for their evangelical +spirit and scriptural doctrine. Originally meant to be heard, +they lose somewhat by being read. But few can read them without +being delighted with the opulence of his imagination and impressed with +the solemn earnestness of his convictions. Like the subject of +the portrait described by him in the House of the Interpreter, he stands +“like one who pleads with men, the law of truth written upon his +lips, the world behind his back, and a crown of gold above his head.”</p> +<p>These characteristics, which distinguish Bunyan as a writer from +most of his Puritan contemporaries, are most conspicuous in the works +by which he is chiefly known, “The Pilgrim’s Progress,” +the “Holy War,” the “Grace Abounding,” and we +may add, though from the repulsiveness of the subject the book is now +scarcely read at all, the “Life and Death of Mr. Badman.”</p> +<p>One great charm of these works, especially of “The Pilgrim’s +Progress,” lies in the pure Saxon English in which they are written, +which render them models of the English speech, plain but never vulgar, +homely but never coarse, and still less unclean, full of imagery but +never obscure, always intelligible, always forcible, going straight +to the point in the fewest and simplest words; “powerful and picturesque,” +writes Hallam, “from concise simplicity.” Bunyan’s +style is recommended by Lord Macaulay as an invaluable study to every +person who wishes to gain a wide command over his mother tongue. +Its vocabulary is the vocabulary of the common people. “There +is not,” he truly says, “in ‘The Pilgrim’s Progress’ +a single expression, if we except a few technical terms of theology, +that would puzzle the rudest peasant.” We may, look through +whole pages, and not find a word of more than two syllables. Nor +is the source of this pellucid clearness and imaginative power far to +seek. Bunyan was essentially a man of one book, and that book +the very best, not only for its spiritual teaching but for the purity +of its style, the English Bible. “In no book,” writes +Mr. J. R. Green, “do we see more clearly than in ‘The Pilgrim’s +Progress’ the new imaginative force which had been given to the +common life of Englishmen by their study of the Bible. Bunyan’s +English is the simplest and homeliest English that has ever been used +by any great English writer, but it is the English of the Bible. +His images are the images of prophet and evangelist. So completely +had the Bible become Bunyan’s life that one feels its phrases +as the natural expression of his thoughts. He had lived in the +Bible till its words became his own.”</p> +<p>All who have undertaken to take an estimate of Bunyan’s literary +genius call special attention to the richness of his imaginative power. +Few writers indeed have possessed this power in so high a degree. +In nothing, perhaps, is its vividness more displayed than in the reality +of its impersonations. The <i>dramatis persons</i> are not shadowy +abstractions, moving far above us in a mystical world, or lay figures +ticketed with certain names, but solid men and women of our own flesh +and blood, living in our own everyday world, and of like passions with +ourselves. Many of them we know familiarly; there is hardly one +we should be surprised to meet any day. This lifelike power of +characterization belongs in the highest degree to “The Pilgrim’s +Progress.” It is hardly inferior in “The Holy War,” +though with some exceptions the people of “Mansoul” have +failed to engrave themselves on the popular memory as the characters +of the earlier allegory have done. The secret of this graphic +power, which gives “The Pilgrim’s Progress” its universal +popularity, is that Bunyan describes men and women of his own day, such +as he had known and seen them. They are not fancy pictures, but +literal portraits. Though the features may be exaggerated, and +the colours laid on with an unsparing brush, the outlines of his bold +personifications are truthfully drawn from his own experience. +He had had to do with every one of them. He could have given a +personal name to most of them, and we could do the same to many. +We are not unacquainted with Mr Byends of the town of Fair Speech, who +“always has the luck to jump in his judgment with the way of the +times, and to get thereby,” who is zealous for Religion “when +he goes in his silver slippers,” and “loves to walk with +him in the streets when the sun shines and the people applaud him.” +All his kindred and surroundings are only too familiar to us—his +wife, that very virtuous woman my Lady Feigning’s daughter, my +Lord Fair-speech, my Lord Time-server, Mr. Facingbothways, Mr. Anything, +and the Parson of the Parish, his mother’s own brother by the +father’s side, Mr. Twotongues. Nor is his schoolmaster, +one Mr. Gripeman, of the market town of Lovegain, in the county of Coveting, +a stranger to us. Obstinate, with his dogged determination and +stubborn common-sense, and Pliable with his shallow impressionableness, +are among our acquaintances. We have, before now, come across +“the brisk lad Ignorance from the town of Conceit,” and +have made acquaintance with Mercy’s would-be suitor, Mr. Brisk, +“a man of some breeding and that pretended to religion, but who +stuck very close to the world.” The man Temporary who lived +in a town two miles off from Honesty, and next door to Mr. Turnback; +Formalist and Hypocrisy, who were “from the land of Vainglory, +and were going for praise to Mount Sion”; Simple, Sloth, and Presumption, +“fast asleep by the roadside with fetters on their heels,” +and their companions, Shortwind, Noheart, Lingerafterlust, and Sleepyhead, +we know them all. “The young woman whose name was Dull” +taxes our patience every day. Where is the town which does not +contain Mrs. Timorous and her coterie of gossips, Mrs. Bats-eyes, Mrs. +Inconsiderate, Mrs. Lightmind, and Mrs. Knownothing, “all as merry +as the maids,” with that pretty fellow Mr. Lechery at the house +of Madam Wanton, that “admirably well-bred gentlewoman”? +Where shall we find more lifelike portraits than those of Madam Bubble, +a “tall, comely dame, somewhat of a swarthy complexion, speaking +very smoothly with a smile at the end of each sentence, wearing a great +purse by her side, with her hand often in it, fingering her money as +if that was her chief delight;” of poor Feeblemind of the town +of Uncertain, with his “whitely look, the cast in his eye, and +his trembling speech;” of Littlefaith, as “white as a clout,” +neither able to fight nor fly when the thieves from Dead Man’s +Lane were on him; of Ready-to-halt, at first coming along on his crutches, +and then when Giant Despair had been slain and Doubting Castle demolished, +taking Despondency’s daughter Much-afraid by the hand and dancing +with her in the road? “True, he could not dance without +one crutch in his hand, but I promise you he footed it well. Also +the girl was to be commanded, for she answered the musick handsomely.” +In Bunyan’s pictures there is never a superfluous detail. +Every stroke tells, and helps to the completeness of the portraiture.</p> +<p>The same reality characterizes the descriptive part of “The +Pilgrim’s Progress.” As his characters are such as +he must meet with every day in his native town, so also the scenery +and surroundings of his allegory are part of his own everyday life, +and reproduce what he had been brought up amidst in his native county, +or had noticed in his tinker’s wanderings. “Born and +bred,” writes Kingsley, “in the monotonous Midland, he had +no natural images beyond the pastures and brooks, the town and country +houses, he saw about him.” The Slough of Despond, with its +treacherous quagmire in the midst of the plain, into which a wayfarer +might heedlessly fall, with its stepping-stones half drowned in mire; +Byepathmeadow, promising so fair, with its stile and footpath on the +other side of the fence; the pleasant river fringed with meadows, green +all the year long and overshadowed with trees; the thicket all overgrown +with briars and thorns, where one tumbled over a bush, another stuck +fast in the dirt, some lost their shoes in the mire, and others were +fastened from behind with the brambles; the high wall by the roadside +over which the fruit trees shot their boughs and tempted the boys with +their unripe plums; the arbour with its settle tempting the footsore +traveller to drowsiness; the refreshing spring at the bottom of Hill +Difficulty; all are evidently drawn from his own experience. Bunyan, +in his long tramps, had seen them all. He had known what it was +to be in danger of falling into a pit and being dashed to pieces with +Vain Confidence, of being drowned in the flooded meadows with Christian +and Hopeful; of sinking in deep water when swimming over a river, going +down and rising up half dead, and needing all his companion’s +strength and skill to keep his head above the stream. Vanity Fair +is evidently drawn from the life. The great yearly fair of Stourbridge, +close to Cambridge, which Bunyan had probably often visited in his tinker +days, with its streets of booths filled with “wares of all kinds +from all countries,” its “shows, jugglings, cheats games, +plays, fools, apes, knaves, and rogues, and that of every kind,” +its “great one of the fair,” its court of justice and power +of judgment, furnished him with the materials for his picture. +Scenes like these he draws with sharp defined outlines. When he +had to describe what he only knew by hearsay, his pictures are shadowy +and cold. Never having been very far from home, he had had no +experience of the higher types of beauty and grandeur in nature, and +his pen moves in fetters when he attempts to describe them. When +his pilgrims come to the Hill Difficulty and the Delectable Mountains, +the difference is at once seen. All his nobler imagery is drawn +from Scripture. As Hallam has remarked, “There is scarcely +a circumstance or metaphor in the Old Testament which does not find +a place bodily and literally in ‘The Pilgrim’s Progress,’ +and this has made his imagination appear more creative than it really +is.”</p> +<p>It would but weary the reader to follow the details of a narrative +which is so universally known. Who needs to be told that in the +pilgrimage here described is represented in allegorical dress the course +of a human soul convinced of sin, struggling onwards to salvation through +the trials and temptations that beset its path to its eternal home? +The book is so completely wrought into the mind and memory, that most +of us can at once recall the incidents which chequer the pilgrim’s +way, and realize their meaning; the Slough of Despond, in which the +man convinced of his guilt and fleeing from the wrath to come, in his +agonizing self-consciousness is in danger of being swallowed up in despair; +the Wicket Gate, by which he enters on the strait and narrow way of +holiness; the Interpreter’s House, with his visions and acted +parables; the Wayside Cross, at the sight of which the burden of guilt +falls from the pilgrim’s back, and he is clothed with change of +raiment; the Hill Difficulty, which stands right in his way, and which +he must surmount, not circumvent; the lions which he has to pass, not +knowing that they are chained; the Palace Beautiful, where he is admitted +to the communion of the faithful, and sits down to meat with them; the +Valley of Humiliation, the scene of his desperate but victorious encounter +with Apollyon; the Valley of the Shadow of Death, with its evil sights +and doleful sounds, where one of the wicked ones whispers into his ear +thoughts of blasphemy which he cannot distinguish from the suggestions +of his own mind; the cave at the valley’s mouth, in which, Giant +Pagan having been dead this many a day, his brother, Giant Pope, now +sits alone, grinning at pilgrims as they pass by, and biting his nails +because he cannot get at them; Vanity Fair, the picture of the world, +as St. John describes it, hating the light that puts to shame its own +self-chosen darkness, and putting it out if it can, where the Pilgrim’s +fellow, Faithful, seals his testimony with his death, and the Pilgrim +himself barely escapes; the “delicate plain” called Ease, +and the little hill, Lucre, where Demas stood “gentlemanlike,” +to invite the passersby to come and dig in his silver mine; Byepath +Meadow, into which the Pilgrim and his newly-found companion stray, +and are made prisoners by Giant Despair and shut up in the dungeons +of Doubting Castle, and break out of prison by the help of the Key of +Promise; the Delectable Mountains in Immanuel’s Land, with their +friendly shepherds and the cheering prospect of the far-off heavenly +city; the Enchanted Land, with its temptations to spiritual drowsiness +at the very end of the journey; the Land of Beulah, the ante-chamber +of the city to which they were bound; and, last stage of all, the deep +dark river, without a bridge, which had to be crossed before the city +was entered; the entrance into its heavenly gates, the pilgrim’s +joyous reception with all the bells in the city ringing again for joy; +the Dreamer’s glimpse of its glories through the opened portals—is +not every stage of the journey, every scene of the pilgrimage, indelibly +printed on our memories, for our warning, our instruction, our encouragement +in the race we, as much as they, have each one to run? Have we +not all, again and again, shared the Dreamer’s feelings—“After +that they shut up the Gates; which, when I had seen, I wished myself +among them,” and prayed, God helping us, that our “dangerous +journey”—ever the most dangerous when we see its dangers +the least—might end in our “safe arrival at the desired +country”?</p> +<p>“The Pilgrim’s Progress” exhibits Bunyan in the +character by which he would have most desired to be remembered, as one +of the most influential of Christian preachers. Hallam, however, +claims for him another distinction which would have greatly startled +and probably shocked him, as the father of our English novelists. +As an allegorist Bunyan had many predecessors, not a few of whom, dating +from early times, had taken the natural allegory of the pilgrimage of +human life as the basis of their works. But as a novelist he had +no one to show him the way. Bunyan was the first to break ground +in a field which has since then been so overabundantly worked that the +soil has almost lost its productiveness; while few novels written purely +with the object of entertainment have ever proved so universally entertaining. +Intensely religious as it is in purpose, “The Pilgrim’s +Progress” may be safely styled the first English novel. +“The claim to be the father of English romance,” writes +Dr. Allon, “which has been sometimes preferred for Defoe, really +pertains to Bunyan. Defoe may claim the parentage of a species, +but Bunyan is the creator of the genus.” As the parent of +fictitious biography it is that Bunyan has charmed the world. +On its vivid interest as a story, its universal interest and lasting +vitality rest. “Other allegorises,” writes Lord Macaulay, +“have shown great ingenuity, but no other allegorist has ever +been able to touch the heart, and to make its abstractions objects of +terror, of pity, and of love.” Whatever its deficiencies, +literary and religious, may be; if we find incongruities in the narrative, +and are not insensible to some grave theological deficiencies; if we +are unable without qualification to accept Coleridge’s dictum +that it is “incomparably the best ‘Summa Theologiæ +Evangelicæ’ ever produced by a writer not miraculously inspired;” +even if, with Hallam, we consider its “excellencies great indeed, +but not of the highest order,” and deem it “a little over-praised,” +the fact of its universal popularity with readers of all classes and +of all orders of intellect remains, and gives this book a unique distinction. +“I have,” says Dr. Arnold, when reading it after a long +interval, “always been struck by its piety. I am now struck +equally or even more by its profound wisdom. It seems to be a +complete reflexion of Scripture.” And to turn to a critic +of very different character, Dean Swift: “I have been better entertained +and more improved,” writes that cynical pessimist, “by a +few pages of this book than by a long discourse on the will and intellect.” +The favourite of our childhood, as “the most perfect and complex +of fairy tales, so human and intelligible,” read, as Hallam says, +“at an age when the spiritual meaning is either little perceived +or little regarded,” the “Pilgrim’s Progress” +becomes the chosen companion of our later years, perused with ever fresh +appreciation of its teaching, and enjoyment of its native genius; “the +interpreter of life to all who are perplexed with its problems, and +the practical guide and solace of all who need counsel and sympathy.”</p> +<p>The secret of this universal acceptableness of “The Pilgrim’s +Progress” lies in the breadth of its religious sympathies. +Rigid Puritan as Bunyan was, no book is more completely free from sectarian +narrowness. Its reach is as wide as Christianity itself, and it +takes hold of every human heart because it is so intensely human. +No apology is needed for presenting Mr. Froude’s eloquent panegyric: +“The Pilgrim, though in Puritan dress, is a genuine man. +His experience is so truly human experience that Christians of every +persuasion can identify themselves with him; and even those who regard +Christianity itself as but a natural outgrowth of the conscience and +intellect, and yet desire to live nobly and make the best of themselves, +can recognize familiar footprints in every step of Christian’s +journey. Thus ‘The Pilgrim’s Progress’ is a +book which when once read can never be forgotten. We too, every +one of us, are pilgrims on the same road; and images and illustrations +come back to us from so faithful an itinerary, as we encounter similar +trials, and learn for ourselves the accuracy with which Bunyan has described +them. Time cannot impair its interest, or intellectual progress +make it cease to be true to experience.” Dr. Brown’s +appreciative words may be added: “With deepest pathos it enters +into the stern battle so real to all of us, into those heart-experiences +which make up, for all, the discipline of life. It is this especially +which has given to it the mighty hold which it has always had upon the +toiling poor, and made it the one book above all books well-thumbed +and torn to tatters among them. And it is this which makes it +one of the first books translated by the missionary who seeks to give +true thoughts of God and life to heathen men.”</p> +<p>The Second Part of “The Pilgrim’s Progress” partakes +of the character of almost all continuations. It is, in Mr. Froude’s +words, “only a feeble reverberation of the first part, which has +given it a popularity it would have hardly attained by its own merits. +Christiana and her children are tolerated for the pilgrim’s sake +to whom they belong.” Bunyan seems not to have been insensible +of this himself, when in his metrical preface he thus introduces his +new work:</p> +<blockquote><p>“Go now my little book to every place<br /> +Where my first Pilgrim has but shown his face.<br /> +Call at their door; if any say ‘Who’s there?’<br /> +Then answer thus, ‘Christiana is here.’<br /> +If they bid thee come in, then enter thou<br /> +With all thy boys. And then, as thou know’st how,<br /> +Tell who they are, also from whence they came;<br /> +Perhaps they’ll know them by their looks or name.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>But although the Second Part must be pronounced inferior, on the +whole, to the first, it is a work of striking individuality and graphic +power, such as Bunyan alone could have written. Everywhere we +find strokes of his peculiar genius, and though in a smaller measure +than the first, it has added not a few portraits to Bunyan’s spiritual +picture gallery we should be sorry to miss, and supplied us with racy +sayings which stick to the memory. The sweet maid Mercy affords +a lovely picture of gentle feminine piety, well contrasted with the +more vigorous but still thoroughly womanly character of Christiana. +Great-Heart is too much of an abstraction: a preacher in the uncongenial +disguise of a knightly champion of distressed females and the slayer +of giants. But the other new characters have generally a vivid +personality. Who can forget Old Honesty, the dull good man with +no mental gifts but of dogged sincerity, who though coming from the +Town of Stupidity, four degrees beyond the City of Destruction, was +“known for a cock of the right kind,” because he said the +truth and stuck to it; or his companion, Mr. Fearing, that most troublesome +of pilgrims, stumbling at every straw, lying roaring at the Slough of +Despond above a month together, standing shaking and shrinking at the +Wicket Gate, but making no stick at the Lions, and at last getting over +the river not much above wetshod; or Mr. Valiant for Truth, the native +of Darkland, standing with his sword drawn and his face all bloody from +his three hours’ fight with Wildhead, Inconsiderate, and Pragmatick; +Mr. Standfast, blushing to be found on his knees in the Enchanted Ground, +one who loved to hear his Lord spoken of, and coveted to set his foot +wherever he saw the print of his shoe; Mr. Feeblemind, the sickly, melancholy +pilgrim, at whose door death did usually knock once a day, betaking +himself to a pilgrim’s life because he was never well at home, +resolved to run when he could, and go when he could not run, and creep +when he could not go, an enemy to laughter and to gay attire, bringing +up the rear of the company with Mr. Readytohalt hobbling along on his +crutches; Giant Despair’s prisoners, Mr. Despondency, whom he +had all but starved to death—and Mistress Much-afraid his daughter, +who went through the river singing, though none could understand what +she said? Each of these characters has a distinct individuality +which lifts them from shadowy abstractions into living men and women. +But with all its excellencies, and they are many, the general inferiority +of the history of Christiana and her children’s pilgrimage to +that of her husband’s must be acknowledged. The story is +less skilfully constructed; the interest is sometimes allowed to flag; +the dialogues that interrupt the narrative are in places dry and wearisome—too +much of sermons in disguise. There is also a want of keeping between +the two parts of the allegory. The Wicket Gate of the First Part +has become a considerable building with a summer parlour in the Second; +the shepherds’ tents on the Delectable Mountains have risen into +a palace, with a dining-room, and a looking-glass, and a store of jewels; +while Vanity Fair has lost its former bad character, and has become +a respectable country town, where Christiana and her family, seeming +altogether to forget their pilgrimage, settled down comfortably, enjoy +the society of the good people of the place, and the sons marry and +have children. These same children also cause the reader no little +perplexity, when he finds them in the course of the supposed journey +transformed from sweet babes who are terrified with the Mastiffs barking +at the Wicket Gate, who catch at the boughs for the unripe plums and +cry at having to climb the hill; whose faces are stroked by the Interpreter; +who are catechised and called “good boys” by Prudence; who +sup on bread crumbled into basins of milk, and are put to bed by Mercy—into +strong young men, able to go out and fight with a giant, and lend a +hand to the pulling down of Doubting Castle, and becoming husbands and +fathers. We cannot but feel the want of <i>vraisemblance</i> which +brings the whole company of pilgrims to the banks of the dark river +at one time, and sends them over in succession, following one another +rapidly through the Golden Gate of the City. The four boys with +their wives and children, it is true, stay behind awhile, but there +is an evident incongruity in their doing so when the allegory has brought +them all to what stands for the close of their earthly pilgrimage. +Bunyan’s mistake was in gratifying his inventive genius and making +his band of pilgrims so large. He could get them together and +make them travel in company without any sacrifice of dramatic truth, +which, however, he was forced to disregard when the time came for their +dismissal. The exquisite pathos of the description of the passage +of the river by Christian and Hopeful blinds us to what may be almost +termed the impossibility of two persons passing through the final struggle +together, and dying at the same moment, but this charm is wanting in +the prosaic picture of the company of fellow-travellers coming down +to the water’s edge, and waiting till the postman blows his horn +and bids them cross. Much as the Second Part contains of what +is admirable, and what no one but Bunyan could have written, we feel +after reading it that, in Mr. Froude’s words, the rough simplicity +is gone, and has been replaced by a tone of sentiment which is almost +mawkish. “Giants, dragons, and angelic champions carry us +into a spurious fairyland where the knight-errant is a preacher in disguise. +Fair ladies and love-matches, however decorously chastened, suit ill +with the sternness of the mortal conflict between the soul and sin.” +With the acknowledged shortcomings of the Second Part of “The +Pilgrim’s Progress,” we may be well content that Bunyan +never carried out the idea hinted at in the closing words of his allegory: +“Shall it be my lot to go that way again, I may give those that +desire it an account of what I am here silent about; in the meantime +I bid my reader—Adieu.”</p> +<p>Bunyan’s second great allegorical work, “The Holy War,” +need not detain us long. Being an attempt, and in the nature of +things an unsuccessful attempt, to clothe what writers on divinity call +“the plan of salvation” in a figurative dress, the narrative, +with all its vividness of description in parts, its clearly drawn characters +with their picturesque nomenclature, and the stirring vicissitudes of +the drama, is necessarily wanting in the personal interest which attaches +to an individual man, like Christian, and those who are linked with +or follow his career. In fact, the tremendous realities of the +spiritual history of the human race are entirely unfit for allegorical +treatment as a whole. Sin, its origin, its consequences, its remedy, +and the apparent failure of that remedy though administered by Almighty +hands, must remain a mystery for all time. The attempts made by +Bunyan, and by one of much higher intellectual power and greater poetic +gifts than Bunyan—John Milton—to bring that mystery within +the grasp of the finite intellect, only render it more perplexing. +The proverbial line tells us that—</p> +<blockquote><p>“Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Bunyan and Milton were as far as possible from being “fools”; +but when both these great writers, on the one hand, carry us up into +the Council Chamber of Heaven and introduce us to the Persons of the +ever-blessed Trinity, debating, consulting, planning, and resolving, +like a sovereign and his ministers when a revolted province has to be +brought back to its allegiance; and, on the other hand, take us down +to the infernal regions, and makes us privy to the plots and counterplots +of the rebel leaders and hearers of their speeches, we cannot but feel +that, in spite of the magnificent diction and poetic imagination of +the one, and the homely picturesque genius of the other, the grand themes +treated of are degraded if not vulgarized, without our being in any +way helped to unravel their essential mysteries. In point of individual +personal interest, “The Holy War” contrasts badly with “The +Pilgrim’s Progress.” The narrative moves in a more +shadowy region. We may admire the workmanship; but the same undefined +sense of unreality pursues us through Milton’s noble epic, the +outcome of a divinely-fired genius, and Bunyan’s humble narrative, +drawing its scenes and circumstances, and to some extent its <i>dramatis +personæ</i>, from the writer’s own surroundings in the town +and corporation of Bedford, and his brief but stirring experience as +a soldier in the great Parliamentary War. The catastrophe also +is eminently unsatisfactory. When Christian and Hopeful enter +the Golden Gates we feel that the story has come to its proper end, +which we have been looking for all along. But the conclusion of +“The Holy War” is too much like the closing chapter of “Rasselas”—“a +conclusion in which nothing is concluded.” After all the +endless vicissitudes of the conflict, and the final and glorious victory +of Emmanuel and his forces, and the execution of the ringleaders of +the mutiny, the issue still remains doubtful. The town of Mansoul +is left open to fresh attacks. Diabolus is still at large. +Carnal Sense breaks prison and continues to lurk in the town. +Unbelief, that “nimble Jack,” slips away, and can never +be laid hold of. These, therefore, and some few others of the +more subtle of the Diabolonians, continue to make their home in Mansoul, +and will do so until Mansoul ceases to dwell in the kingdom of Universe. +It is true they turn chicken-hearted after the other leaders of their +party have been taken and executed, and keep themselves quiet and close, +lurking in dens and holes lest they should be snapped up by Emmanuel’s +men. If Unbelief or any of his crew venture to show themselves +in the streets, the whole town is up in arms against them; the very +children raise a hue and cry against them and seek to stone them. +But all in vain. Mansoul, it is true, enjoys some good degree +of peace and quiet. Her Prince takes up his residence in her borders. +Her captains and soldiers do their duties. She minds her trade +with the heavenly land afar off; also she is busy in her manufacture. +But with the remnants of the Diabolonians still within her walls, ready +to show their heads on the least relaxation of strict watchfulness, +keeping up constant communication with Diabolus and the other lords +of the pit, and prepared to open the gates to them when opportunity +offers, this peace can not be lasting. The old battle will have +to be fought over again, only to end in the same undecisive result. +And so it must be to the end. If untrue to art, Bunyan is true +to fact. Whether we regard Mansoul as the soul of a single individual +or as the whole human race, no final victory can be looked for so long +as it abides in “the country of Universe.” The flesh +will lust against the spirit, the regenerated man will be in danger +of being brought into captivity to the law of sin and death unless he +keeps up his watchfulness and maintains the struggle to the end.</p> +<p>And it is here, that, for purposes of art, not for purposes of truth, +the real failing of “The Holy War” lies. The drama +of Mansoul is incomplete, and whether individually or collectively, +must remain incomplete till man puts on a new nature, and the victory, +once for all gained on Calvary, is consummated, in the fulness of time, +at the restitution of all things. There is no uncertainty what +the end will be. Evil must be put down, and good must triumph +at last. But the end is not yet, and it seems as far off as ever. +The army of Doubters, under their several captains, Election Doubters, +Vocation Doubters, Salvation Doubters, Grace Doubters, with their general +the great Lord Incredulity at their head, reinforced by many fresh regiments +under novel standards, unknown and unthought of in Bunyan’s days, +taking the place of those whose power is past, is ever making new attacks +upon poor Mansoul, and terrifying feeble souls with their threatenings. +Whichever way we look there is much to puzzle, much to grieve over, +much that to our present limited view is entirely inexplicable. +But the mind that accepts the loving will and wisdom of God as the law +of the Universe, can rest in the calm assurance that all, however mysteriously, +is fulfilling His eternal designs, and that though He seems to permit +“His work to be spoilt, His power defied, and even His victories +when won made useless,” it is but seeming,—that the triumph +of evil is but temporary, and that these apparent failures and contradictions, +are slowly but surely working out and helping forward</p> +<blockquote><p>“The one unseen divine event<br /> +To which the whole creation moves.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>“The mysteries and contradictions which the Christian revelation +leaves unsolved are made tolerable by Hope.” To adopt Bunyan’s +figurative language in the closing paragraph of his allegory, the day +is certainly coming when the famous town of Mansoul shall be taken down +and transported “every stick and stone” to Emmanuel’s +land, and there set up for the Father’s habitation in such strength +and glory as it never saw before. No Diabolonian shall be able +to creep into its streets, burrow in its walls, or be seen in its borders. +No evil tidings shall trouble its inhabitants, nor sound of Diabolian +drum be heard there. Sorrow and grief shall be ended, and life, +always sweet, always new, shall last longer than they could even desire +it, even all the days of eternity. Meanwhile let those who have +such a glorious hope set before them keep clean and white the liveries +their Lord has given them, and wash often in the open fountain. +Let them believe in His love, live upon His word; watch, fight, and +pray, and hold fast till He come.</p> +<p>One more work of Bunyan’s still remains to be briefly noticed, +as bearing the characteristic stamp of his genius, “The Life and +Death of Mr. Badman.” The original idea of this book was +to furnish a contrast to “The Pilgrim’s Progress.” +As in that work he had described the course of a man setting out on +his course heavenwards, struggling onwards through temptation, trials, +and difficulties, and entering at last through the golden gates into +the city of God, so in this later work his purpose was to depict the +career of a man whose face from the first was turned in the opposite +direction, going on from bad to worse, ever becoming more and more irretrievably +evil, fitter and fitter for the bottomless pit; his life full of sin +and his death without repentance; reaping the fruit of his sins in hopeless +sinfulness. That this was the original purpose of the work, Bunyan +tells us in his preface. It came into his mind, he says, as in +the former book he had written concerning the progress of the Pilgrim +from this world to glory, so in this second book to write of the life +and death of the ungodly, and of their travel from this world to hell. +The new work, however, as in almost every respect it differs from the +earlier one, so it is decidedly inferior to it. It is totally +unlike “The Pilgrim’s Progress” both in form and execution. +The one is an allegory, the other a tale, describing without imagery +or metaphor, in the plainest language, the career of a “vulgar, +middle-class, unprincipled scoundrel.” While “The +Pilgrim’s Progress” pursues the narrative form throughout, +only interrupted by dialogues between the leading characters, “Mr. +Badman’s career” is presented to the world in a dialogue +between a certain Mr. Wiseman and Mr. Attentive. Mr. Wiseman tells +the story, and Mr. Attentive supplies appropriate reflections on it. +The narrative is needlessly burdened with a succession of short sermons, +in the form of didactic discourses on lying, stealing, impurity, and +the other vices of which the hero of the story was guilty, and which +brought him to his miserable end. The plainness of speech with +which some of these evil doings are enlarged upon, and Mr. Badman’s +indulgence in them described, makes portions of the book very disagreeable, +and indeed hardly profitable reading. With omissions, however, +the book well deserves perusal, as a picture such as only Bunyan or +his rival in lifelike portraiture, Defoe, could have drawn of vulgar +English life in the latter part of the seventeenth century, in a commonplace +country town such as Bedford. It is not at all a pleasant picture. +The life described, when not gross, is sordid and foul, is mean and +commonplace. But as a description of English middle-class life +at the epoch of the Restoration and Revolution, it is invaluable for +those who wish to put themselves in touch with that period. The +anecdotes introduced to illustrate Bunyan’s positions of God’s +judgment upon swearers and sinners, convicting him of a credulity and +a harshness of feeling one is sorry to think him capable of, are very +interesting for the side-lights they throw upon the times and the people +who lived in them. It would take too long to give a sketch of +the story, even if a summary could give any real estimate of its picturesque +and vivid power. It is certainly a remarkable, if an offensive +book. As with “Robinson Crusoe” and Defoe’s +other tales, we can hardly believe that we have not a real history before +us. We feel that there is no reason why the events recorded should +not have happened. There are no surprises; no unlooked-for catastrophes; +no providential interpositions to punish the sinner or rescue the good +man. Badman’s pious wife is made to pay the penalty of allowing +herself to be deceived by a tall, good-looking, hypocritical scoundrel. +He himself pursues his evil way to the end, and “dies like a lamb, +or as men call it, like a Chrisom child sweetly and without fear,” +but the selfsame Mr. Badman still, not only in name, but in condition; +sinning onto the last, and dying with a heart that cannot repent.</p> +<p>Mr. Froude’s summing up of this book is so masterly that we +make no apology for presenting it to our readers. “Bunyan +conceals nothing, assumes nothing, and exaggerates nothing. He +makes his bad man sharp and shrewd. He allows sharpness and shrewdness +to bring him the reward which such qualities in fact command. +Badman is successful; is powerful; he enjoys all the pleasures which +money can bring; his bad wife helps him to ruin, but otherwise he is +not unhappy, and he dies in peace. Bunyan has made him a brute, +because such men do become brutes. It is the real punishment of +brutal and selfish habits. There the figure stands—a picture +of a man in the rank of English life with which Bunyan was most familiar; +travelling along the primrose path to the everlasting bonfire, as the +way to Emmanuel’s Land was through the Slough of Despond and the +Valley of the Shadow of Death. Pleasures are to be found among +the primroses, such pleasures as a brute can be gratified by. +Yet the reader feels that even if there was no bonfire, he would still +prefer to be with Christian.”</p> +<h2>FOOTNOTES</h2> +<p><a name="footnote1"></a><a href="#citation1">{1}</a> A small +enclosure behind a cottage.</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIFE OF JOHN BUNYAN***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 1037-h.htm or 1037-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/0/3/1037 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +https://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at https://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at https://www.gutenberg.org/about/contact + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit https://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: +https://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + +</pre></body> +</html> diff --git a/1037.txt b/1037.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..086c6fd --- /dev/null +++ b/1037.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4858 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Life of John Bunyan, by Edmund Venables + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Life of John Bunyan + + +Author: Edmund Venables + +Release Date: April 21, 2005 [eBook #1037] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIFE OF JOHN BUNYAN*** + + + + + + +Transcribed from the 1888 Walter Scott edition by David Price, email +ccx074@coventry.ac.uk + + + + + +THE LIFE OF JOHN BUNYAN +by Edmund Venables, M.A. + + +CHAPTER I. + + +John Bunyan, the author of the book which has probably passed through +more editions, had a greater number of readers, and been translated into +more languages than any other book in the English tongue, was born in the +parish of Elstow, in Bedfordshire, in the latter part of the year 1628, +and was baptized in the parish church of the village on the last day of +November of that year. + +The year of John Bunyan's birth was a momentous one both for the nation +and for the Church of England. Charles I., by the extorted assent to the +Petition of Right, had begun reluctantly to strip himself of the +irresponsible authority he had claimed, and had taken the first step in +the struggle between King and Parliament which ended in the House of +Commons seating itself in the place of the Sovereign. Wentworth (better +known as Lord Strafford) had finally left the Commons, baffled in his +nobly-conceived but vain hope of reconciling the monarch and his people, +and having accepted a peerage and the promise of the Presidency of the +Council of the North, was foreshadowing his policy of "Thorough," which +was destined to bring both his own head and that of his weak master to +the block. The Remonstrance of Parliament against the toleration of +Roman Catholics and the growth of Arminianism, had been presented to the +indignant king, who, wilfully blinded, had replied to it by the promotion +to high and lucrative posts in the Church of the very men against whom it +was chiefly directed. The most outrageous upholders of the royal +prerogative and the irresponsible power of the sovereign, Montagu and +Mainwaring, had been presented, the one to the see of Chichester, the +other--the impeached and condemned of the Commons--to the rich living +Montagu's consecration had vacated. Montaigne, the licenser of +Mainwaring's incriminated sermon, was raised to the Archbishopric of +York, while Neile and Laud, who were openly named in the Remonstrance as +the "troublers of the English Israel," were rewarded respectively with +the rich see of Durham and the important and deeply-dyed Puritan diocese +of London. Charles was steadily sowing the wind, and destined to reap +the whirlwind which was to sweep him from his throne, and involve the +monarchy and the Church in the same overthrow. Three months before +Bunyan's birth Buckingham, on the eve of his departure for the +beleaguered and famine-stricken city of Rochelle, sanguinely hoping to +conclude a peace with the French king beneath its walls, had been struck +down by the knife of a fanatic, to the undisguised joy of the majority of +the nation, bequeathing a legacy of failure and disgrace in the fall of +the Protestant stronghold on which the eyes of Europe had been so long +anxiously fixed. + +The year was closing gloomily, with ominous forecasts of the coming +hurricane, when the babe who was destined to leave so imperishable a name +in English literature, first saw the light in an humble cottage in an +obscure Bedfordshire village. His father, Thomas Bunyan, though styling +himself in his will by the more dignified title of "brazier," was more +properly what is known as a "tinker"; "a mender of pots and kettles," +according to Bunyan's contemporary biographer, Charles Doe. He was not, +however, a mere tramp or vagrant, as travelling tinkers were and usually +are still, much less a disreputable sot, a counterpart of Shakespeare's +Christopher Sly, but a man with a recognized calling, having a settled +home and an acknowledged position in the village community of Elstow. The +family was of long standing there, but had for some generations been +going down in the world. Bunyan's grandfather, Thomas Bunyan, as we +learn from his still extant will, carried on the occupation of a "petty +chapman," or small retail dealer, in his own freehold cottage, which he +bequeathed, "with its appurtenances," to his second wife, Ann, to +descend, after her death, to her stepson, his namesake, Thomas, and her +own son Edward, in equal shares. This cottage, which was probably John +Bunyan's birthplace, persistent tradition, confirmed by the testimony of +local names, warrants us in placing near the hamlet of Harrowden, a mile +to the east of the village of Elstow, at a place long called "Bunyan's +End," where two fields are still called by the name of "Bunyans" and +"Further Bunyans." This small freehold appears to have been all that +remained, at the death of John Bunyan's grandfather, of a property once +considerable enough to have given the name of its possessor to the whole +locality. + +The family of Buingnon, Bunyun, Buniun, Boynon, Bonyon, or Binyan (the +name is found spelt in no fewer than thirty-four different ways, of which +the now-established form, Bunyan, is almost the least frequent) is one +that had established itself in Bedfordshire from very early times. The +first place in connection with which the name appears is Pulloxhill, +about nine miles from Elstow. In 1199, the year of King John's +accession, the Bunyans had approached still nearer to that parish. One +William Bunion held land at Wilstead, not more than a mile off. In 1327, +the first year of Edward III., one of the same name, probably his +descendant, William Boynon, is found actually living at Harrowden, close +to the spot which popular tradition names as John Bunyan's birthplace, +and was the owner of property there. We have no further notices of the +Bunyans of Elstow till the sixteenth century. We then find them greatly +fallen. Their ancestral property seems little by little to have passed +into other hands, until in 1542 nothing was left but "a messuage and +pightell {1} with the appurtenances, and nine acres of land." This small +residue other entries on the Court Rolls show to have been still further +diminished by sale. The field already referred to, known as "Bonyon's +End," was sold by "Thomas Bonyon, of Elstow, labourer," son of William +Bonyon, the said Thomas and his wife being the keepers of a small +roadside inn, at which their overcharges for their home-baked bread and +home-brewed beer were continually bringing them into trouble with the +petty local courts of the day. Thomas Bunyan, John Bunyan's father, was +born in the last days of Elizabeth, and was baptized February 24, 1603, +exactly a month before the great queen passed away. The mother of the +immortal Dreamer was one Margaret Bentley, who, like her husband, was a +native of Elstow and only a few months his junior. The details of her +mother's will, which is still extant, drawn up by the vicar of Elstow, +prove that, like her husband, she did not, in the words of Bunyan's +latest and most complete biographer, the Rev. Dr. Brown, "come of the +very squalid poor, but of people who, though humble in station, were yet +decent and worthy in their ways." John Bunyan's mother was his father's +second wife. The Bunyans were given to marrying early, and speedily +consoled themselves on the loss of one wife with the companionship of a +successor. Bunyan's grandmother cannot have died before February 24, +1603, the date of his father's baptism. But before the year was out his +grandfather had married again. His father, too, had not completed his +twentieth year when he married his first wife, Anne Pinney, January 10, +1623. She died in 1627, apparently without any surviving children, and +before the year was half-way through, on the 23rd of the following May, +he was married a second time to Margaret Bentley. At the end of +seventeen years Thomas Bunyan was again left a widower, and within two +months, with grossly indecent haste, he filled the vacant place with a +third wife. Bunyan himself cannot have been much more than twenty when +he married. We have no particulars of the death of his first wife. But +he had been married two years to his noble-minded second wife at the time +of the assizes in 1661, and the ages of his children by his first wife +would indicate that no long interval elapsed between his being left a +widower and his second marriage. + +Elstow, which, as the birthplace of the author of "The Pilgrim's +Progress," has gained a world-wide celebrity, is a quiet little village, +which, though not much more than a mile from the populous and busy town +of Bedford, yet, lying aside from the main stream of modern life, +preserves its old-world look to an unusual degree. Its name in its +original form of "Helen-stow," or "Ellen-stow," the _stow_ or stockaded +place of St. Helena, is derived from a Benedictine nunnery founded in +1078 by Judith, niece of William the Conqueror, the traitorous wife of +the judicially murdered Waltheof, Earl of Huntingdon, in honour of the +mother of the Emperor Constantine. The parish church, so intimately +connected with Bunyan's personal history, is a fragment of the church of +the nunnery, with a detached campanile, or "steeple-house," built to +contain the bells after the destruction of the central tower and choir of +the conventual church. Few villages are so little modernized as Elstow. +The old half-timbered cottages with overhanging storeys, peaked dormers, +and gabled porches, tapestried with roses and honeysuckles, must be much +what they were in Bunyan's days. A village street, with detached +cottages standing in gardens gay with the homely flowers John Bunyan knew +and loved, leads to the village green, fringed with churchyard elms, in +the middle of which is the pedestal or stump of the market-cross, and at +the upper end of the old "Moot Hall," a quaint brick and timber building, +with a projecting upper storey, a good example of the domestic +architecture of the fifteenth century, originally, perhaps, the Guesten- +Hall of the adjacent nunnery, and afterwards the Court House of the manor +when lay-lords had succeeded the abbesses--"the scene," writes Dr. Brown +"of village festivities, statute hirings, and all the public occasions of +village life." The whole spot and its surroundings can be but little +altered from the time when our hero was the ringleader of the youth of +the place in the dances on the greensward, which he tells us he found it +so hard to give up, and in "tip-cat," and the other innocent games which +his diseased conscience afterwards regarded as "ungodly practices." One +may almost see the hole from which he was going to strike his "cat" that +memorable Sunday afternoon when he silenced the inward voice which +rebuked him for his sins, and "returned desperately to his sport again." +On the south side of the green, as we have said, stands the church, a +fine though somewhat rude fragment of the chapel of the nunnery curtailed +at both ends, of Norman and Early English date, which, with its detached +bell tower, was the scene of some of the fierce spiritual conflicts so +vividly depicted by Bunyan in his "Grace Abounding." On entering every +object speaks of Bunyan. The pulpit--if it has survived the recent +restoration--is the same from which Christopher Hall, the then "Parson" +of Elstow, preached the sermon which first awoke his sleeping conscience. +The font is that in which he was baptized, as were also his father and +mother and remoter progenitors, as well as his children, Mary, his dearly- +loved blind child, on July 20, 1650, and her younger sister, Elizabeth, +on April 14, 1654. An old oaken bench, polished by the hands of +thousands of visitors attracted to the village church by the fame of the +tinker of Elstow, is traditionally shown as the seat he used to occupy +when he "went to church twice a day, and that, too, with the foremost +counting all things holy that were therein contained." The five bells +which hang in the belfry are the same in which Bunyan so much delighted, +the fourth bell, tradition says, being that he was used to ring. The +rough flagged floor, "all worn and broken with the hobnailed boots of +generations of ringers," remains undisturbed. One cannot see the door, +set in its solid masonry, without recalling the figure of Bunyan standing +in it, after conscience, "beginning to be tender," told him that "such +practice was but vain," but yet unable to deny himself the pleasure of +seeing others ring, hoping that, "if a bell should fall," he could "slip +out" safely "behind the thick walls," and so "be preserved +notwithstanding." Behind the church, on the south side, stand some +picturesque ivy-clad remains of the once stately mansion of the +Hillersdons, erected on the site of the nunnery buildings in the early +part of the seventeenth century, with a porch attributed to Inigo Jones, +which may have given Bunyan the first idea of "the very stately Palace, +the name of which was Beautiful." + +The cottage where Bunyan was born, between the two brooks in the fields +at Harrowden, has been so long destroyed that even the knowledge of its +site has passed away. That in which he lived for six years (1649-1655) +after his first marriage, and where his children were born, is still +standing in the village street, but modern reparations have robbed it of +all interest. + +From this description of the surroundings among which Bunyan passed the +earliest and most impressionable years of his life, we pass to the +subject of our biography himself. The notion that Bunyan was of gipsy +descent, which was not entirely rejected by Sir Walter Scott, and which +has more recently received elaborate support from writers on the other +side of the Atlantic, may be pronounced absolutely baseless. Even if +Bunyan's inquiry of his father "whether the family was of Israelitish +descent or no," which has been so strangely pressed into the service of +the theory, could be supposed to have anything to do with the matter, the +decided negative with which his question was met--"he told me, 'No, we +were not'"--would, one would have thought, have settled the point. But +some fictions die hard. However low the family had sunk, so that in his +own words, "his father's house was of that rank that is meanest and most +despised of all the families in the land," "of a low and inconsiderable +generation," the name, as we have seen, was one of long standing in +Bunyan's native county, and had once taken far higher rank in it. And +his parents, though poor, were evidently worthy people, of good repute +among their village neighbours. Bunyan seems to be describing his own +father and his wandering life when he speaks of "an honest poor labouring +man, who, like Adam unparadised, had all the world to get his bread in, +and was very careful to maintain his family." He and his wife were also +careful with a higher care that their children should be properly +educated. "Notwithstanding the meanness and inconsiderableness of my +parents," writes Bunyan, "it pleased God to put it into their hearts to +put me to school, to learn both to read and write." If we accept the +evidence of the "Scriptural Poems," published for the first time twelve +years after his death, the genuineness of which, though questioned by Dr. +Brown, there seems no sufficient reason to doubt, the little education he +had was "gained in a grammar school." This would have been that founded +by Sir William Harpur in Queen Mary's reign in the neighbouring town of +Bedford. Thither we may picture the little lad trudging day by day along +the mile and a half of footpath and road from his father's cottage by the +brookside, often, no doubt, wet and miry enough, not, as he says, to "go +to school to Aristotle or Plato," but to be taught "according to the rate +of other poor men's children." The Bedford schoolmaster about this time, +William Barnes by name, was a negligent sot, charged with "night-walking" +and haunting "taverns and alehouses," and other evil practices, as well +as with treating the poor boys "when present" with a cruelty which must +have made them wish that his absences, long as they were, had been more +protracted. Whether this man was his master or no, it was little that +Bunyan learnt at school, and that little he confesses with shame he soon +lost "almost utterly." He was before long called home to help his father +at the Harrowden forge, where he says he was "brought up in a very mean +condition among a company of poor countrymen." Here, with but little to +elevate or refine his character, the boy contracted many bad habits, and +grew up what Coleridge somewhat too strongly calls "a bitter blackguard." +According to his own remorseful confession, he was "filled with all +unrighteousness," having "from a child" in his "tender years," "but few +equals both for cursing, swearing, lying and blaspheming the holy name of +God." Sins of this kind he declares became "a second nature to him;" he +"delighted in all transgression against the law of God," and as he +advanced in his teens he became a "notorious sinbreeder," the "very +ringleader," he says, of the village lads "in all manner of vice and +ungodliness." But the unsparing condemnation passed by Bunyan, after his +conversion, on his former self, must not mislead us into supposing him +ever, either as boy or man, to have lived a vicious life. "The +wickedness of the tinker," writes Southey, "has been greatly overrated, +and it is taking the language of self-accusation too literally to +pronounce of John Bunyan that he was at any time depraved." The justice +of this verdict of acquittal is fully accepted by Coleridge. "Bunyan," +he says, "was never in our received sense of the word 'wicked.' He was +chaste, sober, and honest." He hints at youthful escapades, such, +perhaps, as orchard-robbing, or when a little older, poaching, and the +like, which might have brought him under "the stroke of the laws," and +put him to "open shame before the face of the world." But he confesses +to no crime or profligate habit. We have no reason to suppose that he +was ever drunk, and we have his own most solemn declaration that he was +never guilty of an act of unchastity. "In our days," to quote Mr. +Froude, "a rough tinker who could say as much for himself after he had +grown to manhood, would be regarded as a model of self-restraint. If in +Bedford and the neighbourhood there was no young man more vicious than +Bunyan, the moral standard of an English town in the seventeenth century +must have been higher than believers in progress will be pleased to +allow." How then, it may be asked, are we to explain the passionate +language in which he expresses his self-abhorrence, which would hardly +seem exaggerated in the mouth of the most profligate and licentious? We +are confident that Bunyan meant what he said. So intensely honest a +nature could not allow his words to go beyond his convictions. When he +speaks of "letting loose the reins to his lusts," and sinning "with the +greatest delight and ease," we know that however exaggerated they may +appear to us, his expressions did not seem to him overstrained. Dr. +Johnson marvelled that St. Paul could call himself "the chief of +sinners," and expressed a doubt whether he did so honestly. But a highly- +strung spiritual nature like that of the apostle, when suddenly called +into exercise after a period of carelessness, takes a very different +estimate of sin from that of the world, even the decent moral world, in +general. It realizes its own offences, venial as they appear to others, +as sins against infinite love--a love unto death--and in the light of the +sacrifice on Calvary, recognizes the heinousness of its guilt, and while +it doubts not, marvels that it can be pardoned. The sinfulness of +sin--more especially their own sin--is the intensest of all possible +realities to them. No language is too strong to describe it. We may not +unreasonably ask whether this estimate, however exaggerated it may appear +to those who are strangers to these spiritual experiences, is altogether +a mistaken one? + +The spiritual instinct was very early awakened in Bunyan. While still a +child "but nine or ten years old," he tells us he was racked with +convictions of sin, and haunted with religious fears. He was scared with +"fearful dreams," and "dreadful visions," and haunted in his sleep with +"apprehensions of devils and wicked spirits" coming to carry him away, +which made his bed a place of terrors. The thought of the Day of +Judgment and of the torments of the lost, often came as a dark cloud over +his mind in the midst of his boyish sports, and made him tremble. But +though these fevered visions embittered his enjoyment while they lasted, +they were but transient, and after a while they entirely ceased "as if +they had never been," and he gave himself up without restraint to the +youthful pleasures in which his ardent nature made him ever the +ringleader. The "thoughts of religion" became very grievous to him. He +could not endure even to see others read pious books; "it would be as a +prison to me." The awful realities of eternity which had once been so +crushing to his spirit were "both out of sight and mind." He said to +God, "depart from me." According to the later morbid estimate which +stigmatized as sinful what were little more than the wild acts of a +roystering dare-devil young fellow, full of animal spirits and with an +unusually active imagination, he "could sin with the greatest delight and +ease, and take pleasure in the vileness of his companions." But that the +sense of religion was not wholly dead in him even then, and that while +discarding its restraints he had an inward reverence for it, is shown by +the horror he experienced if those who had a reputation for godliness +dishonoured their profession. "Once," he says, "when I was at the height +of my vanity, hearing one to swear who was reckoned for a religious man, +it had so great a stroke upon my spirit that it made my heart to ache." + +This undercurrent of religious feeling was deepened by providential +escapes from accidents which threatened his life--"judgments mixed with +mercy" he terms them,--which made him feel that he was not utterly +forsaken of God. Twice he narrowly escaped drowning; once in "Bedford +river"--the Ouse; once in "a creek of the sea," his tinkering rounds +having, perhaps, carried him as far northward as the tidal inlets of the +Wash in the neighbourhood of Spalding or Lynn, or to the estuaries of the +Stour and Orwell to the east. At another time, in his wild contempt of +danger, he tore out, while his companions looked on with admiration, what +he mistakenly supposed to be an adder's sting. + +These providential deliverances bring us to that incident in his brief +career as a soldier which his anonymous biographer tells us "made so deep +an impression upon him that he would never mention it, which he often +did, without thanksgiving to God." But for this occurrence, indeed, we +should have probably never known that he had ever served in the army at +all. The story is best told in his own provokingly brief words--"When I +was a soldier I with others were drawn out to go to such a place to +besiege it. But when I was just ready to go, one of the company desired +to go in my room; to which when I consented, he took my place, and coming +to the siege, as he stood sentinel, he was shot in the head with a musket +bullet and died." Here, as is so often the case in Bunyan's +autobiography, we have reason to lament the complete absence of details. +This is characteristic of the man. The religious import of the +occurrences he records constituted their only value in his eyes; their +temporal setting, which imparts their chief interest to us, was of no +account to him. He gives us not the slightest clue to the name of the +besieged place, or even to the side on which he was engaged. The date of +the event is left equally vague. The last point however we are able to +determine with something like accuracy. November, 1644, was the earliest +period at which Bunyan could have entered the army, for it was not till +then that he reached the regulation age of sixteen. Domestic +circumstances had then recently occurred which may have tended to +estrange him from his home, and turn his thoughts to a military life. In +the previous June his mother had died, her death being followed within a +month by that of his sister Margaret. Before another month was out, his +father, as we have already said, had married again, and whether the new +wife had proved the proverbial _injusta noverca_ or not, his home must +have been sufficiently altered by the double, if we may not say triple, +calamity, to account for his leaving the dull monotony of his native +village for the more stirring career of a soldier. Which of the two +causes then distracting the nation claimed his adherence, Royalist or +Parliamentarian, can never be determined. As Mr. Froude writes, "He does +not tell us himself. His friends in after life did not care to ask him +or he to inform them, or else they thought the matter of too small +importance to be worth mentioning with exactness." The only evidence is +internal, and the deductions from it vary with the estimate of the +counter-balancing probabilities taken by Bunyan's various biographers. +Lord Macaulay, whose conclusion is ably, and, we think, convincingly +supported by Dr. Brown, decides in favour of the side of the Parliament. +Mr. Froude, on the other hand, together with the painstaking Mr. Offor, +holds that "probability is on the side of his having been with the +Royalists." Bedfordshire, however, was one of the "Associated Counties" +from which the Parliamentary army drew its main strength, and it was shut +in by a strong line of defence from any combination with the Royalist +army. In 1643 the county had received an order requiring it to furnish +"able and armed men" to the garrison at Newport Pagnel, which was then +the base of operations against the King in that part of England. All +probability therefore points to John Bunyan, the lusty young tinker of +Elstow, the leader in all manly sports and adventurous enterprises among +his mates, and probably caring very little on what side he fought, having +been drafted to Newport to serve under Sir Samuel Luke, of Cople, and +other Parliamentary commanders. The place of the siege he refers to is +equally undeterminable. A tradition current within a few years of +Bunyan's death, which Lord Macaulay rather rashly invests with the +certainty of fact, names Leicester. The only direct evidence for this is +the statement of an anonymous biographer, who professes to have been a +personal friend of Bunyan's, that he was present at the siege of +Leicester, in 1645, as a soldier in the Parliamentary army. This +statement, however, is in direct defiance of Bunyan's own words. For the +one thing certain in the matter is that wherever the siege may have been, +Bunyan was not at it. He tells us plainly that he was "drawn to go," and +that when he was just starting, he gave up his place to a comrade who +went in his room, and was shot through the head. Bunyan's presence at +the siege of Leicester, which has been so often reported that it has +almost been regarded as an historical truth, must therefore take its +place among the baseless creations of a fertile fancy. + +Bunyan's military career, wherever passed and under whatever standard, +was very short. The civil war was drawing near the end of its first +stage when he enlisted. He had only been a soldier a few months when the +battle of Naseby, fatal to the royal cause, was fought, June 14, 1645. +Bristol was surrendered by Prince Rupert, Sept. 10th. Three days later +Montrose was totally defeated at Philiphaugh; and after a vain attempt to +relieve Chester, Charles shut himself up in Oxford. The royal garrisons +yielded in quick succession; in 1646 the armies on both sides were +disbanded, and the first act in the great national tragedy having come to +a close, Bunyan returned to Elstow, and resumed his tinker's work at the +paternal forge. His father, old Thomas Bunyan, it may here be mentioned, +lived all through his famous son's twelve years' imprisonment, witnessed +his growing celebrity as a preacher and a writer, and died in the early +part of 1676, just when John Bunyan was passing through his last brief +period of durance, which was to give birth to the work which has made him +immortal. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + + +It cannot have been more than two or three years after Bunyan's return +home from his short experience of a soldier's life, that he took the step +which, more than any other, influences a man's future career for good or +for evil. The young tinker married. With his characteristic disregard +of all facts or dates but such as concern his spiritual history, Bunyan +tells us nothing about the orphan girl he made his wife. Where he found +her, who her parents were, where they were married, even her christian +name, were all deemed so many irrelevant details. Indeed the fact of his +marriage would probably have been passed over altogether but for the +important bearing it hid on his inner life. His "mercy," as he calls it, +"was to light upon a wife whose father was counted godly," and who, +though she brought him no marriage portion, so that they "came together +as poor as poor might be," as "poor as howlets," to adopt his own simile, +"without so much household stuff as a dish or a spoon betwixt" them, yet +brought with her to the Elstow cottage two religious books, which had +belonged to her father, and which he "had left her when he died." These +books were "The Plain Man's Pathway to Heaven," the work of Arthur Dent, +the puritan incumbent of Shoebury, in Essex--"wearisomely heavy and +theologically narrow," writes Dr. Brown--and "The Practise of Piety," by +Dr. Lewis Bayley, Bishop of Bangor, and previously chaplain to Prince +Henry, which enjoyed a wide reputation with puritans as well as with +churchmen. Together with these books, the young wife brought the still +more powerful influence of a religious training, and the memory of a holy +example, often telling her young graceless husband "what a godly man her +father was, and how he would reprove and correct vice both in his house +and amongst his neighbours, and what a strict and holy life he lived in +his days both in word and deed." Much as Bunyan tells us he had lost of +the "little he had learnt" at school, he had not lost it "utterly." He +was still able to read intelligently. His wife's gentle influence +prevailed on him to begin "sometimes to read" her father's legacy "with +her." This must have been entirely new reading for Bunyan, and certainly +at first not much to his taste. What his favourite reading had been up +to this time, his own nervous words tell us, "Give me a ballad, a news- +book, George on Horseback, or Bevis of Southampton; give me some book +that teaches curious arts, that tells of old fables." But as he and his +young wife read these books together at their fireside, a higher taste +was gradually awakened in Bunyan's mind; "some things" in them he "found +somewhat pleasing" to him, and they "begot" within him "some desires to +religion," producing a degree of outward reformation. The spiritual +instinct was aroused. He would be a godly man like his wife's father. He +began to "go to church twice a day, and that too with the foremost." Nor +was it a mere formal attendance, for when there he tells us he took his +part with all outward devotion in the service, "both singing and saying +as others did; yet," as he penitently confesses, "retaining his wicked +life," the wickedness of which, however, did not amount to more than a +liking for the sports and games of the lads of the village, bell-ringing, +dancing, and the like. The prohibition of all liturgical forms issued in +1645, the observance of which varied with the strictness or laxity of the +local authorities, would not seem to have been put in force very rigidly +at Elstow. The vicar, Christopher Hall, was an Episcopalian, who, like +Bishop Sanderson, retained his benefice unchallenged all through the +Protectorate, and held it some years after the Restoration and the +passing of the Act of Uniformity. He seems, like Sanderson, to have kept +himself within the letter of the law by making trifling variations in the +Prayer Book formularies, consistent with a general conformity to the old +order of the Church, "without persisting to his own destruction in the +usage of the entire liturgy." The decent dignity of the ceremonial of +his parish church had a powerful effect on Bunyan's freshly awakened +religious susceptibility--a "spirit of superstition" he called it +afterwards--and helped to its fuller development. "I adored," he says, +"with great devotion, even all things, both the High Place"--altars then +had not been entirely broken down and levelled in Bedfordshire--"Priest, +Clerk, Vestment, Service, and what else belonging to the church, counting +all things holy that were therein contained, and especially the Priest +and Clerk most happy, and without doubt greatly blessed because they were +the servants of God and were principal in the Holy Temple, to do His work +therein, . . . their name, their garb, and work, did so intoxicate and +bewitch me." If it is questionable whether the Act forbidding the use of +the Book of Common Prayer was strictly observed at Elstow, it is certain +that the prohibition of Sunday sports was not. Bunyan's narrative shows +that the aspect of a village green in Bedfordshire during the +Protectorate did not differ much from what Baxter tells us it had been in +Shropshire before the civil troubles began, where, "after the Common +Prayer had been read briefly, the rest of the day even till dark night +almost, except eating time, was spent in dancing under a maypole and a +great tree, when all the town did meet together." These Sunday sports +proved the battle-ground of Bunyan's spiritual experience, the scene of +the fierce inward struggles which he has described so vividly, through +which he ultimately reached the firm ground of solid peace and hope. As +a high-spirited healthy athletic young fellow, all kinds of manly sports +were Bunyan's delight. On week days his tinker's business, which he +evidently pursued industriously, left him small leisure for such +amusements. Sunday therefore was the day on which he "did especially +solace himself" with them. He had yet to learn the identification of +diversions with "all manner of vice." The teaching came in this way. One +Sunday, Vicar Hall preached a sermon on the sin of Sabbath-breaking, and +like many hearers before and since, he imagined that it was aimed +expressly at him. Sermon ended, he went home "with a great burden upon +his spirit," "sermon-stricken" and "sermon sick" as he expresses it +elsewhere. But his Sunday's dinner speedily drove away his +self-condemning thoughts. He "shook the sermon out of his mind," and +went out to his sports with the Elstow lads on the village green, with as +"great delight" as ever. But in the midst of his game of tip-cat or +"sly," just as he had struck the "cat" from its hole, and was going to +give it a second blow--the minuteness of the detail shows the +unforgetable reality of the crisis--he seemed to hear a voice from heaven +asking him whether "he would leave his sins and go to heaven, or keep his +sins and go to hell." He thought also that he saw Jesus Christ looking +down on him with threatening countenance. But like his own Hopeful he +"shut his eyes against the light," and silenced the condemning voice with +the feeling that repentance was hopeless. "It was too late for him to +look after heaven; he was past pardon." If his condemnation was already +sealed and he was eternally lost, it would not matter whether he was +condemned for many sins or for few. Heaven was gone already. The only +happiness he could look for was what he could get out of his sins--his +morbidly sensitive conscience perversely identifying sports with sin--so +he returned desperately to his games, resolved, he says, to "take my fill +of sin, still studying what sin was yet to be committed that I might +taste the sweetness of it." + +This desperate recklessness lasted with him "about a month or more," till +"one day as he was standing at a neighbour's shop-window, cursing and +swearing and playing the madman after his wonted manner, the woman of the +house, though a very loose and ungodly wretch," rebuked him so severely +as "the ungodliest fellow for swearing that ever she heard, able to spoil +all the youth in a whole town," that, self-convicted, he hung down his +head in silent shame, wishing himself a little child again that he might +unlearn the wicked habit of which he thought it impossible to break +himself. Hopeless as the effort seemed to him, it proved effectual. He +did "leave off his swearing" to his own "great wonder," and found that he +"could speak better and with more pleasantness" than when he "put an oath +before and another behind, to give his words authority." Thus was one +step in his reformation taken, and never retraced; but, he adds +sorrowfully, "all this while I knew not Jesus Christ, neither did I leave +my sports and plays." We might be inclined to ask, why should he leave +them? But indifferent and innocent in themselves, an overstrained +spirituality had taught him to regard them as sinful. To indulge in them +wounded his morbidly sensitive conscience, and so they were sin to him. + +The next step onward in this religious progress was the study of the +Bible, to which he was led by the conversation of a poor godly neighbour. +Naturally he first betook himself to the historical books, which, he +tells us, he read "with great pleasure;" but, like Baxter who, beginning +his Bible reading in the same course, writes, "I neither understood nor +relished much the doctrinal part," he frankly confesses, "Paul's Epistles +and such like Scriptures I could not away with." His Bible reading +helped forward the outward reformation he had begun. He set the keeping +the Ten Commandments before him as his "way to Heaven"; much comforted +"sometimes" when, as he thought, "he kept them pretty well," but humbled +in conscience when "now and then he broke one." "But then," he says, "I +should repent and say I was sorry for it, and promise God to do better +next time, and then get help again; for then I thought I pleased God as +well as any man in England." His progress was slow, for each step +involved a battle, but it was steadily onwards. He had a very hard +struggle in relinquishing his favourite amusements. But though he had +much yet to learn, his feet were set on the upward way, and he had no +mind to go back, great as the temptation often was. He had once +delighted in bell-ringing, but "his conscience beginning to be +tender"--morbid we should rather say--"he thought such practise to be +vain, and therefore forced himself to leave it." But "hankering after it +still," he continued to go while his old companions rang, and look on at +what he "durst not" join in, until the fear that if he thus winked at +what his conscience condemned, a bell, or even the tower itself, might +fall and kill him, put a stop even to that compromise. Dancing, which +from his boyhood he had practised on the village green, or in the old +Moot Hall, was still harder to give up. "It was a full year before I +could quite leave that." But this too was at last renounced, and +finally. The power of Bunyan's indomitable will was bracing itself for +severe trials yet to come. + +Meanwhile Bunyan's neighbours regarded with amazement the changed life of +the profane young tinker. "And truly," he honestly confesses, "so they +well might for this my conversion was as great as for Tom of Bedlam to +become a sober man." Bunyan's reformation was soon the town's talk; he +had "become godly," "become a right honest man." These commendations +flattered is vanity, and he laid himself out for them. He was then but a +"poor painted hypocrite," he says, "proud of his godliness, and doing all +he did either to be seen of, or well spoken of by man." This state of +self-satisfaction, he tells us, lasted "for about a twelvemonth or more." +During this deceitful calm he says, "I had great peace of conscience, and +should think with myself, 'God cannot choose but now be pleased with me,' +yea, to relate it in mine own way, I thought no man in England could +please God better than I." But no outward reformation can bring lasting +inward peace. When a man is honest with himself, the more earnestly he +struggles after complete obedience, the more faulty does his obedience +appear. The good opinion of others will not silence his own inward +condemnation. He needs a higher righteousness than his own; a firmer +standing-ground than the shifting quicksand of his own good deeds. "All +this while," he writes, "poor wretch as I was, I was ignorant of Jesus +Christ, and going about to establish my own righteousness, and had +perished therein had not God in mercy showed me more of my state by +nature." + +This revolution was nearer than he imagined. Bunyan's self-satisfaction +was rudely shaken, and his need of something deeper in the way of +religion than he had yet experienced was shown him by the conversation of +three or four poor women whom, one day, when pursuing his tinker's +calling at Bedford, he came upon "sitting at a door in the sun, and +talking of the things of God." These women were members of the +congregation of "the holy Mr. John Gifford," who, at that time of +ecclesiastical confusion, subsequently became rector of St. John's +Church, in Bedford, and master of the hospital attached to it. Gifford's +career had been a strange one. We hear of him first as a young major in +the king's army at the outset of the Civil War, notorious for his loose +and debauched life, taken by Fairfax at Maidstone in 1648, and condemned +to the gallows. By his sister's help he eluded his keepers' vigilance, +escaped from prison, and ultimately found his way to Bedford, where for a +time he practised as a physician, though without any change of his loose +habits. The loss of a large sum of money at gaming awoke a disgust at +his dissolute life. A few sentences of a pious book deepened the +impression. He became a converted man, and joined himself to a handful +of earnest Christians in Bedford, who becoming, in the language of the +day, "a church," he was appointed its first minister. Gifford exercised +a deep and vital though narrow influence, leaving behind him at his +death, in 1655, the character of a "wise, tolerant, and truly Christian +man." The conversation of the poor women who were destined to exercise +so momentous an influence on Bunyan's spiritual life, evidenced how +thoroughly they had drunk in their pastor's teaching. Bunyan himself was +at this time a "brisk talker in the matters of religion," such as he drew +from the life in his own Talkative. But the words of these poor women +were entirely beyond him. They opened a new and blessed land to which he +was a complete stranger. "They spoke of their own wretchedness of heart, +of their unbelief, of their miserable state by nature, of the new birth, +and the work of God in their souls, and how the Lord refreshed them, and +supported them against the temptations of the Devil by His words and +promises." But what seems to have struck Bunyan the most forcibly was +the happiness which their religion shed in the hearts of these poor +women. Religion up to this time had been to him a system of rules and +restrictions. Heaven was to be won by doing certain things and not doing +certain other things. Of religion as a Divine life kindled in the soul, +and flooding it with a joy which creates a heaven on earth, he had no +conception. Joy in believing was a new thing to him. "They spake as if +joy did make them speak; they spake with such pleasantness of Scripture +language, and with such appearance of grace in all they said, that they +were to me as if they had found a new world," a veritable "El Dorado," +stored with the true riches. Bunyan, as he says, after he had listened +awhile and wondered at their words, left them and went about his work +again. But their words went with him. He could not get rid of them. He +saw that though he thought himself a godly man, and his neighbours +thought so too, he wanted the true tokens of godliness. He was convinced +that godliness was the only true happiness, and he could not rest till he +had attained it. So he made it his business to be going again and again +into the company of these good women. He could not stay away, and the +more he talked with them the more uneasy he became--"the more I +questioned my own condition." The salvation of his soul became all in +all to him. His mind "lay fixed on eternity like a horse-leech at the +vein." The Bible became precious to him. He read it with new eyes, "as +I never did before." "I was indeed then never out of the Bible, either +by reading or meditation." The Epistles of St. Paul, which before he +"could not away with," were now "sweet and pleasant" to him. He was +still "crying out to God that he might know the truth and the way to +Heaven and glory." Having no one to guide him in his study of the most +difficult of all books, it is no wonder that he misinterpreted and +misapplied its words in a manner which went far to unsettle his brain. He +read that without faith he could not be saved, and though he did not +clearly know what faith was, it became a question of supreme anxiety to +him to determine whether he had it or not. If not, he was a castaway +indeed, doomed to perish for ever. So he determined to put it to the +test. The Bible told him that faith, "even as a grain of mustard seed," +would enable its possessor to work miracles. So, as Mr. Froude says, +"not understanding Oriental metaphors," he thought he had here a simple +test which would at once solve the question. One day as he was walking +along the miry road between Elstow and Bedford, which he had so often +paced as a schoolboy, "the temptation came hot upon him" to put the +matter to the proof, by saying to the puddles that were in the horse-pads +"be dry," and to the dry places, "be ye puddles." He was just about to +utter the words when a sudden thought stopped him. Would it not be +better just to go under the hedge and pray that God would enable him? +This pause saved him from a rash venture, which might have landed him in +despair. For he concluded that if he tried after praying and nothing +came of it, it would prove that he had no faith, but was a castaway. +"Nay, thought I, if it be so, I will never try yet, but will stay a +little longer." "Then," he continues, "I was so tossed betwixt the Devil +and my own ignorance, and so perplexed, especially at sometimes, that I +could not tell what to do." At another time his mind, as the minds of +thousands have been and will be to the end, was greatly harassed by the +insoluble problems of predestination and election. The question was not +now whether he had faith, but "whether he was one of the elect or not, +and if not, what then?" "He might as well leave off and strive no +further." And then the strange fancy occurred to him, that the good +people at Bedford whose acquaintance he had recently made, were all that +God meant to save in that part of the country, and that the day of grace +was past and gone for him; that he had overstood the time of mercy. "Oh +that he had turned sooner!" was then his cry. "Oh that he had turned +seven years before! What a fool he had been to trifle away his time till +his soul and heaven were lost!" The text, "compel them to come in, and +yet there is room," came to his rescue when he was so harassed and faint +that he was "scarce able to take one step more." He found them "sweet +words," for they showed him that there was "place enough in heaven for +him," and he verily believed that when Christ spoke them He was thinking +of him, and had them recorded to help him to overcome the vile fear that +there was no place left for him in His bosom. But soon another fear +succeeded the former. Was he truly called of Christ? "He called to them +when He would, and they came to Him." But they could not come unless He +called them. Had He called him? Would He call him? If He did how +gladly would he run after Him. But oh, he feared that He had no liking +to him; that He would not call him. True conversion was what he longed +for. "Could it have been gotten for gold," he said, "what could I have +given for it! Had I a whole world, it had all gone ten thousand times +over for this, that my soul might have been in a converted state." All +those whom he thought to be truly converted were now lovely in his eyes. +"They shone, they walked like people that carried the broad seal of +heaven about them. Oh that he were like them, and shared in their goodly +heritage!" + +About this time Bunyan was greatly troubled, though at the same time +encouraged in his endeavours after the blessedness he longed for so +earnestly but could not yet attain to, by "a dream or vision" which +presented itself to him, whether in his waking or sleeping hours he does +not tell us. He fancied he saw his four Bedford friends refreshing +themselves on the sunny side of a high mountain while he was shivering +with dark and cold on the other side, parted from them by a high wall +with only one small gap in it, and that not found but after long +searching, and so strait and narrow withal that it needed long and +desperate efforts to force his way through. At last he succeeded. +"Then," he says, "I was exceeding glad, and went and sat down in the +midst of them, and so was comforted with the light and heat of their +sun." + +But this sunshine shone but in illusion, and soon gave place to the old +sad questioning, which filled his soul with darkness. Was he already +called, or should he be called some day? He would give worlds to know. +Who could assure him? At last some words of the prophet Joel (chap. iii, +21) encouraged him to hope that if not converted already, the time might +come when he should be converted to Christ. Despair began to give way to +hopefulness. + +At this crisis Bunyan took the step which he would have been wise if he +had taken long before. He sought the sympathy and counsel of others. He +began to speak his mind to the poor people in Bedford whose words of +religious experiences had first revealed to him his true condition. By +them he was introduced to their pastor, "the godly Mr. Gifford," who +invited him to his house and gave him spiritual counsel. He began to +attend the meetings of his disciples. + +The teaching he received here was but ill-suited for one of Bunyan's +morbid sensitiveness. For it was based upon a constant introspection and +a scrupulous weighing of each word and action, with a torturing suspicion +of its motive, which made a man's ever-varying spiritual feelings the +standard of his state before God, instead of leading him off from self to +the Saviour. It is not, therefore, at all surprising that a considerable +period intervened before, in the language of his school, "he found +peace." This period, which seems to have embraced two or three years, +was marked by that tremendous inward struggle which he has described, "as +with a pen of fire," in that marvellous piece of religious autobiography, +without a counterpart except in "The Confessions of St. Augustine," his +"Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners." Bunyan's first experiences +after his introduction to Mr. Gifford and the inner circle of his +disciples were most discouraging. What he heard of God's dealings with +their souls showed him something of "the vanity and inward wretchedness +of his wicked heart," and at the same time roused all its hostility to +God's will. "It did work at that rate for wickedness as it never did +before." "The Canaanites _would_ dwell in the land." "His heart +hankered after every foolish vanity, and hung back both to and in every +duty, as a clog on the leg of a bird to hinder her from flying." He +thought that he was growing "worse and worse," and was "further from +conversion than ever before." Though he longed to let Christ into his +heart, "his unbelief would, as it were, set its shoulder to the door to +keep Him out." + +Yet all the while he was tormented with the most perverse scrupulosity of +conscience. "As to the act of sinning, I never was more tender than now; +I durst not take a pin or a stick, though but so big as a straw, for my +conscience now was sore, and would smart at every twist. I could not now +tell how to speak my words, for fear I should misplace them. Oh! how +gingerly did I then go in all I did or said: I found myself in a miry +bog, that shook if I did but stir, and was as those left both of God, and +Christ, and the Spirit, and all good things." All the misdoings of his +earlier years rose up against him. There they were, and he could not rid +himself of them. He thought that no one could be so bad as he was; "not +even the Devil could be his equal: he was more loathsome in his own eyes +than a toad." What then must God think of him? Despair seized fast hold +of him. He thought he was "forsaken of God and given up to the Devil, +and to a reprobate mind." Nor was this a transient fit of despondency. +"Thus," he writes, "I continued a long while, even for some years +together." + +This is not the place minutely to pursue Bunyan's religious history +through the sudden alternations of hopes and fears, the fierce +temptations, the torturing illusions, the strange perversions of isolated +scraps of Bible language--texts torn from their context--the harassing +doubts as to the truth of Christianity, the depths of despair and the +elevations of joy, which he has portrayed with his own inimitable graphic +power. It is a picture of fearful fascination that he draws. "A great +storm" at one time comes down upon him, "piece by piece," which "handled +him twenty times worse than all he had met with before," while "floods of +blasphemies were poured upon his spirit," and would "bolt out of his +heart." He felt himself driven to commit the unpardonable sin and +blaspheme the Holy Ghost, "whether he would or no." "No sin would serve +but that." He was ready to "clap his hand under his chin," to keep his +mouth shut, or to leap head-foremost "into some muckhill-hole," to +prevent his uttering the fatal words. At last he persuaded himself that +he had committed the sin, and a good but not overwise man, "an ancient +Christian," whom he consulted on his sad case, told him he thought so +too, "which was but cold comfort." He thought himself possessed by the +devil, and compared himself to a child "carried off under her apron by a +gipsy." "Kick sometimes I did, and also shriek and cry, but yet I was as +bound in the wings of the temptation, and the wind would carry me away." +He wished himself "a dog or a toad," for they "had no soul to be lost as +his was like to be;" and again a hopeless callousness seemed to settle +upon him. "If I would have given a thousand pounds for a tear I could +not shed one; no, nor sometimes scarce desire to shed one." And yet he +was all the while bewailing this hardness of heart, in which he thought +himself singular. "This much sunk me. I thought my condition was alone; +but how to get out of, or get rid of, these things I could not." Again +the very ground of his faith was shaken. "Was the Bible true, or was it +not rather a fable and cunning story?" All thought "their own religion +true. Might not the Turks have as good Scriptures to prove their Mahomet +Saviour as Christians had for Christ? What if all we believed in should +be but 'a think-so' too?" So powerful and so real were his illusions +that he had hard work to keep himself from praying to things about him, +to "a bush, a bull, a besom, or the like," or even to Satan himself. He +heard voices behind him crying out that Satan desired to have him, and +that "so loud and plain that he would turn his head to see who was +calling him;" when on his knees in prayer he fancied he felt the foul +fiend pull his clothes from behind, bidding him "break off, make haste; +you have prayed enough." + +This "horror of great darkness" was not always upon him. Bunyan had his +intervals of "sunshine-weather" when Giant Despair's fits came on him, +and the giant "lost the use of his hand." Texts of Scripture would give +him a "sweet glance," and flood his soul with comfort. But these +intervals of happiness were but short-lived. They were but "hints, +touches, and short visits," sweet when present, but "like Peter's sheet, +suddenly caught up again into heaven." But, though transient, they +helped the burdened Pilgrim onward. So vivid was the impression +sometimes made, that years after he could specify the place where these +beams of sunlight fell on him--"sitting in a neighbour's +house,"--"travelling into the country,"--as he was "going home from +sermon." And the joy was real while it lasted. The words of the +preacher's text, "Behold, thou art fair, my love," kindling his spirit, +he felt his "heart filled with comfort and hope." "Now I could believe +that my sins would be forgiven." He was almost beside himself with +ecstasy. "I was now so taken with the love and mercy of God that I +thought I could have spoken of it even to the very crows that sat upon +the ploughed lands before me, had they been capable to have understood +me." "Surely," he cried with gladness, "I will not forget this forty +years hence." "But, alas! within less than forty days I began to +question all again." It was the Valley of the Shadow of Death which +Bunyan, like his own Pilgrim, was travelling through. But, as in his +allegory, "by and by the day broke," and "the Lord did more fully and +graciously discover Himself unto him." "One day," he writes, "as I was +musing on the wickedness and blasphemy of my heart, that scripture came +into my mind, 'He hath made peace by the Blood of His Cross.' By which I +was made to see, both again and again and again that day, that God and my +soul were friends by this blood: Yea, I saw the justice of God and my +sinful soul could embrace and kiss each other. This was a good day to +me. I hope I shall not forget it." At another time the "glory and joy" +of a passage in the Hebrews (ii. 14-15) were "so weighty" that "I was +once or twice ready to swoon as I sat, not with grief and trouble, but +with solid joy and peace." "But, oh! now how was my soul led on from +truth to truth by God; now had I evidence of my salvation from heaven, +with many golden seals thereon all banging in my sight, and I would long +that the last day were come, or that I were fourscore years old, that I +might die quickly that my soul might be at rest." + +At this time he fell in with an old tattered copy of Luther's "Commentary +on the Galatians," "so old that it was ready to fall piece from piece if +I did but turn it over." As he read, to his amazement and thankfulness, +he found his own spiritual experience described. "It was as if his book +had been written out of my heart." It greatly comforted him to find that +his condition was not, as he had thought, solitary, but that others had +known the same inward struggles. "Of all the books that ever he had +seen," he deemed it "most fit for a wounded conscience." This book was +also the means of awakening an intense love for the Saviour. "Now I +found, as I thought, that I loved Christ dearly. Oh, methought my soul +cleaved unto Him, my affections cleaved unto Him; I felt love to Him as +hot as fire." + +And very quickly, as he tells us, his "love was tried to some purpose." +He became the victim of an extraordinary temptation--"a freak of fancy," +Mr. Froude terms it--"fancy resenting the minuteness with which he +watched his own emotions." He had "found Christ" and felt Him "most +precious to his soul." He was now tempted to give Him up, "to sell and +part with this most blessed Christ, to exchange Him for the things of +this life; for anything." Nor was this a mere passing, intermittent +delusion. "It lay upon me for the space of a year, and did follow me so +continually that I was not rid of it one day in a month, no, not +sometimes one hour in many days together, except when I was asleep." +Wherever he was, whatever he was doing day and night, in bed, at table, +at work, a voice kept sounding in his ears, bidding him "sell Christ" for +this or that. He could neither "eat his food, stoop for a pin, chop a +stick, or cast his eyes on anything" but the hateful words were heard, +"not once only, but a hundred times over, as fast as a man could speak, +'sell Him, sell Him, sell Him,'" and, like his own Christian in the dark +valley, he could not determine whether they were suggestions of the +Wicked One, or came from his own heart. The agony was so intense, while, +for hours together, he struggled with the temptation, that his whole body +was convulsed by it. It was no metaphorical, but an actual, wrestling +with a tangible enemy. He "pushed and thrust with his hands and elbows," +and kept still answering, as fast as the destroyer said "sell Him," "No, +I will not, I will not, I will not! not for thousands, thousands, +thousands of worlds!" at least twenty times together. But the fatal +moment at last came, and the weakened will yielded, against itself. One +morning as he lay in his bed, the voice came again with redoubled force, +and would not be silenced. He fought against it as long as he could, +"even until I was almost out of breath," when "without any conscious +action of his will" the suicidal words shaped themselves in his heart, +"Let Him go if He will." + +Now all was over. He had spoken the words and they could not be +recalled. Satan had "won the battle," and "as a bird that is shot from +the top of a tree, down fell he into great guilt and fearful despair." He +left his bed, dressed, and went "moping into the field," where for the +next two hours he was "like a man bereft of life, and as one past all +recovery and bound to eternal punishment." The most terrible examples in +the Bible came trooping before him. He had sold his birthright like +Esau. He a betrayed his Master like Judas--"I was ashamed that I should +be like such an ugly man as Judas." There was no longer any place for +repentance. He was past all recovery; shut up unto the judgment to come. +He dared hardly pray. When he tried to do so, he was "as with a tempest +driven away from God," while something within said, "'Tis too late; I am +lost; God hath let me fall." The texts which once had comforted him gave +him no comfort now; or, if they did, it was but for a brief space. "About +ten or eleven o'clock one day, as I was walking under a hedge and +bemoaning myself for this hard hap that such a thought should arise +within me, suddenly this sentence bolted upon me, 'The blood of Christ +cleanseth from all sin,'" and gave me "good encouragement." But in two +or three hours all was gone. The terrible words concerning Esau's +selling his birthright took possession of his mind, and "held him down." +This "stuck with him." Though he "sought it carefully with tears," there +was no restoration for him. His agony received a terrible aggravation +from a highly coloured narrative of the terrible death of Francis Spira, +an Italian lawyer of the middle of the sixteenth century, who, having +embraced the Protestant religion, was induced by worldly motives to +return to the Roman Catholic Church, and died full of remorse and +despair, from which Bunyan afterwards drew the awful picture of "the man +in the Iron Cage" at "the Interpreter's house." The reading of this book +was to his "troubled spirit" as "salt when rubbed into a fresh wound," +"as knives and daggers in his soul." We cannot wonder that his health +began to give way under so protracted a struggle. His naturally sturdy +frame was "shaken by a continual trembling." He would "wind and twine +and shrink under his burden," the weight of which so crushed him that he +"could neither stand, nor go, nor lie, either at rest or quiet." His +digestion became disordered, and a pain, "as if his breastbone would have +split asunder," made him fear that as he had been guilty of Judas' sin, +so he was to perish by Judas' end, and "burst asunder in the midst." In +the trembling of his limbs he saw Cain's mark set upon him; God had +marked him out for his curse. No one was ever so bad as he. No one had +ever sinned so flagrantly. When he compared his sins with those of David +and Solomon and Manasseh and others which had been pardoned, he found his +sin so much exceeded theirs that he could have no hope of pardon. Theirs, +"it was true, were great sins; sins of a bloody colour. But none of them +were of the nature of his. He had sold his Saviour. His sin was point +blank against Christ." "Oh, methought this sin was bigger than the sins +of a country, of a kingdom, or of the whole world; not all of them +together was able to equal mine; mine outwent them every one." + +It would be wearisome to follow Bunyan through all the mazes of his self- +torturing illusions. Fierce as the storm was, and long in its +duration--for it was more than two years before the storm became a +calm--the waves, though he knew it not, in their fierce tossings which +threatened to drive his soul like a broken vessel headlong on the rocks +of despair, were bearing him nearer and nearer to the "haven where he +would be." His vivid imagination, as we have seen, surrounded him with +audible voices. He had heard, as he thought, the tempter bidding him +"Sell Christ;" now he thought he heard God "with a great voice, as it +were, over his shoulder behind him," saying, "Return unto Me, for I have +redeemed thee;" and though he felt that the voice mocked him, for he +could not return, there was "no place of repentance" for him, and fled +from it, it still pursued him, "holloaing after him, 'Return, return!'" +And return he did, but not all at once, or without many a fresh struggle. +With his usual graphic power he describes the zigzag path by which he +made his way. His hot and cold fits alternated with fearful suddenness. +"As Esau beat him down, Christ raised him up." "His life hung in doubt, +not knowing which way he should tip." More sensible evidence came. "One +day," he tells us, "as I walked to and fro in a good man's shop"--we can +hardly be wrong in placing it in Bedford--"bemoaning myself for this hard +hap of mine, for that I should commit so great a sin, greatly fearing +that I should not be pardoned, and ready to sink with fear, suddenly +there was as if there had rushed in at the window the noise of wind upon +me, but very pleasant, and I heard a voice speaking, 'Did'st ever refuse +to be justified by the Blood of Christ?'" Whether the voice were +supernatural or not, he was not, "in twenty years' time," able to +determine. At the time he thought it was. It was "as if an angel had +come upon me." "It commanded a great calm upon me. It persuaded me +there might be hope." But this persuasion soon vanished. "In three or +four days I began to despair again." He found it harder than ever to +pray. The devil urged that God was weary of him; had been weary for +years past; that he wanted to get rid of him and his "bawlings in his +ears," and therefore He had let him commit this particular sin that he +might be cut off altogether. For such an one to pray was but to add sin +to sin. There was no hope for him. Christ might indeed pity him and +wish to help him; but He could not, for this sin was unpardonable. He +had said "let Him go if He will," and He had taken him at his word. +"Then," he says, "I was always sinking whatever I did think or do." Years +afterwards he remembered how, in this time of hopelessness, having walked +one day, to a neighbouring town, wearied out with his misery, he sat down +on a settle in the street to ponder over his fearful state. As he looked +up, everything he saw seemed banded together for the destruction of so +vile a sinner. The "sun grudged him its light, the very stones in the +streets and the tiles on the house-roofs seemed to bend themselves +against him." He burst forth with a grievous sigh, "How can God comfort +such a wretch as I?" Comfort was nearer than he imagined. "No sooner +had I said it, but this returned to me, as an echo doth answer a voice, +'This sin is not unto death.'" This breathed fresh life into his soul. +He was "as if he had been raised out of a grave." "It was a release to +me from my former bonds, a shelter from my former storm." But though the +storm was allayed it was by no means over. He had to struggle hard to +maintain his ground. "Oh, how did Satan now lay about him for to bring +me down again. But he could by no means do it, for this sentence stood +like a millpost at my back." But after two days the old despairing +thoughts returned, "nor could his faith retain the word." A few hours, +however, saw the return of his hopes. As he was on his knees before +going to bed, "seeking the Lord with strong cries," a voice echoed his +prayer, "I have loved Thee with an everlasting love." "Now I went to bed +at quiet, and when I awaked the next morning it was fresh upon my soul +and I believed it." + +These voices from heaven--whether real or not he could not tell, nor did +he much care, for they were real to him--were continually sounding in his +ears to help him out of the fresh crises of his spiritual disorder. At +one time "O man, great is thy faith," "fastened on his heart as if one +had clapped him on the back." At another, "He is able," spoke suddenly +and loudly within his heart; at another, that "piece of a sentence," "My +grace is sufficient," darted in upon him "three times together," and he +was "as though he had seen the Lord Jesus look down through the tiles +upon him," and was sent mourning but rejoicing home. But it was still +with him like an April sky. At one time bright sunshine, at another +lowering clouds. The terrible words about Esau "returned on him as +before," and plunged him in darkness, and then again some good words, "as +it seemed writ in great letters," brought back the light of day. But the +sunshine began to last longer than before, and the clouds were less +heavy. The "visage" of the threatening texts was changed; "they looked +not on him so grimly as before;" "that about Esau's birthright began to +wax weak and withdraw and vanish." "Now remained only the hinder part of +the tempest. The thunder was gone; only a few drops fell on him now and +then." + +The long-expected deliverance was at hand. As he was walking in the +fields, still with some fears in his heart, the sentence fell upon his +soul, "Thy righteousness is in heaven." He looked up and "saw with the +eyes of his soul our Saviour at God's right hand." "There, I say, was my +righteousness; so that wherever I was, or whatever I was a-doing, God +could not say of me, 'He wants my righteousness,' for that was just +before Him. Now did the chains fall off from my legs. I was loosed from +my affliction and irons. My temptations also fled away, so that from +that time those dreadful Scriptures left off to trouble me. Oh methought +Christ, Christ, there was nothing but Christ that was before mine eyes. I +could look from myself to Him, and should reckon that all those graces of +God that now were green upon me, were yet but like those crack-groats, +and fourpence-halfpennies that rich men carry in their purses, while +their gold is in their trunks at home. Oh, I saw my gold was in my trunk +at home. In Christ my Lord and Saviour. Further the Lord did lead me +into the mystery of union with the Son of God. His righteousness was +mine, His merits mine, His victory also mine. Now I could see myself in +heaven and earth at once; in heaven by my Christ, by my Head, by my +Righteousness and Life, though on earth by my body or person. These +blessed considerations were made to spangle in mine eyes. Christ was my +all; all my Wisdom, all my Righteousness, all my Sanctification, and all +my Redemption." + + + + +CHAPTER III. + + +The Pilgrim, having now floundered through the Slough of Despond, passed +through the Wicket Gate, climbed the Hill Difficulty, and got safe by the +Lions, entered the Palace Beautiful, and was "had in to the family." In +plain words, Bunyan united himself to the little Christian brotherhood at +Bedford, of which the former loose-living royalist major, Mr. Gifford, +was the pastor, and was formally admitted into their society. In Gifford +we recognize the prototype of the Evangelist of "The Pilgrim's Progress," +while the Prudence, Piety, and Charity of Bunyan's immortal narrative had +their human representatives in devout female members of the congregation, +known in their little Bedford world as Sister Bosworth, Sister Munnes, +and Sister Fenne, three of the poor women whose pleasant words on the +things of God, as they sat at a doorway in the sun, "as if joy did make +them speak," had first opened Bunyan's eyes to his spiritual ignorance. +He was received into the church by baptism, which, according to his +earliest biographer, Charles Doe "the Struggler," was performed publicly +by Mr. Gifford, in the river Ouse, the "Bedford river" into which Bunyan +tells us he once fell out of a boat, and barely escaped drowning. This +was about the year 1653. The exact date is uncertain. Bunyan never +mentions his baptism himself, and the church books of Gifford's +congregation do not commence till May, 1656, the year after Gifford's +death. He was also admitted to the Holy Communion, which for want, as he +deemed, of due reverence in his first approach to it, became the occasion +of a temporary revival of his old temptations. While actually at the +Lord's Table he was "forced to bend himself to pray" to be kept from +uttering blasphemies against the ordinance itself, and cursing his fellow +communicants. For three-quarters of a year he could "never have rest or +ease" from this shocking perversity. The constant strain of beating off +this persistent temptation seriously affected his health. "Captain +Consumption," who carried off his own "Mr. Badman," threatened his life. +But his naturally robust constitution "routed his forces," and brought +him through what at one time he anticipated would prove a fatal illness. +Again and again, during his period of indisposition, the Tempter took +advantage of his bodily weakness to ply him with his former despairing +questionings as to his spiritual state. That seemed as bad as bad could +be. "Live he must not; die he dare not." He was repeatedly near giving +up all for lost. But a few words of Scripture brought to his mind would +revive his drooping spirits, with a natural reaction on his physical +health, and he became "well both in body and mind at once." "My sickness +did presently vanish, and I walked comfortably in my work for God again." +At another time, after three or four days of deep dejection, some words +from the Epistle to the Hebrews "came bolting in upon him," and sealed +his sense of acceptance with an assurance he never afterwards entirely +lost. "Then with joy I told my wife, 'Now I know, I know.' That night +was a good night to me; I never had but few better. I could scarce lie +in my bed for joy and peace and triumph through Christ." + +During this time Bunyan, though a member of the Bedford congregation, +continued to reside at Elstow, in the little thatched wayside tenement, +with its lean-to forge at one end, already mentioned, which is still +pointed out as "Bunyan's Cottage." There his two children, Mary, his +passionately loved blind daughter, and Elizabeth were born; the one in +1650, and the other in 1654. It was probably in the next year, 1655, +that he finally quitted his native village and took up his residence in +Bedford, and became a deacon of the congregation. About this time also +he must have lost the wife to whom he owed so much. Bunyan does not +mention the event, and our only knowledge of it is from the conversation +of his second wife, Elizabeth, with Sir Matthew Hale. He sustained also +an even greater loss in the death of his friend and comrade, Mr. Gifford, +who died in September, 1655. The latter was succeeded by a young man +named John Burton, of very delicate health, who was taken by death from +his congregation, by whom he was much beloved, in September, 1660, four +months after the restoration of the Monarchy and the Church. Burton +thoroughly appreciated Bunyan's gifts, and stood sponsor for him on the +publication of his first printed work. This was a momentous year for +Bunyan, for in it Dr. Brown has shown, by a "comparison of dates," that +we may probably place the beginning of Bunyan's ministerial life. Bunyan +was now in his twenty-seventh year, in the prime of his manly vigour, +with a vivid imagination, ready speech, minute textual knowledge of the +Bible, and an experience of temptation and the wiles of the evil one, +such as few Christians of double his years have ever reached. "His gifts +could not long be hid." The beginnings of that which was to prove the +great work of his life were slender enough. As Mr. Froude says, "he was +modest, humble, shrinking." The members of his congregation, recognizing +that he had "the gift of utterance" asked him to speak "a word of +exhortation" to them. The request scared him. The most truly gifted are +usually the least conscious of their gifts. At first it did much "dash +and abash his spirit." But after earnest entreaty he gave way, and made +one or two trials of his gift in private meetings, "though with much +weakness and infirmity." The result proved the correctness of his +brethren's estimate. The young tinker showed himself no common preacher. +His words came home with power to the souls of his hearers, who +"protested solemnly, as in the sight of God, that they were both affected +and comforted by them, and gave thanks to the Father of mercies for the +grace bestowed on him." After this, as the brethren went out on their +itinerating rounds to the villages about, they began to ask Bunyan to +accompany them, and though he "durst not make use of his gift in an open +way," he would sometimes, "yet more privately still, speak a word of +admonition, with which his hearers professed their souls edified." That +he had a real Divine call to the ministry became increasingly evident, +both to himself and to others. His engagements of this kind multiplied. +An entry in the Church book records "that Brother Bunyan being taken off +by the preaching of the gospel" from his duties as deacon, another member +was appointed in his room. His appointment to the ministry was not long +delayed. After "some solemn prayer with fasting," he was "called forth +and appointed a preacher of the word," not, however, so much for the +Bedford congregation as for the neighbouring villages. He did not +however, like some, neglect his business, or forget to "show piety at +home." He still continued his craft as a tinker, and that with industry +and success. "God," writes an early biographer, "had increased his +stores so that he lived in great credit among his neighbours." He +speedily became famous as a preacher. People "came in by hundreds to +hear the word, and that from all parts, though upon sundry and divers +accounts,"--"some," as Southey writes, "to marvel, and some perhaps to +mock." Curiosity to hear the once profane tinker preach was not one of +the least prevalent motives. But his word proved a word of power to +many. Those "who came to scoff remained to pray." "I had not preached +long," he says, "before some began to be touched and to be greatly +afflicted in their minds." His success humbled and amazed him, as it +must every true man who compares the work with the worker. "At first," +he says, "I could not believe that God should speak by me to the heart of +any man, still counting myself unworthy; and though I did put it from me +that they should be awakened by me, still they would confess it and +affirm it before the saints of God. They would also bless God for +me--unworthy wretch that I am--and count me God's instrument that showed +to them the way of salvation." He preached wherever he found +opportunity, in woods, in barns, on village greens, or even in churches. +But he liked best to preach "in the darkest places of the country, where +people were the furthest off from profession," where he could give the +fullest scope to "the awakening and converting power" he possessed. His +success as a preacher might have tempted him to vanity. But the +conviction that he was but an instrument in the hand of a higher power +kept it down. He saw that if he had gifts and wanted grace he was but as +a "tinkling cymbal." "What, thought I, shall I be proud because I am a +sounding brass? Is it so much to be a fiddle?" This thought was, "as it +were, a maul on the head of the pride and vainglory" which he found +"easily blown up at the applause and commendation of every unadvised +christian." His experiences, like those of every public speaker, +especially the most eloquent, were very varied, even in the course of the +same sermon. Sometimes, he tells us, he would begin "with much +clearness, evidence, and liberty of speech," but, before he had done, he +found himself "so straitened in his speech before the people," that he +"scarce knew or remembered what he had been about," and felt "as if his +head had been in a bag all the time of the exercise." He feared that he +would not be able to "speak sense to the hearers," or he would be "seized +with such faintness and strengthlessness that his legs were hardly able +to carry him to his place of preaching." Old temptations too came back. +Blasphemous thoughts formed themselves into words, which he had hard work +to keep himself from uttering from the pulpit. Or the tempter tried to +silence him by telling him that what he was going to say would condemn +himself, and he would go "full of guilt and terror even to the pulpit +door." "'What,' the devil would say, 'will you preach this? Of this +your own soul is guilty. Preach not of it at all, or if you do, yet so +mince it as to make way for your own escape.'" All, however, was in +vain. Necessity was laid upon him. "Woe," he cried, "is me, if I preach +not the gospel." His heart was "so wrapped up in the glory of this +excellent work, that he counted himself more blessed and honoured of God +than if he had made him emperor of the Christian world." Bunyan was no +preacher of vague generalities. He knew that sermons miss their mark if +they hit no one. Self-application is their object. "Wherefore," he +says, "I laboured so to speak the word, as that the sin and person guilty +might be particularized by it." And what he preached he knew and felt to +be true. It was not what he read in books, but what he had himself +experienced. Like Dante he had been in hell himself, and could speak as +one who knew its terrors, and could tell also of the blessedness of +deliverance by the person and work of Christ. And this consciousness +gave him confidence and courage in declaring his message. It was "as if +an angel of God had stood at my back." "Oh it hath been with such power +and heavenly evidence upon my own soul while I have been labouring to +fasten it upon the conscience of others, that I could not be contented +with saying, 'I believe and am sure.' Methought I was more than sure, if +it be lawful so to express myself, that the things I asserted were true." + +Bunyan, like all earnest workers for God, had his disappointments which +wrung his heart. He could be satisfied with nothing less than the +conversion and sanctification of his hearers. "If I were fruitless, it +mattered not who commanded me; but if I were fruitful, I cared not who +did condemn." And the result of a sermon was often very different from +what he anticipated: "When I thought I had done no good, then I did the +most; and when I thought I should catch them, I fished for nothing." "A +word cast in by-the-bye sometimes did more execution than all the Sermon +besides." The tie between him and his spiritual children was very close. +The backsliding of any of his converts caused him the most extreme grief; +"it was more to me than if one of my own children were going to the +grave. Nothing hath gone so near me as that, unless it was the fear of +the loss of the salvation of my own soul." + +A story, often repeated, but too characteristic to be omitted, +illustrates the power of his preaching even in the early days of his +ministry. "Being to preach in a church in a country village in +Cambridgeshire"--it was before the Restoration--"and the public being +gathered together in the churchyard, a Cambridge scholar, and none of the +soberest neither, inquired what the meaning of that concourse of people +was (it being a week-day); and being told that one Bunyan, a tinker, was +to preach there, he gave a lad twopence to hold his horse, saying he was +resolved to hear the tinker prate; and so he went into the church to hear +him. But God met him there by His ministry, so that he came out much +changed; and would by his good will hear none but the tinker for a long +time after, he himself becoming a very eminent preacher in that country +afterwards." "This story," continues the anonymous biographer, "I know +to be true, having many times discoursed with the man." To the same ante- +Restoration period, Dr. Brown also assigns the anecdote of Bunyan's +encounter, on the road near Cambridge, with the university man who asked +him how he dared to preach not having the original Scriptures. With +ready wit, Bunyan turned the tables on the scholar by asking whether he +had the actual originals, the copies written by the apostles and +prophets. The scholar replied, "No," but they had what they believed to +be a true copy of the original. "And I," said Bunyan, "believe the +English Bible to be a true copy, too." "Then away rid the scholar." + +The fame of such a preacher, naturally, soon spread far and wide; all the +countryside flocked eagerly to hear him. In some places, as at Meldreth +in Cambridgeshire, and Yelden in his own county of Bedfordshire, the +pulpits of the parish churches were opened to him. At Yelden, the +Rector, Dr. William Dell, the Puritan Master of Caius College, Cambridge, +formerly Chaplain to the army under Fairfax, roused the indignation of +his orthodox parishioners by allowing him--"one Bunyon of Bedford, a +tinker," as he is ignominiously styled in the petition sent up to the +House of Lords in 1660--to preach in his parish church on Christmas Day. +But, generally, the parochial clergy were his bitterest enemies. "When I +first went to preach the word abroad," he writes, "the Doctors and +priests of the country did open wide against me." Many were envious of +his success where they had so signally failed. In the words of Mr. Henry +Deane, when defending Bunyan against the attacks of Dr. T. Smith, +Professor of Arabic and Keeper of the University Library at Cambridge, +who had come upon Bunyan preaching in a barn at Toft, they were "angry +with the tinker because he strove to mend souls as well as kettles and +pans," and proved himself more skilful in his craft than those who had +graduated at a university. Envy is ever the mother of detraction. +Slanders of the blackest dye against his moral character were freely +circulated, and as readily believed. It was the common talk that he was +a thorough reprobate. Nothing was too bad for him. He was "a witch, a +Jesuit, a highwayman, and the like." It was reported that he had "his +misses and his bastards; that he had two wives at once," &c. Such +charges roused all the man in Bunyan. Few passages in his writings show +more passion than that in "Grace Abounding," in which he defends himself +from the "fools or knaves" who were their authors. He "begs belief of no +man, and if they believe him or disbelieve him it is all one to him. But +he would have them know how utterly baseless their accusations are." "My +foes," he writes, "have missed their mark in their open shooting at me. I +am not the man. If all the fornicators and adulterers in England were +hanged by the neck till they be dead, John Bunyan would be still alive. I +know not whether there is such a thing as a woman breathing under the +copes of the whole heaven but by their apparel, their children, or by +common fame, except my wife." He calls not only men, but angels, nay, +even God Himself, to bear testimony to his innocence in this respect. But +though they were so absolutely baseless, nay, the rather because they +were so baseless, the grossness of these charges evidently stung Bunyan +very deeply. + +So bitter was the feeling aroused against him by the marvellous success +of his irregular ministry, that his enemies, even before the restoration +of the Church and Crown, endeavoured to put the arm of the law in motion +to restrain him. We learn from the church books that in March, 1658, the +little Bedford church was in trouble for "Brother Bunyan," against whom +an indictment had been laid at the Assizes for "preaching at Eaton +Socon." Of this indictment we hear no more; so it was probably dropped. +But it is an instructive fact that, even during the boasted religious +liberty of the Protectorate, irregular preaching, especially that of the +much dreaded Anabaptists, was an indictable offence. But, as Dr. Brown +observes, "religious liberty had not yet come to mean liberty all round, +but only liberty for a certain recognized section of Christians." That +there was no lack of persecution during the Commonwealth is clear from +the cruel treatment to which Quakers were subjected, to say nothing of +the intolerance shown to Episcopalians and Roman Catholics. In Bunyan's +own county of Bedford, Quakeresses were sentenced to be whipped and sent +to Bridewell for reproving a parish priest, perhaps well deserving of it, +and exhorting the folks on a market day to repentance and amendment of +life. "The simple truth is," writes Robert Southey, "all parties were +agreed on the one catholic opinion that certain doctrines were not to be +tolerated:" the only points of difference between them were "what those +doctrines were," and how far intolerance might be carried. The withering +lines are familiar to us, in which Milton denounces the "New Forcers of +Conscience," who by their intolerance and "super-metropolitan and +hyperarchiepiscopal tyranny," proved that in his proverbial words, "New +Presbyter is but old Priest writ large"-- + + "Because you have thrown off your prelate lord, + And with stiff vows renounce his liturgy + Dare ye for this adjure the civil sword + To force our consciences that Christ set free!" + +How Bunyan came to escape we know not. But the danger he was in was +imminent enough for the church at Bedford to meet to pray "for counsail +what to doe" in respect of it. + +It was in these closing years of the Protectorate that Bunyan made his +first essay at authorship. He was led to it by a long and tiresome +controversy with the Quakers, who had recently found their way to +Bedford. The foundations of the faith, he thought, were being +undermined. The Quakers' teaching as to the inward light seemed to him a +serious disparagement of the Holy Scriptures, while their mystical view +of the spiritual Christ revealed to the soul and dwelling in the heart, +came perilously near to a denial of the historic reality of the personal +Christ. He had had public disputations with male and female Quakers from +time to time, at the Market Cross at Bedford, at "Paul's Steeple-house in +Bedford town," and other places. One of them, Anne Blackley by name, +openly bade him throw away the Scriptures, to which Bunyan replied, "No; +for then the devil would be too hard for me." The same enthusiast +charged him with "preaching up an idol, and using conjuration and +witchcraft," because of his assertion of the bodily presence of Christ in +heaven. + +The first work of one who was to prove himself so voluminous an author, +cannot but be viewed with much interest. It was a little volume in +duodecimo, of about two hundred pages, entitled "Some Gospel Truths +Opened, by that unworthy servant of Christ, John Bunyan, of Bedford, by +the Grace of God, preacher of the Gospel of His dear Son," published in +1656. The little book, which, as Dr. Brown says, was "evidently thrown +off at a heat," was printed in London and published at Newport Pagnel. +Bunyan being entirely unknown to the world, his first literary venture +was introduced by a commendatory "Epistle" written by Gifford's +successor, John Burton. In this Burton speaks of the young author--Bunyan +was only in his twenty-ninth year--as one who had "neither the greatness +nor the wisdom of the world to commend him," "not being chosen out of an +earthly but out of a heavenly university, the Church of Christ," where +"through grace he had taken three heavenly degrees, to wit, union with +Christ, the anointing of the Spirit, and experience of the temptations of +Satan," and as one of whose "soundness in the faith, godly conversation, +and his ability to preach the Gospel, not by human aid, but by the Spirit +of the Lord," he "with many other saints had had experience." This book +must be pronounced a very remarkable production for a young travelling +tinker, under thirty, and without any literary or theological training +but such as he had gained for himself after attaining to manhood. Its +arrangement is excellent, the arguments are ably marshalled, the style is +clear, the language pure and well chosen. It is, in the main, a well- +reasoned defence of the historical truth of the Articles of the Creed +relating to the Second Person of the Trinity, against the mystical +teaching of the followers of George Fox, who, by a false spiritualism, +sublimated the whole Gospel narrative into a vehicle for the +representation of truths relating to the inner life of the believer. No +one ever had a firmer grasp than Bunyan of the spiritual bearing of the +facts of the recorded life of Christ on the souls of men. But he would +not suffer their "subjectivity"--to adopt modern terms--to destroy their +"objectivity." If the Son of God was not actually born of the Virgin +Mary, if He did not live in a real human body, and in that body die, lie +in the grave, rise again, and ascend up into heaven, whence He would +return--and that Bunyan believed shortly--in the same Body He took of His +mortal mother, His preaching was vain; their faith was vain; they were +yet in their sins. Those who "cried up a Christ within, _in opposition_ +to a Christ without," who asserted that Christ had no other Body but the +Church, that the only Crucifixion, rising again, and ascension of Christ +was that _within_ the believer, and that every man had, as an inner +light, a measure of Christ's Spirit within him sufficient to guide him to +salvation, he asserted were "possessed with a spirit of delusion;" +deceived themselves, they were deceiving others to their eternal ruin. To +the refutation of such fundamental errors, substituting a mystical for an +historical faith, Bunyan's little treatise is addressed; and it may be +truly said the work is done effectually. To adopt Coleridge's expression +concerning Bunyan's greater and world-famous work, it is an admirable +"_Summa Theologiae Evangelicae_," which, notwithstanding its obsolete +style and old-fashioned arrangement, may be read even now with advantage. + +Bunyan's denunciation of the tenets of the Quakers speedily elicited a +reply. This was written by a certain Edward Burrough, a young man of +three and twenty, fearless, devoted, and ardent in the propagation of the +tenets of his sect. Being subsequently thrown into Newgate with hundreds +of his co-religionists, at the same time that his former antagonist was +imprisoned in Bedford Gaol, Burrough met the fate Bunyan's stronger +constitution enabled him to escape; and in the language of the times, +"rotted in prison," a victim to the loathsome foulness of his place of +incarceration, in the year of the "Bartholomew Act," 1662. + +Burrough entitled his reply, "The Gospel of Peace, contended for in the +Spirit of Meekness and Love against the secret opposition of John Bunyan, +a professed minister in Bedfordshire." His opening words, too +characteristic of the entire treatise, display but little of the meekness +professed. "How long, ye crafty fowlers, will ye prey upon the innocent? +How long shall the righteous be a prey to your teeth, ye subtle foxes! +Your dens are in darkness, and your mischief is hatched upon your beds of +secret whoredoms?" Of John Burton and the others who recommended +Bunyan's treatise, he says, "They have joined themselves with the broken +army of Magog, and have showed themselves in the defence of the dragon +against the Lamb in the day of war betwixt them." We may well echo Dr. +Brown's wish that "these two good men could have had a little free and +friendly talk face to face. There would probably have been better +understanding, and fewer hard words, for they were really not so far +apart as they thought. Bunyan believed in the inward light, and Burrough +surely accepted an objective Christ. But failing to see each other's +exact point of view, Burrough thunders at Bunyan, and Bunyan swiftly +returns the shot." + +The rapidity of Bunyan's literary work is amazing, especially when we +take his antecedents into account. Within a few weeks he published his +rejoinder to Friend Burrough, under the title of "A Vindication of Gospel +Truths Opened." In this work, which appeared in 1667, Bunyan repays +Burrough in his own coin, styling him "a proved enemy to the truth," a +"grossly railing Rabshakeh, who breaks out with a taunt and a jeer," is +very "censorious and utters many words without knowledge." In vigorous, +nervous language, which does not spare his opponent, he defends himself +from Burrough's charges, and proves that the Quakers are "deceivers." "As +for you thinking that to drink water, and wear no hatbands is not walking +after your own lusts, I say that whatsoever man do make a religion out +of, having no warrant for it in Scripture, is but walking after their own +lusts, and not after the Spirit of God." Burrough had most unwarrantably +stigmatized Bunyan as one of "the false prophets, who love the wages of +unrighteousness, and through covetousness make merchandise of souls." +Bunyan calmly replies, "Friend, dost thou speak this as from thy own +knowledge, or did any other tell thee so? However that spirit that led +thee out this way is a lying spirit. For though I be poor and of no +repute in the world as to outward things, yet through grace I have +learned by the example of the Apostle to preach the truth, and also to +work with my hands both for mine own living, and for those that are with +me, when I have opportunity. And I trust that the Lord Jesus who hath +helped me to reject the wages of unrighteousness hitherto, will also help +me still so that I shall distribute that which God hath given me freely, +and not for filthy lucre's sake." The fruitfulness of his ministry which +Burrough had called in question, charging him with having "run before he +was sent," he refuses to discuss. Bunyan says, "I shall leave it to be +taken notice of by the people of God and the country where I dwell, who +will testify the contrary for me, setting aside the carnal ministry with +their retinue who are so mad against me as thyself." + +In his third book, published in 1658, at "the King's Head, in the Old +Bailey," a few days before Oliver Cromwell's death, Bunyan left the +thorny domain of polemics, for that of Christian exhortation, in which +his chief work was to be done. This work was an exposition of the +parable of "the Rich Man and Lazarus," bearing the horror-striking title, +"A Few Sighs from Hell, or the Groans of a Damned Soul." In this work, +as its title would suggest, Bunyan, accepting the literal accuracy of the +parable as a description of the realities of the world beyond the grave, +gives full scope to his vivid imagination in portraying the condition of +the lost. It contains some touches of racy humour, especially in the +similes, and is written in the nervous homespun English of which he was +master. Its popularity is shown by its having gone through nine editions +in the author's lifetime. To take an example or two of its style: +dealing with the excuses people make for not hearing the Gospel, "O, +saith one, I dare not for my master, my brother, my landlord; I shall +lose his favour, his house of work, and so decay my calling. O, saith +another, I would willingly go in this way but for my father; he chides me +and tells me he will not stand my friend when I come to want; I shall +never enjoy a pennyworth of his goods; he will disinherit me--And I dare +not, saith another, for my husband, for he will be a-railing, and tells +me he will turn me out of doors, he will beat me and cut off my legs;" +and then turning from the hindered to the hinderers: "Oh, what red lines +will there be against all those rich ungodly landlords that so keep under +their poor tenants that they dare not go out to hear the word for fear +that their rent should be raised or they turned out of their houses. +Think on this, you drunken proud rich, and scornful landlords; think on +this, you madbrained blasphemous husbands, that are against the godly and +chaste conversation of your wives; also you that hold your servants so +hard to it that you will not spare them time to hear the Word, unless it +will be where and when your lusts will let you." He bids the ungodly +consider that "the profits, pleasures, and vanities of the world" will +one day "give thee the slip, and leave thee in the sands and the brambles +of all that thou hast done." The careless man lies "like the smith's dog +at the foot of the anvil, though the fire sparks flee in his face." The +rich man remembers how he once despised Lazarus, "scrubbed beggarly +Lazarus. What, shall I dishonour my fair sumptuous and gay house with +such a scabbed creephedge as he? The Lazaruses are not allowed to warn +them of the wrath to come, because they are not gentlemen, because they +cannot with Pontius Pilate speak Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. Nay, they +must not, shall not, speak to them, and all because of this." + +The fourth production of Bunyan's pen, his last book before his twelve +years of prison life began, is entitled, "The Doctrine of Law and Grace +Unfolded." With a somewhat overstrained humility which is hardly worthy +of him, he describes himself in the title-page as "that poor contemptible +creature John Bunyan, of Bedford." It was given to the world in May, +1659, and issued from the same press in the Old Bailey as his last work. +It cannot be said that this is one of Bunyan's most attractive writings. +It is as he describes it, "a parcel of plain yet sound, true, and home +sayings," in which with that clearness of thought and accuracy of +arrangement which belongs to him, and that marvellous acquaintance with +Scripture language which he had gained by his constant study of the +Bible, he sets forth the two covenants--the covenant of works, and the +covenant of Grace--"in their natures, ends, bounds, together with the +state and condition of them that are under the one, and of them that are +under the other." Dr. Brown describes the book as "marked by a firm +grasp of faith and a strong view of the reality of Christ's person and +work as the one Priest and Mediator for a sinful world." To quote a +passage, "Is there righteousness in Christ? that is mine. Is there +perfection in that righteousness? that is mine. Did He bleed for sin? It +was for mine. Hath He overcome the law, the devil, and hell? The +victory is mine, and I am come forth conqueror, nay, more than a +conqueror through Him that hath loved me. . . Lord, show me continually +in the light of Thy Spirit, through Thy word, that Jesus that was born in +the days of Caesar Augustus, when Mary, a daughter of Judah, went with +Joseph to be taxed in Bethlehem, that He is the very Christ. Let me not +rest contented without such a faith that is so wrought even by the +discovery of His Birth, Crucifying Death, Blood, Resurrection, Ascension, +and Second--which is His Personal--Coming again, that the very faith of +it may fill my soul with comfort and holiness." Up and down its pages we +meet with vivid reminiscences of his own career, of which he can only +speak with wonder and thankfulness. In the "Epistle to the Reader," +which introduces it, occurs the passage already referred to describing +his education. "I never went to school to Aristotle or Plato, but was +brought up at my father's house in a very mean condition, among a company +of poor countrymen." Of his own religious state before his conversion he +thus speaks: "When it pleased the Lord to begin to instruct my soul, He +found me one of the black sinners of the world. He found me making a +sport of oaths, and also of lies; and many a soul-poisoning meal did I +make out of divers lusts, such as drinking, dancing, playing, pleasure +with the wicked ones of the world; and so wedded was I to my sins, that +thought I to myself, 'I will have them though I lose my soul.'" And +then, after narrating the struggles he had had with his conscience, the +alternations of hope and fear which he passed through, which are more +fully described in his "Grace Abounding," he thus vividly depicts the +full assurance of faith he had attained to: "I saw through grace that it +was the Blood shed on Mount Calvary that did save and redeem sinners, as +clearly and as really with the eyes of my soul as ever, methought, I had +seen a penny loaf bought with a penny. . . O let the saints know that +unless the devil can pluck Christ out of heaven he cannot pull a true +believer out of Christ." In a striking passage he shows how, by turning +Satan's temptations against himself, Christians may "Get the art as to +outrun him in his own shoes, and make his own darts pierce himself." +"What! didst thou never learn to outshoot the devil in his own bow, and +cut off his head with his own sword as David served Goliath?" The whole +treatise is somewhat wearisome, but the pious reader will find much in it +for spiritual edification. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +We cannot doubt that one in whom loyalty was so deep and fixed a +principle as Bunyan, would welcome with sincere thankfulness the +termination of the miserable interval of anarchy which followed the death +of the Protector and the abdication of his indolent and feeble son, by +the restoration of monarchy in the person of Charles the Second. Even if +some forebodings might have arisen that with the restoration of the old +monarchy the old persecuting laws might be revived, which made it +criminal for a man to think for himself in the matters which most nearly +concerned his eternal interests, and to worship in the way which he found +most helpful to his spiritual life, they would have been silenced by the +promise, contained in Charles's "Declaration from Breda," of liberty to +tender consciences, and the assurance that no one should be disquieted +for differences of opinion in religion, so long as such differences did +not endanger the peace and well-being of the realm. If this declaration +meant anything, it meant a breadth of toleration larger and more liberal +than had been ever granted by Cromwell. Any fears of the renewal of +persecution must be groundless. + +But if such dreams of religious liberty were entertained they were +speedily and rudely dispelled, and Bunyan was one of the first to feel +the shock of the awakening. The promise was coupled with a reference to +the "mature deliberation of Parliament." With such a promise Charles's +easy conscience was relieved of all responsibility. Whatever he might +promise, the nation, and Parliament which was its mouthpiece, might set +his promise aside. And if he knew anything of the temper of the people +he was returning to govern, he must have felt assured that any scheme of +comprehension was certain to be rejected by them. As Mr. Froude has +said, "before toleration is possible, men must have learnt to tolerate +toleration," and this was a lesson the English nation was very far from +having learnt; at no time, perhaps, were they further from it. Puritanism +had had its day, and had made itself generally detested. Deeply +enshrined as it was in many earnest and devout hearts, such as Bunyan's, +it was necessarily the religion not of the many, but of the few; it was +the religion not of the common herd, but of a spiritual aristocracy. Its +stern condemnation of all mirth and pastime, as things in their nature +sinful, of which we have so many evidences in Bunyan's own writings; its +repression of all that makes life brighter and more joyous, and the sour +sanctimoniousness which frowned upon innocent relaxation, had rendered +its yoke unbearable to ordinary human nature, and men took the earliest +opportunity of throwing the yoke off and trampling it under foot. They +hailed with rude and boisterous rejoicings the restoration of the +Monarchy which they felt, with a true instinct, involved the restoration +of the old Church of England, the church of their fathers and of the +older among themselves, with its larger indulgence for the instincts of +humanity, its wider comprehensiveness, and its more dignified and +decorous ritual. + +The reaction from Puritanism pervaded all ranks. In no class, however, +was its influence more powerful than among the country gentry. Most of +them had been severe sufferers both in purse and person during the +Protectorate. Fines and sequestrations had fallen heavily upon them, and +they were eager to retaliate on their oppressors. Their turn had come; +can we wonder that they were eager to use it? As Mr. J. R. Green has +said: "The Puritan, the Presbyterian, the Commonwealthsman, all were at +their feet. . . Their whole policy appeared to be dictated by a +passionate spirit of reaction. . . The oppressors of the parson had been +the oppressors of the squire. The sequestrator who had driven the one +from his parsonage had driven the other from his manor-house. Both had +been branded with the same charge of malignity. Both had suffered +together, and the new Parliament was resolved that both should triumph +together." + +The feeling thus eloquently expressed goes far to explain the harshness +which Bunyan experienced at the hands of the administrators of justice at +the crisis of his life at which we have now arrived. Those before whom +he was successively arraigned belonged to this very class, which, having +suffered most severely during the Puritan usurpation, was least likely to +show consideration to a leading teacher of the Puritan body. Nor were +reasons wanting to justify their severity. The circumstances of the +times were critical. The public mind was still in an excitable state, +agitated by the wild schemes of political and religious enthusiasts +plotting to destroy the whole existing framework both of Church and +State, and set up their own chimerical fabric. We cannot be surprised +that, as Southey has said, after all the nation had suffered from +fanatical zeal, "The government, rendered suspicious by the constant +sense of danger, was led as much by fear as by resentment to seventies +which are explained by the necessities of self-defence," and which the +nervous apprehensions of the nation not only condoned, but incited. +Already Churchmen in Wales had been taking the law into their own hands, +and manifesting their orthodoxy by harrying Quakers and Nonconformists. +In the May and June of this year, we hear of sectaries being taken from +their beds and haled to prison, and brought manacled to the Quarter +Sessions and committed to loathsome dungeons. Matters had advanced since +then. The Church had returned in its full power and privileges together +with the monarchy, and everything went back into its old groove. Every +Act passed for the disestablishment and disendowment of the Church was +declared a dead letter. Those of the ejected incumbents who remained +alive entered again into their parsonages, and occupied their pulpits as +of old; the surviving bishops returned to their sees; and the whole +existing statute law regarding the Church revived from its suspended +animation. No new enactment was required to punish Nonconformists and to +silence their ministers; though, to the disgrace of the nation and its +parliament, many new ones were subsequently passed, with ever-increasing +disabilities. The various Acts of Elizabeth supplied all that was +needed. Under these Acts all who refused to attend public worship in +their parish churches were subject to fines; while those who resorted to +conventicles were to be imprisoned till they made their submissions; if +at the end of three months they refused to submit they were to be +banished the realm, and if they returned from banishment, without +permission of the Crown, they were liable to execution as felons. This +long-disused sword was now drawn from its rusty sheath to strike terror +into the hearts of Nonconformists. It did not prove very effectual. All +the true-hearted men preferred to suffer rather than yield in so sacred a +cause. Bunyan was one of the earliest of these, as he proved one of the +staunchest. + +Early in October, 1660, the country magistrates meeting in Bedford issued +an order for the public reading of the Liturgy of the Church of England. +Such an order Bunyan would not regard as concerning him. Anyhow he would +not give obeying it a thought. One of the things we least like in Bunyan +is the feeling he exhibits towards the Book of Common Prayer. To him it +was an accursed thing, the badge and token of a persecuting party, a +relic of popery which he exhorted his adherents to "take heed that they +touched not" if they would be "steadfast in the faith of Jesus Christ." +Nothing could be further from his thoughts than to give any heed to the +magistrates' order to go to church and pray "after the form of men's +inventions." + +The time for testing Bunyan's resolution was now near at hand. Within +six months of the king's landing, within little more than a month of the +issue of the magistrate's order for the use of the Common Prayer Book, +his sturdy determination to yield obedience to no authority in spiritual +matters but that of his own conscience was put to the proof. Bunyan may +safely be regarded as at that time the most conspicuous of the +Nonconformists of the neighbourhood. He had now preached for five or six +years with ever-growing popularity. No name was so rife in men's mouths +as his. At him, therefore, as the representative of his brother +sectaries, the first blow was levelled. It is no cause of surprise that +in the measures taken against him he recognized the direct agency of +Satan to stop the course of the truth: "That old enemy of man's +salvation," he says, "took his opportunity to inflame the hearts of his +vassals against me, insomuch that at the last I was laid out for the +warrant of a justice." The circumstances were these, on November 12, +1660, Bunyan had engaged to go to the little hamlet of Lower Samsell near +Harlington, to hold a religious service. His purpose becoming known, a +neighbouring magistrate, Mr. Francis Wingate, of Harlington House, was +instructed to issue a warrant for his apprehension under the Act of +Elizabeth. The meeting being represented to him as one of seditious +persons bringing arms, with a view to the disturbance of the public +peace, he ordered that a strong watch should be kept about the house, "as +if," Bunyan says, "we did intend to do some fearful business to the +destruction of the country." The intention to arrest him oozed out, and +on Bunyan's arrival the whisperings of his friends warned him of his +danger. He might have easily escaped if he "had been minded to play the +coward." Some advised it, especially the brother at whose house the +meeting was to take place. He, "living by them," knew "what spirit" the +magistrates "were of," before whom Bunyan would be taken if arrested, and +the small hope there would be of his avoiding being committed to gaol. +The man himself, as a "harbourer of a conventicle," would also run no +small danger of the same fate, but Bunyan generously acquits him of any +selfish object in his warning: "he was, I think, more afraid of (for) me, +than of (for) himself." The matter was clear enough to Bunyan. At the +same time it was not to be decided in a hurry. The time fixed for the +service not being yet come, Bunyan went into the meadow by the house, and +pacing up and down thought the question well out. "If he who had up to +this time showed himself hearty and courageous in his preaching, and had +made it his business to encourage others, were now to run and make an +escape, it would be of an ill savour in the country. If he were now to +flee because there was a warrant out for him, would not the weak and +newly-converted brethren be afraid to stand when great words only were +spoken to them. God had, in His mercy, chosen him to go on the forlorn +hope; to be the first to be opposed for the gospel; what a discouragement +it must be to the whole body if he were to fly. No, he would never by +any cowardliness of his give occasion to the enemy to blaspheme the +gospel." So back to the house he came with his mind made up. He had +come to hold the meeting, and hold the meeting he would. He was not +conscious of saying or doing any evil. If he had to suffer it was the +Lord's will, and he was prepared for it. He had a full hour before him +to escape if he had been so minded, but he was resolved "not to go away." +He calmly waited for the time fixed for the brethren to assemble, and +then, without hurry or any show of alarm, he opened the meeting in the +usual manner, with prayer for God's blessing. He had given out his text, +the brethren had just opened their Bibles and Bunyan was beginning to +preach, when the arrival of the constable with the warrant put an end to +the exercise. Bunyan requested to be allowed to say a few parting words +of encouragement to the terrified flock. This was granted, and he +comforted the little company with the reflection that it was a mercy to +suffer in so good a cause; and that it was better to be the persecuted +than the persecutors; better to suffer as Christians than as thieves or +murderers. The constable and the justice's servant soon growing weary of +listening to Bunyan's exhortations, interrupted him and "would not be +quiet till they had him away" from the house. + +The justice who had issued the warrant, Mr. Wingate, not being at home +that day, a friend of Bunyan's residing on the spot offered to house him +for the night, undertaking that he should be forthcoming the next day. +The following morning this friend took him to the constable's house, and +they then proceeded together to Mr. Wingate's. A few inquiries showed +the magistrate that he had entirely mistaken the character of the Samsell +meeting and its object. Instead of a gathering of "Fifth Monarchy men," +or other turbulent fanatics as he had supposed, for the disturbance of +the public peace, he learnt from the constable that they were only a few +peaceable, harmless people, met together "to preach and hear the word," +without any political meaning. Wingate was now at a nonplus, and "could +not well tell what to say." For the credit of his magisterial character, +however, he must do something to show that he had not made a mistake in +issuing the warrant. So he asked Bunyan what business he had there, and +why it was not enough for him to follow his own calling instead of +breaking the law by preaching. Bunyan replied that his only object in +coming there was to exhort his hearers for their souls' sake to forsake +their sinful courses and close in with Christ, and this he could do and +follow his calling as well. Wingate, now feeling himself in the wrong, +lost his temper, and declared angrily that he would "break the neck of +these unlawful meetings," and that Bunyan must find securities for his +good behaviour or go to gaol. There was no difficulty in obtaining the +security. Bail was at once forthcoming. The real difficulty lay with +Bunyan himself. No bond was strong enough to keep him from preaching. If +his friends gave them, their bonds would be forfeited, for he "would not +leave speaking the word of God." Wingate told him that this being so, he +must be sent to gaol to be tried at the next Quarter Sessions, and left +the room to make out his mittimus. While the committal was preparing, +one whom Bunyan bitterly styles "an old enemy to the truth," Dr. Lindall, +Vicar of Harlington, Wingate's father-in-law, came in and began "taunting +at him with many reviling terms," demanding what right he had to preach +and meddle with that for which he had no warrant, charging him with +making long prayers to devour widows houses, and likening him to "one +Alexander the Coppersmith he had read of," "aiming, 'tis like," says +Bunyan, "at me because I was a tinker." The mittimus was now made out, +and Bunyan in the constable's charge was on his way to Bedford, when he +was met by two of his friends, who begged the constable to wait a little +while that they might use their interest with the magistrate to get +Bunyan released. After a somewhat lengthened interview with Wingate, +they returned with the message that if Bunyan would wait on the +magistrate and "say certain words" to him, he might go free. To satisfy +his friends, Bunyan returned with them, though not with any expectation +that the engagement proposed to him would be such as he could lawfully +take. "If the words were such as he could say with a good conscience he +would say them, or else he would not." + +After all this coming and going, by the time Bunyan and his friends got +back to Harlington House, night had come on. As he entered the hall, +one, he tells us, came out of an inner room with a lighted candle in his +hand, whom Bunyan recognized as one William Foster, a lawyer of Bedford, +Wingate's brother-in-law, afterwards a fierce persecutor of the +Nonconformists of the district. With a simulated affection, "as if he +would have leapt on my neck and kissed me," which put Bunyan on his +guard, as he had ever known him for "a close opposer of the ways of God," +he adopted the tone of one who had Bunyan's interest at heart, and begged +him as a friend to yield a little from his stubbornness. His brother-in- +law, he said, was very loath to send him to gaol. All he had to do was +only to promise that he would not call people together, and he should be +set at liberty and might go back to his home. Such meetings were plainly +unlawful and must be stopped. Bunyan had better follow his calling and +leave off preaching, especially on week-days, which made other people +neglect their calling too. God commanded men to work six days and serve +Him on the seventh. It was vain for Bunyan to reply that he never +summoned people to hear him, but that if they came he could not but use +the best of his skill and wisdom to counsel them for their soul's +salvation; that he could preach and the people could come to hear without +neglecting their callings, and that men were bound to look out for their +souls' welfare on week-days as well as Sundays. Neither could convince +the other. Bunyan's stubbornness was not a little provoking to Foster, +and was equally disappointing to Wingate. They both evidently wished to +dismiss the case, and intentionally provided a loophole for Bunyan's +escape. The promise put into his mouth--"that he would not call the +people together"--was purposely devised to meet his scrupulous +conscience. But even if he could keep the promise in the letter, Bunyan +knew that he was fully purposed to violate its spirit. He was the last +man to forfeit self-respect by playing fast and loose with his +conscience. All evasion was foreign to his nature. The long interview +came to an end at last. Once again Wingate and Foster endeavoured to +break down Bunyan's resolution; but when they saw he was "at a point, and +would not be moved or persuaded," the mittimus was again put into the +constable's hands, and he and his prisoner were started on the walk to +Bedford gaol. It was dark, as we have seen, when this protracted +interview began. It must have now been deep in the night. Bunyan gives +no hint whether the walk was taken in the dark or in the daylight. There +was however no need for haste. Bedford was thirteen miles away, and the +constable would probably wait till the morning to set out for the prison +which was to be Bunyan's home for twelve long years, to which he went +carrying, he says, the "peace of God along with me, and His comfort in my +poor soul." + + + + +CHAPTER V. + + +A long-standing tradition has identified Bunyan's place of imprisonment +with a little corporation lock-up-house, some fourteen feet square, +picturesquely perched on one of the mid-piers of the many-arched mediaeval +bridge which, previously to 1765, spanned the Ouse at Bedford, and as Mr. +Froude has said, has "furnished a subject for pictures," both of pen and +pencil, "which if correct would be extremely affecting." Unfortunately, +however, for the lovers of the sensational, these pictures are not +"correct," but are based on a false assumption which grew up out of a +desire to heap contumely on Bunyan's enemies by exaggerating the severity +of his protracted, but by no means harsh imprisonment. Being arrested by +the warrant of a county magistrate for a county offence, Bunyan's place +of incarceration was naturally the county gaol. There he undoubtedly +passed the twelve years of his captivity, and there the royal warrant for +his release found him "a prisoner in the common gaol for our county of +Bedford." But though far different from the pictures which writers, +desirous of exhibiting the sufferings of the Puritan confessor in the +most telling form, have drawn--if not "a damp and dreary cell" into which +"a narrow chink admits a few scanty rays of light to render visible the +prisoner, pale and emaciated, seated on the humid earth, pursuing his +daily task to earn the morsel which prolongs his existence and his +confinement together,"--"the common gaol" of Bedford must have been a +sufficiently strait and unwholesome abode, especially for one, like the +travelling tinker, accustomed to spend the greater part of his days in +the open-air in unrestricted freedom. Prisons in those days, and indeed +long afterwards, were, at their best, foul, dark, miserable places. A +century later Howard found Bedford gaol, though better than some, in what +would now be justly deemed a disgraceful condition. One who visited +Bunyan during his confinement speaks of it as "an uncomfortable and close +prison." Bunyan however himself, in the narrative of his imprisonment, +makes no complaint of it, nor do we hear of his health having in any way +suffered from the conditions of his confinement, as was the case with not +a few of his fellow-sufferers for the sake of religion in other English +gaols, some of them even unto death. Bad as it must have been to be a +prisoner, as far as his own testimony goes, there is no evidence that his +imprisonment, though varying in its strictness with his various gaolers, +was aggravated by any special severity; and, as Mr. Froude has said, "it +is unlikely that at any time he was made to suffer any greater hardships +than were absolutely inevitable." + +The arrest of one whose work as a preacher had been a blessing to so +many, was not at once tamely acquiesced in by the religious body to which +he belonged. A few days after Bunyan's committal to gaol, some of "the +brethren" applied to Mr. Crompton, a young magistrate at Elstow, to bail +him out, offering the required security for his appearance at the Quarter +Sessions. The magistrate was at first disposed to accept the bail; but +being a young man, new in his office, and thinking it possible that there +might be more against Bunyan than the "mittimus" expressed, he was afraid +of compromising himself by letting him go at large. His refusal, though +it sent him back to prison, was received by Bunyan with his usual calm +trust in God's overruling providence. "I was not at all daunted, but +rather glad, and saw evidently that the Lord had heard me." Before he +set out for the justice's house, he tells us he had committed the whole +event to God's ordering, with the prayer that "if he might do more good +by being at liberty than in prison," the bail might be accepted, "but if +not, that His will might be done." In the failure of his friends' good +offices he saw an answer to his prayer, encouraging the hope that the +untoward event, which deprived them of his personal ministrations, "might +be an awaking to the saints in the country," and while "the slender +answer of the justice," which sent him back to his prison, stirred +something akin to contempt, his soul was full of gladness. "Verily I did +meet my God sweetly again, comforting of me, and satisfying of me, that +it was His will and mind that I should be there." The sense that he was +being conformed to the image of his great Master was a stay to his soul. +"This word," he continues, "did drop in upon my heart with some life, for +he knew that 'for envy they had delivered him.'" + +Seven weeds after his committal, early in January, 1661, the Quarter +Sessions came on, and "John Bunyan, of the town of Bedford, labourer," +was indicted in the customary form for having "devilishly and +perniciously abstained from coming to church to hear Divine Service," and +as "a common upholder of several unlawful meetings and conventions, to +the great disturbance and distraction of the good subjects of the +kingdom." The chairman of the bench was the brutal and blustering Sir +John Keeling, the prototype of Bunyan's Lord Hategood in Faithful's trial +at Vanity Fair, who afterwards, by his base subserviency to an infamous +government, climbed to the Lord Chief Justice's seat, over the head of +Sir Matthew Hale. Keeling had suffered much from the Puritans during the +great Rebellion, when, according to Clarendon, he was "always in gaol," +and was by no means disposed to deal leniently with an offender of that +persuasion. His brethren of the bench were country gentlemen hating +Puritanism from their heart, and eager for retaliation for the wrongs it +had wrought them. From such a bench, even if Bunyan had been less +uncompromising, no leniency was to be anticipated. But Bunyan's attitude +forbade any leniency. As the law stood he had indisputably broken it, +and he expressed his determination, respectfully but firmly, to take the +first opportunity of breaking it again. "I told them that if I was let +out of prison today I would preach the gospel again to-morrow by the help +of God." We may dislike the tone adopted by the magistrates towards the +prisoner; we may condemn it as overbearing and contemptuous; we may smile +at Keeling's expositions of Scripture and his stock arguments against +unauthorized prayer and preaching, though we may charitably believe that +Bunyan misunderstood him when he makes him say that "the Book of Common +Prayer had been ever since the apostles' time"; we may think that the +prisoner, in his "canting pedlar's French," as Keeling called it, had the +better of his judges in knowledge of the Bible, in Christian charity, as +well as in dignity and in common sense, and that they showed their wisdom +in silencing him in court--"Let him speak no further," said one of them, +"he will do harm,"--since they could not answer him more convincingly: +but his legal offence was clear. He confessed to the indictment, if not +in express terms, yet virtually. He and his friends had held "many +meetings together, both to pray to God and to exhort one another. I +confessed myself guilty no otherwise." Such meetings were forbidden by +the law, which it was the duty of the justices to administer, and they +had no choice whether they would convict or no. Perhaps they were not +sorry they had no such choice. Bunyan was a most "impracticable" +prisoner, and as Mr. Froude says, the "magistrates being but unregenerate +mortals may be pardoned if they found him provoking." The sentence +necessarily followed. It was pronounced, not, we are sure reluctantly, +by Keeling, in the terms of the Act. "He was to go back to prison for +three months. If at three months' end he still refused to go to church +to hear Divine service and leave his preaching, he was to be banished the +realm,"--in modern language "transported," and if "he came back again +without special royal license," he must "stretch by the neck for it." + +"This," said Keeling, "I tell you plainly." Bunyan's reply that "as to +that matter he was at a point with the judge," for "that he would repeat +the offence the first time he could," provoked a rejoinder from one of +the bench, and the unseemly wrangling might have been still further +prolonged, had it not been stopped by the gaoler, who "pulling him away +to be gone," had him back to prison, where he says, and "blesses the Lord +Jesus Christ for it," his heart was as "sweetly refreshed" in returning +to it as it had "been during his examination. So that I find Christ's +words more than bare trifles, where He saith, He will give a mouth and +wisdom, even such as all the adversaries shall not gainsay or resist. And +that His peace no man can take from us." + +The magistrates, however, though not unnaturally irritated by what seemed +to them Bunyan's unreasonable obstinacy, were not desirous to push +matters to extremity. The three months named in his sentence, at the +expiration of which he was either to conform or be banished the realm, +were fast drawing to an end, without any sign of submission on his part. +As a last resort Mr. Cobb, the Clerk of the Peace, was sent to try what +calm and friendly reasoning might effect. Cobb, who evidently knew +Bunyan personally, did his best, as a kind-hearted, sensible man, to +bring him to reason. Cobb did not profess to be "a man that could +dispute," and Bunyan had the better of him in argument. His position, +however, was unassailable. The recent insurrection of Venner and his +Fifth Monarchy men, he said, had shown the danger to the public peace +there was in allowing fanatical gatherings to assemble unchecked. Bunyan, +whose loyalty was unquestioned, must acknowledge the prudence of +suppressing meetings which, however good their ostensible aim, might +issue in nothing less than the ruin of the kingdom and commonwealth. +Bunyan had confessed his readiness to obey the apostolic precept by +submitting himself to the king as supreme. The king forbade the holding +of private meetings, which, under colour of religion, might be +prejudicial to the State. Why then did he not submit? This need not +hinder him from doing good in a neighbourly way. He might continue to +use his gifts and exhort his neighbours in private discourse, provided he +did not bring people together in public assemblies. The law did not +abridge him of this liberty. Why should he stand so strictly on public +meetings? Or why should he not come to church and hear? Was his gift so +far above that of others that he could learn of no one? If he could not +be persuaded, the judges were resolved to prosecute the law against him. +He would be sent away beyond the seas to Spain or Constantinople--either +Cobb's or Bunyan's colonial geography was rather at fault here--or some +other remote part of the world, and what good could he do to his friends +then? "Neighbour Bunyan" had better consider these things seriously +before the Quarter Session, and be ruled by good advice. The gaoler here +put in his word in support of Cobb's arguments: "Indeed, sir, I hope he +will be ruled." But all Cobb's friendly reasonings and expostulations +were ineffectual to bend Bunyan's sturdy will. He would yield to no-one +in his loyalty to his sovereign, and his readiness to obey the law. But, +he said, with a hairsplitting casuistry he would have indignantly +condemned in others, the law provided two ways of obeying, "one to obey +actively, and if his conscience forbad that, then to obey passively; to +lie down and suffer whatever they might do to him." The Clerk of the +Peace saw that it was no use to prolong the argument any further. "At +this," writes Bunyan, "he sat down, and said no more; which, when he had +done, I did thank him for his civil and meek discoursing with me; and so +we parted: O that we might meet in heaven!" + +The Coronation which took place very soon after this interview, April 13, +1661, afforded a prospect of release without unworthy submission. The +customary proclamation, which allowed prisoners under sentence for any +offence short of felony to sue out a pardon for twelve months from that +date, suspended the execution of the sentence of banishment and gave a +hope that the prison doors might be opened for him. The local +authorities taking no steps to enable him to profit by the royal +clemency, by inserting his name in the list of pardonable offenders, his +second wife, Elizabeth, travelled up to London,--no slight venture for a +young woman not so long raised from the sick bed on which the first news +of her husband's arrest had laid her,--and with dauntless courage made +her way to the House of Lords, where she presented her petition to one of +the peers, whom she calls Lord Barkwood, but whom unfortunately we cannot +now identify. He treated her kindly, and showed her petition to other +peers, who appear to have been acquainted with the circumstances of +Bunyan's case. They replied that the matter was beyond their province, +and that the question of her husband's release was committed to the +judges at the next assizes. These assizes were held at Bedford in the +following August. The judges of the circuit were Twisden and Sir Matthew +Hale. From the latter--the friend of Richard Baxter, who, as Burnet +records, took great care to "cover the Nonconformists, whom he thought +too hardly used, all he could from the seventies some designed; and +discouraged those who were inclined to stretch the laws too much against +them"--Bunyan's case would be certain to meet with sympathetic +consideration. But being set to administer the law, not according to his +private wishes, but according to its letter and its spirit, he was +powerless to relieve him. Three several times did Bunyan's noble-hearted +wife present her husband's petition that he might be heard, and his case +taken impartially into consideration. But the law forbad what Burnet +calls Sir Matthew Hale's "tender and compassionate nature" to have free +exercise. He "received the petition very mildly at her hand, telling her +that he would do her and her husband the best good he could; but he +feared he could do none." His brother judge's reception of her petition +was very different. Having thrown it into the coach, Twisden "snapt her +up," telling her, what after all was no more than the truth, that her +husband was a convicted person, and could not be released unless he would +promise to obey the law and abstain from preaching. On this the High +Sheriff, Edmund Wylde, of Houghton Conquest, spoke kindly to the poor +woman, and encouraged her to make a fresh application to the judges +before they left the town. So she made her way, "with abashed face and +trembling heart," to the large chamber at the Old Swan Inn at the Bridge +Foot, where the two judges were receiving a large number of the justices +of the peace and other gentry of the county. Addressing Sir Matthew Hale +she said, "My lord, I make bold to come again to your lordship to know +what may be done with my husband." Hale received her with the same +gentleness as before, repeated what he had said previously, that as her +husband had been legally convicted, and his conviction was recorded, +unless there was something to undo that he could do her no good. Twisden, +on the other hand, got violently angry, charged her brutally with making +poverty her cloak, told her that her husband was a breaker of the peace, +whose doctrine was the doctrine of the devil, and that he ran up and down +and did harm, while he was better maintained by his preaching than by +following his tinker's craft. At last he waxed so violent that "withal +she thought he would have struck her." In the midst of all his coarse +abuse, however, Twisden hit the mark when he asked: "What! you think we +can do what we list?" And when we find Hale, confessedly the soundest +lawyer of the time, whose sympathies were all with the prisoner, after +calling for the Statute Book, thus summing up the matter: "I am sorry, +woman, that I can do thee no good. Thou must do one of these three +things, viz., either apply thyself to the king, or sue out his pardon, or +get a writ of error," which last, he told her, would be the cheapest +course--we may feel sure that Bunyan's Petition was not granted because +it could not be granted legally. The blame of his continued imprisonment +lay, if anywhere, with the law, not with its administrators. This is not +always borne in mind as it ought to be. As Mr. Froude remarks, "Persons +often choose to forget that judges are sworn to administer the law which +they find, and rail at them as if the sentences which they are obliged by +their oath to pass were their own personal acts." It is not surprising +that Elizabeth Bunyan was unable to draw this distinction, and that she +left the Swan chamber in tears, not, however, so much at what she thought +the judges' "hardheartedness to her and her husband," as at the thought +of "the sad account such poor creatures would have to give" hereafter, +for what she deemed their "opposition to Christ and His gospel." + +No steps seem to have been taken by Bunyan's wife, or any of his +influential friends, to carry out either of the expedients named by Hale. +It may have been that the money needed was not forthcoming, or, what +Southey remarks is "quite probable,"--"because it is certain that Bunyan, +thinking himself in conscience bound to preach in defiance of the law, +would soon have made his case worse than it then was." + +At the next assizes, which were held in January, 1662, Bunyan again made +strenuous efforts to get his name put on the calendar of felons, that he +might have a regular trial before the king's judges and be able to plead +his cause in person. This, however, was effectually thwarted by the +unfriendly influence of the county magistrates by whom he had been +committed, and the Clerk of the Peace, Mr. Cobb, who having failed in his +kindly meant attempt to induce "Neighbour Bunyan" to conform, had turned +bitterly against him and become one of his chief enemies. "Thus," writes +Bunyan, "was I hindered and prevented at that time also from appearing +before the judge, and left in prison." Of this prison, the county gaol +of Bedford, he remained an inmate, with one, short interval in 1666, for +the next twelve years, till his release by order of the Privy Council, +May 17, 1672. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + +The exaggeration of the severity of Bunyan's imprisonment long current, +now that the facts are better known, has led, by a very intelligible +reaction, to an undue depreciation of it. Mr. Froude thinks that his +incarceration was "intended to be little more than nominal," and was +really meant in kindness by the authorities who "respected his +character," as the best means of preventing him from getting himself into +greater trouble by "repeating an offence that would compel them to adopt +harsh measures which they were earnestly trying to avoid." If convicted +again he must be transported, and "they were unwilling to drive him out +of the country." It is, however, to be feared that it was no such kind +consideration for the tinker-preacher which kept the prison doors closed +on Bunyan. To the justices he was simply an obstinate law-breaker, who +must be kept in prison as long as he refused compliance with the Act. If +he rotted in gaol, as so many of his fellow sufferers for conscience' +sake did in those unhappy times, it was no concern of theirs. He and his +stubbornness would be alone to blame. + +It is certainly true that during a portion of his captivity, Bunyan, in +Dr. Brown's words, "had an amount of liberty which in the case of a +prisoner nowadays would be simply impossible." But the mistake has been +made of extending to the whole period an indulgence which belonged only +to a part, and that a very limited part of it. When we are told that +Bunyan was treated as a prisoner at large, and like one "on parole," free +to come and go as he pleased, even as far as London, we must remember +that Bunyan's own words expressly restrict this indulgence to the six +months between the Autumn Assizes of 1661 and the Spring Assizes of 1662. +"Between these two assizes," he says, "I had by my jailer some liberty +granted me more than at the first." This liberty was certainly of the +largest kind consistent with his character of a prisoner. The church +books show that he was occasionally present at their meetings, and was +employed on the business of the congregation. Nay, even his preaching, +which was the cause of his imprisonment, was not forbidden. "I +followed," he says, writing of this period, "my wonted course of +preaching, taking all occasions that were put into my hand to visit the +people of God." But this indulgence was very brief and was brought +sharply to an end. It was plainly irregular, and depended on the +connivance of his jailer. We cannot be surprised that when it came to +the magistrates' ears--"my enemies," Bunyan rather unworthily calls +them--they were seriously displeased. Confounding Bunyan with the Fifth +Monarchy men and other turbulent sectaries, they imagined that his visits +to London had a political object, "to plot, and raise division, and make +insurrections," which, he honestly adds, "God knows was a slander." The +jailer was all but "cast out of his place," and threatened with an +indictment for breach of trust, while his own liberty was so seriously +"straitened" that he was prohibited even "to look out at the door." The +last time Bunyan's name appears as present at a church meeting is October +28, 1661, nor do we see it again till October 9, 1668, only four years +before his twelve years term of imprisonment expired. + +But though his imprisonment was not so severe, nor his prison quite so +narrow and wretched as some word-painters have described them, during the +greater part of the time his condition was a dreary and painful one, +especially when spent, as it sometimes was, "under cruel and oppressive +jailers." The enforced separation from his wife and children, especially +his tenderly loved blind daughter, Mary, was a continually renewed +anguish to his loving heart. "The parting with them," he writes, "hath +often been to me as pulling the flesh from the bones; and that not only +because I am somewhat too fond of these great mercies, but also because I +should often have brought to my mind the many hardships, miseries, and +wants my poor family was like to meet with, should I be taken from them; +especially my poor blind child, who lay nearer to my heart than all +beside. Poor child, thought I, thou must be beaten, thou must beg, thou +must suffer hunger, cold, nakedness, and a thousand calamities, though I +cannot now endure the wind should blow on thee. O, the thoughts of the +hardships my blind one might go under would break my heart to pieces." He +seemed to himself like a man pulling down his house on his wife and +children's head, and yet he felt, "I must do it; O, I must do it." He +was also, he tells us, at one time, being but "a young prisoner," greatly +troubled by the thoughts that "for aught he could tell," his +"imprisonment might end at the gallows," not so much that he dreaded +death as that he was apprehensive that when it came to the point, even if +he made "a scrabbling shift to clamber up the ladder," he might play the +coward and so do discredit to the cause of religion. "I was ashamed to +die with a pale face and tottering knees for such a cause as this." The +belief that his imprisonment might be terminated by death on the +scaffold, however groundless, evidently weighed long on his mind. The +closing sentences of his third prison book, "Christian Behaviour," +published in 1663, the second year of his durance, clearly point to such +an expectation. "Thus have I in few words written to you before I die, +. . . not knowing the shortness of my life, nor the hindrances that +hereafter I may have of serving my God and you." The ladder of his +apprehensions was, as Mr. Froude has said, "an imaginary ladder," but it +was very real to Bunyan. "Oft I was as if I was on the ladder with a +rope about my neck." The thought of it, as his autobiography shows, +caused him some of his deepest searchings of heart, and noblest ventures +of faith. He was content to suffer by the hangman's hand if thus he +might have an opportunity of addressing the crowd that he thought would +come to see him die. "And if it must be so, if God will but convert one +soul by my very last words, I shall not count my life thrown away or +lost." And even when hours of darkness came over his soul, and he was +tempted to question the reality of his Christian profession, and to doubt +whether God would give him comfort at the hour of death, he stayed +himself up with such bold words as these. "I was bound, but He was free. +Yea, 'twas my duty to stand to His word whether He would ever look on me +or no, or save me at the last. If God doth not come in, thought I, I +will leap off the ladder even blindfold into Eternity, sink or swim, come +heaven, come hell. Lord Jesus, if Thou wilt catch me, do. If not, I +will venture for Thy name." + +Bunyan being precluded by his imprisonment from carrying on his brazier's +craft for the support of his wife and family, and his active spirit +craving occupation, he got himself taught how to make "long tagged +laces," "many hundred gross" of which, we are told by one who first +formed his acquaintance in prison, he made during his captivity, for "his +own and his family's necessities." "While his hands were thus busied," +writes Lord Macaulay, "he had often employment for his mind and for his +lips." "Though a prisoner he was a preacher still." As with St. Paul in +his Roman chains, "the word of God was not bound." The prisoners for +conscience' sake, who like him, from time to time, were cooped up in +Bedford gaol, including several of his brother ministers and some of his +old friends among the leading members of his own little church, furnished +a numerous and sympathetic congregation. At one time a body of some +sixty, who had met for worship at night in a neighbouring wood, were +marched off to gaol, with their minister at their head. But while all +about him was in confusion, his spirit maintained its even calm, and he +could at once speak the words of strength and comfort that were needed. +In the midst of the hurry which so many "newcomers occasioned," writes +the friend to whom we are indebted for the details of his prison life, "I +have heard Mr. Bunyan both preach and pray with that mighty spirit of +faith and plerophory of Divine assistance that has made me stand and +wonder." These sermons addressed to his fellow prisoners supplied, in +many cases, the first outlines of the books which, in rapid succession, +flowed from his pen during the earlier years of his imprisonment, +relieving the otherwise insupportable tedium of his close confinement. +Bunyan himself tells us that this was the case with regard to his "Holy +City," the first idea of which was borne in upon his mind when addressing +"his brethren in the prison chamber," nor can we doubt that the case was +the same with other works of his. To these we shall hereafter return. +Nor was it his fellow prisoners only who profited by his counsels. In +his "Life and Death of Mr. Badman," he gives us a story of a woman who +came to him when he was in prison, to confess how she had robbed her +master, and to ask his help. Hers was probably a representative case. +The time spared from his handicraft, and not employed in religious +counsel and exhortation, was given to study and composition. For this +his confinement secured him the leisure which otherwise he would have +looked for in vain. The few books he possessed he studied indefatigably. +His library was, at least at one period, a very limited one,--"the least +and the best library," writes a friend who visited him in prison, "that I +ever saw, consisting only of two books--the Bible, and Foxe's 'Book of +Martyrs.'" "But with these two books," writes Mr. Froude, "he had no +cause to complain of intellectual destitution." Bunyan's mode of +composition, though certainly exceedingly rapid,--thoughts succeeding one +another with a quickness akin to inspiration,--was anything but careless. +The "limae labor" with him was unsparing. It was, he tells us, "first +with doing, and then with undoing, and after that with doing again," that +his books were brought to completion, and became what they are, a mine of +Evangelical Calvinism of the richest ore, entirely free from the narrow +dogmatism and harsh predestinarianism of the great Genevan divine; books +which for clearness of thought, lucidity of arrangement, felicity of +language, rich even if sometimes homely force of illustration, and +earnestness of piety have never been surpassed. + +Bunyan's prison life when the first bitterness of it was past, and habit +had done away with its strangeness, was a quiet and it would seem, not an +unhappy one. A manly self-respect bore him up and forbade his dwelling +on the darker features of his position, or thinking or speaking harshly +of the authors of his durance. "He was," writes one who saw him at this +time, "mild and affable in conversation; not given to loquacity or to +much discourse unless some urgent occasion required. It was observed he +never spoke of himself or his parents, but seemed low in his own eyes. He +was never heard to reproach or revile, whatever injury he received, but +rather rebuked those who did so. He managed all things with such +exactness as if he had made it his study not to give offence." + +According to his earliest biographer, Charles Doe, in 1666, the year of +the Fire of London, after Bunyan had lain six years in Bedford gaol, "by +the intercession of some interest or power that took pity on his +sufferings," he enjoyed a short interval of liberty. Who these friends +and sympathisers were is not mentioned, and it would be vain to +conjecture. This period of freedom, however, was very short. He at once +resumed his old work of preaching, against which the laws had become even +more stringent during his imprisonment, and was apprehended at a meeting +just as he was about to preach a sermon. He had given out his text, +"Dost thou believe on the Son of God?" (John ix. 35), and was standing +with his open Bible in his hand, when the constable came in to take him. +Bunyan fixed his eyes on the man, who turned pale, let go his hold, and +drew back, while Bunyan exclaimed, "See how this man trembles at the word +of God!" This is all we know of his second arrest, and even this little +is somewhat doubtful. The time, the place, the circumstances, are as +provokingly vague as much else of Bunyan's life. The fact, however, is +certain. Bunyan returned to Bedford gaol, where he spent another six +years, until the issuing of the "Declaration of Indulgence" early in 1672 +opened the long-closed doors, and he walked out a free man, and with what +he valued far more than personal liberty, freedom to deliver Christ's +message as he understood it himself, none making him afraid, and to +declare to his brother sinners what their Saviour had done for them, and +what he expected them to do that they might obtain the salvation He died +to win. + +From some unknown cause, perhaps the depressing effect of protracted +confinement, during this second six years Bunyan's pen was far less +prolific than during the former period. Only two of his books are dated +in these years. The last of these, "A Defence of the Doctrine of +Justification by Faith," a reply to a work of Edward Fowler, afterwards +Bishop of Gloucester, the rector of Northill, was written in hot haste +immediately before his release, and issued from the press +contemporaneously with it, the prospect of liberty apparently breathing +new life into his wearied soul. When once Bunyan became a free man +again, his pen recovered its former copiousness of production, and the +works by which he has been immortalized, "The Pilgrim's Progress"--which +has been erroneously ascribed to Bunyan's twelve years' imprisonment--and +its sequel, "The Holy War," and the "Life and Death of Mr. Badman," and a +host of more strictly theological works, followed one another in rapid +succession. + +Bunyan's second term of imprisonment was certainly less severe than that +which preceded it. At its commencement we learn that, like Joseph in +Egypt, he found favour in his jailer's eyes, who "took such pity of his +rigorous suffering, that he put all care and trust into his hands." +Towards the close of his imprisonment its rigour was still further +relaxed. The Bedford church book begins its record again in 1688, after +an interval of ominous silence of five years, when the persecution was at +the hottest. In its earliest entries we find Bunyan's name, which occurs +repeatedly up to the date of his final release in 1672. Not one of these +notices gives the slightest allusion of his being a prisoner. He is +deputed with others to visit and remonstrate with backsliding brethren, +and fulfil other commissions on behalf of the congregation, as if he were +in the full enjoyment of his liberty. This was in the two years' +interval between the expiration of the Conventicle Act, March 2, 1667-8, +and the passing of the new Act, styled by Marvell, "the quintessence of +arbitrary malice," April 11, 1670. After a few months of hot +persecution, when a disgraceful system of espionage was set on foot and +the vilest wretches drove a lucrative trade as spies on "meetingers," the +severity greatly lessened. Charles II. was already meditating the +issuing of a Declaration of Indulgence, and signified his disapprobation +of the "forceable courses" in which, "the sad experience of twelve years" +showed, there was "very little fruit." One of the first and most notable +consequences of this change of policy was Bunyan's release. + +Mr. Offor's patient researches in the State Paper Office have proved that +the Quakers, than whom no class of sectaries had suffered more severely +from the persecuting edicts of the Crown, were mainly instrumental in +throwing open the prison doors to those who, like Bunyan, were in bonds +for the sake of their religion. Gratitude to John Groves, the Quaker +mate of Tattersall's fishing boat, in which Charles had escaped to France +after the battle of Worcester, had something, and the untiring advocacy +of George Whitehead, the Quaker, had still more, to do with this act of +royal clemency. We can readily believe that the good-natured Charles was +not sorry to have an opportunity of evidencing his sense of former +services rendered at a time of his greatest extremity. But the main +cause lay much deeper, and is connected with what Lord Macaulay justly +styles "one of the worst acts of one of the worst governments that +England has ever seen"--that of the Cabal. Our national honour was at +its lowest ebb. Charles had just concluded the profligate Treaty of +Dover, by which, in return for the "protection" he sought from the French +king, he declared himself a Roman Catholic at heart, and bound himself to +take the first opportunity of "changing the present state of religion in +England for a better," and restoring the authority of the Pope. The +announcement of his conversion Charles found it convenient to postpone. +Nor could the other part of his engagement be safely carried into effect +at once. It called for secret and cautious preparation. But to pave the +way for it, by an unconstitutional exercise of his prerogative he issued +a Declaration of Indulgence which suspended all penal laws against +"whatever sort of Nonconformists or Recusants." The latter were +evidently the real object of the indulgence; the former class were only +introduced the better to cloke his infamous design. Toleration, however, +was thus at last secured, and the long-oppressed Nonconformists hastened +to profit by it. "Ministers returned," writes Mr. J. R. Green, "after +years of banishment, to their homes and their flocks. Chapels were re- +opened. The gaols were emptied. Men were set free to worship God after +their own fashion. John Bunyan left the prison which had for twelve +years been his home." More than three thousand licenses to preach were +at once issued. One of the earliest of these, dated May 9, 1672, four +months before his formal pardon under the Great Seal, was granted to +Bunyan, who in the preceding January had been chosen their minister by +the little congregation at Bedford, and "giving himself up to serve +Christ and His Church in that charge, had received of the elders the +right hand of fellowship." The place licensed for the exercise of +Bunyan's ministry was a barn standing in an orchard, once forming part of +the Castle Moat, which one of the congregation, Josias Roughead, acting +for the members of his church, had purchased. The license bears date May +9, 1672. This primitive place of worship, in which Bunyan preached +regularly till his death, was pulled down in 1707, when a "three-ridged +meeting-house" was erected in its place. This in its turn gave way, in +1849, to the existing more seemly chapel, to which the present Duke of +Bedford, in 1876, presented a pair of noble bronze doors bearing scenes, +in high relief, from "The Pilgrim's Progress," the work of Mr. Frederick +Thrupp. In the vestry are preserved Bunyan's chair, and other relics of +the man who has made the name of Bedford famous to the whole civilized +world. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + + +Mr. Green has observed that Bunyan "found compensation for the narrow +bounds of his prison in the wonderful activity of his pen. Tracts, +controversial treatises, poems, meditations, his 'Grace Abounding,' and +his 'Holy War,' followed each other in quick succession." Bunyan's +literary fertility in the earlier half of his imprisonment was indeed +amazing. Even if, as seems almost certain, we have been hitherto in +error in assigning the First Part of "The Pilgrim's Progress" to this +period, while the "Holy War" certainly belongs to a later, the works +which had their birth in Bedford Gaol during the first six years of his +confinement, are of themselves sufficient to make the reputation of any +ordinary writer. As has been already remarked, for some unexplained +cause, Bunyan's gifts as an author were much more sparingly called into +exercise during the second half of his captivity. Only two works appear +to have been written between 1666 and his release in 1672. + +Mr. Green has spoken of "poems" as among the products of Bunyan's pen +during this period. The compositions in verse belonging to this epoch, +of which there are several, hardly deserve to be dignified with so high a +title. At no part of his life had Bunyan much title to be called a poet. +He did not aspire beyond the rank of a versifier, who clothed his +thoughts in rhyme or metre instead of the more congenial prose, partly +for the pleasure of the exercise, partly because he knew by experience +that the lessons he wished to inculcate were more likely to be remembered +in that form. Mr. Froude, who takes a higher estimate of Bunyan's verse +than is commonly held, remarks that though it is the fashion to apply the +epithet of "doggerel" to it, the "sincere and rational meaning" which +pervades his compositions renders such an epithet improper. "His ear for +rhythm," he continues, "though less true than in his prose, is seldom +wholly at fault, and whether in prose or verse, he had the superlative +merit that he could never write nonsense." Bunyan's earliest prison +work, entitled "Profitable Meditations," was in verse, and neither this +nor his later metrical ventures before his release--his "Four Last +Things," his "Ebal and Gerizim," and his "Prison Meditations"--can be +said to show much poetical power. At best he is a mere rhymester, to +whom rhyme and metre, even when self-chosen, were as uncongenial +accoutrements "as Saul's armour was to David." The first-named book, +which is entitled a "Conference between Christ and a Sinner," in the form +of a poetical dialogue, according to Dr. Brown has "small literary merit +of any sort." The others do not deserve much higher commendation. There +is an individuality about the "Prison Meditations" which imparts to it a +personal interest, which is entirely wanting in the other two works, +which may be characterized as metrical sermons, couched in verse of the +Sternhold and Hopkins type. A specimen or two will suffice. The "Four +Last Things" thus opens:-- + + "These lines I at this time present + To all that will them heed, + Wherein I show to what intent + God saith, 'Convert with speed.' + For these four things come on apace, + Which we should know full well, + Both death and judgment, and, in place + Next to them, heaven and hell." + +The following lines are from "Ebal and Gerizim":-- + + "Thou art like one that hangeth by a thread + Over the mouth of hell, as one half dead; + And oh, how soon this thread may broken be, + Or cut by death, is yet unknown to thee. + But sure it is if all the weight of sin, + And all that Satan too hath doing been + Or yet can do, can break this crazy thread, + 'Twill not be long before among the dead + Thou tumble do, as linked fast in chains, + With them to wait in fear for future pains." + +The poetical effusion entitled "Prison Meditations" does not in any way +rise above the prosaic level of its predecessors. But it can be read +with less weariness from the picture it presents of Bunyan's prison life, +and of the courageous faith which sustained him. Some unnamed friend, it +would appear, fearing he might flinch, had written him a letter +counselling him to keep "his head above the flood." Bunyan replied in +seventy stanzas in ballad measure, thanking his correspondent for his +good advice, of which he confesses he stood in need, and which he takes +it kindly of him to send, even though his feet stand upon Mount Zion, and +the gaol is to him like a hill from which he could see beyond this world, +and take his fill of the blessedness of that which remains for the +Christian. Though in bonds his mind is free, and can wander where it +will. + + "For though men keep my outward man + Within their locks and bars, + Yet by the faith of Christ, I can + Mount higher than the stars." + +Meanwhile his captivity is sweetened by the thought of what it was that +brought him there:-- + + "I here am very much refreshed + To think, when I was out, + I preached life, and peace, and rest, + To sinners round about. + + My business then was souls to save + By preaching grace and faith, + Of which the comfort now I have + And have it shall till death. + + That was the work I was about + When hands on me they laid. + 'Twas this for which they plucked me out + And vilely to me said, + + 'You heretic, deceiver, come, + To prison you must go, + You preach abroad, and keep not home, + You are the Church's foe.' + + Wherefore to prison they me sent, + Where to this day I lie, + And can with very much content + For my profession die. + + The prison very sweet to me + Hath been since I came here, + And so would also hanging be + If God would there appear. + + To them that here for evil lie + The place is comfortless; + But not to me, because that I + Lie here for righteousness. + + The truth and I were both here cast + Together, and we do + Lie arm in arm, and so hold fast + Each other, this is true. + + Who now dare say we throw away + Our goods or liberty, + When God's most holy Word doth say + We gain thus much thereby?" + +It will be seen that though Bunyan's verses are certainly not high-class +poetry, they are very far removed from doggerel. Nothing indeed that +Bunyan ever wrote, however rugged the rhymes and limping the metre, can +be so stigmatized. The rude scribblings on the margins of the copy of +the "Book of Martyrs," which bears Bunyan's signature on the title-pages, +though regarded by Southey as "undoubtedly" his, certainly came from a +later and must less instructed pen. And as he advanced in his literary +career, his claim to the title of a poet, though never of the highest, +was much strengthened. The verses which diversify the narrative in the +Second Part of "The Pilgrim's Progress" are decidedly superior to those +in the First Part, and some are of high excellence. Who is ignorant of +the charming little song of the Shepherd Boy in the Valley of +Humiliation, "in very mean clothes, but with a very fresh and +well-favoured countenance, and wearing more of the herb called Heartsease +in his bosom than he that is clad in silk and velvet?"-- + + "He that is down need fear no fall; + He that is low, no pride; + He that is humble, ever shall + Have God to be his guide. + + I am content with what I have, + Little be it or much, + And, Lord, contentment still I crave, + Because Thou savest such. + + Fulness to such a burden is + That go on Pilgrimage, + Here little, and hereafter Bliss + Is best from age to age." + +Bunyan reaches a still higher flight in Valiant-for-Truth's song, later +on, the Shakesperian ring of which recalls Amiens' in "As You Like It," + + "Under the greenwood tree, + Who loves to lie with me. . . + Come hither, come hither," + +and has led some to question whether it can be Bunyan's own. The +resemblance, as Mr. Froude remarks, is "too near to be accidental." +"Perhaps he may have heard the lines, and the rhymes may have clung to +him without his knowing whence they came." + + "Who would true Valour see, + Let him come hither, + One here will constant be, + Come wind, come weather. + There's no discouragement + Shall make him once relent + His first avowed intent + To be a Pilgrim. + + Who so beset him round + With dismal stories, + Do but themselves confound + His strength the more is. + No lion can him fright, + He'll with a giant fight, + But he will have a right + To be a Pilgrim. + + Hobgoblin nor foul fiend + Can daunt his spirit, + He knows he at the end + Shall life inherit. + Then fancies fly away + He'll fear not what men say, + He'll labour night and day + To be a Pilgrim." + +All readers of "The Pilgrim's Progress" and "The Holy War" are familiar +with the long metrical compositions giving the history of these works by +which they are prefaced and the latter work is closed. No more +characteristic examples of Bunyan's muse can be found. They show his +excellent command of his native tongue in racy vernacular, homely but +never vulgar, and his power of expressing his meaning "with sharp defined +outlines and without the waste of a word." + +Take this account of his perplexity, when the First Part of his +"Pilgrim's Progress" was finished, whether it should be given to the +world or no, and the characteristic decision with which he settled the +question for himself:-- + + "Well, when I had then put mine ends together, + I show'd them others that I might see whether + They would condemn them, or them justify; + And some said Let them live; some, Let them die. + Some said, John, print it; others said, Not so; + Some said it might do good; others said No. + Now was I in a strait, and did not see + Which was the best thing to be done by me; + At last I thought since you are thus divided + I print it will; and so the case decided;" + +or the lines in which he introduces the Second Part of the Pilgrim to the +readers of the former part:-- + + "Go now, my little Book, to every place + Where my first Pilgrim hath but shown his face: + Call at their door: If any say, 'Who's there?' + Then answer that Christiana is here. + If they bid thee come in, then enter thou + With all thy boys. And then, as thou knowest how, + Tell who they are, also from whence they came; + Perhaps they'll know them by their looks or name. + But if they should not, ask them yet again + If formerly they did not entertain + One Christian, a pilgrim. If they say + They did, and were delighted in his way: + Then let them know that these related are + Unto him, yea, his wife and children are. + Tell them that they have left their house and home, + Are turned Pilgrims, seek a world to come; + That they have met with hardships on the way, + That they do meet with troubles night and day." + +How racy, even if the lines are a little halting, is the defence of the +genuineness of his Pilgrim in "The Advertisement to the Reader" at the +end of "The Holy War." + + "Some say the Pilgrim's Progress is not mine, + Insinuating as if I would shine + In name or fame by the worth of another, + Like some made rich by robbing of their brother; + Or that so fond I am of being sire + I'll father bastards; or if need require, + I'll tell a lie or print to get applause. + I scorn it. John such dirt-heap never was + Since God converted him. . . + Witness my name, if anagram'd to thee + The letters make _Nu hony in a B_. + IOHN BUNYAN." + +How full of life and vigour his sketch of the beleaguerment and +deliverance of "Mansoul," as a picture of his own spiritual experience, +in the introductory verses to "The Holy War"!-- + + "For my part I, myself, was in the town, + Both when 'twas set up, and when pulling down; + I saw Diabolus in possession, + And Mansoul also under his oppression. + Yes, I was there when she crowned him for lord, + And to him did submit with one accord. + When Mansoul trampled upon things divine, + And wallowed in filth as doth a swine, + When she betook herself unto her arms, + Fought her Emmanuel, despised his charms: + Then I was there, and did rejoice to see + Diabolus and Mansoul so agree. + I saw the prince's armed men come down + By troops, by thousands, to besiege the town, + I saw the captains, heard the trumpets sound, + And how his forces covered all the ground, + Yea, how they set themselves in battle array, + I shall remember to my dying day." + +Bunyan's other essays in the domain of poetry need not detain us long. +The most considerable of these--at least in bulk--if it be really his, is +a version of some portions of the Old and New Testaments: the life of +Joseph, the Book of Ruth, the history of Samson, the Book of Jonah, the +Sermon on the Mount, and the General Epistle of St. James. The attempt +to do the English Bible into verse has been often made and never +successfully: in the nature of things success in such a task is +impossible, nor can this attempt be regarded as happier than that of +others. Mr. Froude indeed, who undoubtingly accepts their genuineness, +is of a different opinion. He styles the "Book of Ruth" and the "History +of Joseph" "beautiful idylls," of such high excellence that, "if we found +them in the collected works of a poet laureate, we should consider that a +difficult task had been accomplished successfully." It would seem almost +doubtful whether Mr. Froude can have read the compositions that he +commends so largely, and so much beyond their merit. The following +specimen, taken haphazard, will show how thoroughly Bunyan or the +rhymester, whoever he may be, has overcome what Mr. Froude regards as an +almost insuperable difficulty, and has managed to "spoil completely the +faultless prose of the English translation":-- + + "Ruth replied, + Intreat me not to leave thee or return; + For where thou goest I'll go, where thou sojourn + I'll sojourn also--and what people's thine, + And who thy God, the same shall both be mine. + Where thou shalt die, there will I die likewise, + And I'll be buried where thy body lies. + The Lord do so to me and more if I + Do leave thee or forsake thee till I die." + +The more we read of these poems, not given to the world till twelve years +after Bunyan's death, and that by a publisher who was "a repeated +offender against the laws of honest dealing," the more we are inclined to +agree with Dr. Brown, that the internal evidence of their style renders +their genuineness at the least questionable. In the dull prosaic level +of these compositions there is certainly no trace of the "force and +power" always present in Bunyan's rudest rhymes, still less of the "dash +of genius" and the "sparkle of soul" which occasionally discover the hand +of a master. + +Of the authenticity of Bunyan's "Divine Emblems," originally published +three years after his death under the title of "Country Rhymes for +Children," there is no question. The internal evidence confirms the +external. The book is thoroughly in Bunyan's vein, and in its homely +naturalness of imagery recalls the similitudes of the "Interpreter's +House," especially those expounded to Christiana and her boys. As in +that "house of imagery" things of the most common sort, the sweeping of a +room, the burning of a fire, the drinking of a chicken, a robin with a +spider in his mouth, are made the vehicle of religious teaching; so in +this "Book for Boys and Girls," a mole burrowing in the ground, a swallow +soaring in the air, the cuckoo which can do nothing but utter two notes, +a flaming and a blinking candle, or a pound of candles falling to the +ground, a boy chasing a butterfly, the cackling of a hen when she has +laid her egg, all, to his imaginative mind, set forth some spiritual +truth or enforce some wholesome moral lesson. How racy, though homely, +are these lines on a Frog!-- + + "The Frog by nature is but damp and cold, + Her mouth is large, her belly much will hold, + She sits somewhat ascending, loves to be + Croaking in gardens, though unpleasantly. + + The hypocrite is like unto this Frog, + As like as is the puppy to the dog. + He is of nature cold, his mouth is wide + To prate, and at true goodness to deride. + And though this world is that which he doth love, + He mounts his head as if he lived above. + And though he seeks in churches for to croak, + He neither seeketh Jesus nor His yoke." + +There is some real poetry in those on the Cuckoo, though we may be +inclined to resent his harsh treatment of our universal favourite:-- + + "Thou booby says't thou nothing but Cuckoo? + The robin and the wren can that outdo. + They to us play thorough their little throats + Not one, but sundry pretty tuneful notes. + But thou hast fellows, some like thee can do + Little but suck our eggs, and sing Cuckoo. + + Thy notes do not first welcome in our spring, + Nor dost thou its first tokens to us bring. + Birds less than thee by far like prophets do + Tell us 'tis coming, though not by Cuckoo, + Nor dost thou summer bear away with thee + Though thou a yawling bawling Cuckoo be. + When thou dost cease among us to appear, + Then doth our harvest bravely crown our year. + But thou hast fellows, some like thee can do + Little but suck our eggs, and sing Cuckoo. + + Since Cuckoos forward not our early spring + Nor help with notes to bring our harvest in, + And since while here, she only makes a noise + So pleasing unto none as girls and boys, + The Formalist we may compare her to, + For he doth suck our eggs and sing Cuckoo." + +A perusal of this little volume with its roughness and quaintness, +sometimes grating on the ear but full of strong thought and picturesque +images, cannot fail to raise Bunyan's pretensions as a poet. His muse, +it is true, as Alexander Smith has said, is a homely one. She is "clad +in russet, wears shoes and stockings, has a country accent, and walks +along the level Bedfordshire roads." But if the lines are unpolished, +"they have pith and sinew, like the talk of a shrewd peasant," with the +"strong thought and the knack of the skilled workman who can drive by a +single blow the nail home to the head." + +During his imprisonment Bunyan's pen was much more fertile in prose than +in poetry. Besides his world-famous "Grace Abounding," he produced +during the first six years of his gaol life a treatise on prayer, +entitled "Praying in the Spirit;" a book on "Christian Behaviour," +setting forth with uncompromising plainness the relative duties of +husbands and wives, parents and children, masters and servants, by which +those who profess a true faith are bound to show forth its reality and +power; the "Holy City," an exposition of the vision in the closing +chapters of the Book of Revelation, brilliant with picturesque +description and rich in suggestive thought, which, he tells us, had its +origin in a sermon preached by him to his brethren in bonds in their +prison chamber; and a work on the "Resurrection of the Dead and Eternal +Judgment." On these works we may not linger. There is not one of them +which is not marked by vigour of thought, clearness of language, accuracy +of arrangement, and deep spiritual experience. Nor is there one which +does not here and there exhibit specimens of Bunyan's picturesque +imaginative power, and his command of forcible and racy language. Each +will reward perusal. His work on "Prayer" is couched in the most exalted +strain, and is evidently the production of one who by long and agonizing +experience had learnt the true nature of prayer, as a pouring out of the +soul to God, and a wrestling with Him until the blessing, delayed not +denied, is granted. It is, however, unhappily deformed by much ignorant +reviling of the Book of Common Prayer. He denounces it as "taken out of +the papistical mass-book, the scraps and fragments of some popes, some +friars, and I know not what;" and ridicules the order of service it +propounds to the worshippers. "They have the matter and the manner of +their prayer at their fingers' ends; they set such a prayer for such a +day, and that twenty years before it comes: one for Christmas, another +for Easter, and six days after that. They have also bounded how many +syllables must be said in every one of them at their public exercises. +For each saint's day also they have them ready for the generations yet +unborn to say. They can tell you also when you shall kneel, when you +shall stand, when you should abide in your seats, when you should go up +into the chancel, and what you should do when you come there. All which +the apostles came short of, as not being able to compose so profound a +manner." This bitter satirical vein in treating of sacred things is +unworthy of its author, and degrading to his sense of reverence. It has +its excuse in the hard measure he had received from those who were so +unwisely endeavouring to force the Prayer Book on a generation which had +largely forgotten it. In his mind, the men and the book were identified, +and the unchristian behaviour of its advocates blinded his eyes to its +merits as a guide to devotion. Bunyan, when denouncing forms in worship, +forgot that the same apostle who directs that in our public assemblies +everything should be done "to edification," directs also that everything +should be done "decently and in order." + +By far the most important of these prison works--"The Pilgrim's +Progress," belonging, as will be seen, to a later period--is the "Grace +Abounding," in which with inimitable earnestness and simplicity Bunyan +gives the story of his early life and his religious history. This book, +if he had written no other, would stamp Bunyan as one of the greatest +masters of the English language of his own or any other age. In graphic +delineation of the struggles of a conscience convicted of sin towards a +hardly won freedom and peace, the alternations of light and darkness, of +hope and despair, which chequered its course, its morbid self-torturing +questionings of motive and action, this work of the travelling tinker, as +a spiritual history, has never been surpassed. Its equal can hardly be +found, save perhaps in the "Confessions of St. Augustine." These, +however, though describing a like spiritual conflict, are couched in a +more cultured style, and rise to a higher metaphysical region than Bunyan +was capable of attaining to. His level is a lower one, but on that level +Bunyan is without a rival. Never has the history of a soul convinced of +the reality of eternal perdition in its most terrible form as the most +certain of all possible facts, and of its own imminent danger of +hopeless, irreversible doom--seeing itself, to employ his own image, +hanging, as it were, over the pit of hell by a thin line, which might +snap any moment--been portrayed in more nervous and awe-inspiring +language. And its awfulness is enhanced by its self-evident truth. +Bunyan was drawing no imaginary picture of what others might feel, but +simply telling in plain unadorned language what he had felt. The +experience was a very tremendous reality to him. Like Dante, if he had +not actually been in hell, he had been on the very threshold of it; he +had in very deed traversed "the Valley of the Shadow of Death," had heard +its "hideous noises," and seen "the Hobgoblins of the Pit." He "spake +what he knew and testified what he had seen." Every sentence breathes +the most tremendous earnestness. His words are the plainest, drawn from +his own homely vernacular. He says in his preface, which will amply +repay reading, as one of the most characteristic specimens of his style, +that he could have stepped into a higher style, and adorned his narrative +more plentifully. But he dared not. "God did not play in convincing +him. The devil did not play in tempting him. He himself did not play +when he sunk as into a bottomless pit, and the pangs of hell caught hold +on him. Nor could he play in relating them. He must be plain and simple +and lay down the thing as it was. He that liked it might receive it. He +that did not might produce a better." The remembrance of "his great +sins, his great temptations, his great fears of perishing for ever, +recalled the remembrance of his great help, his great support from +heaven, the great grace God extended to such a wretch as he was." Having +thus enlarged on his own experience, he calls on his spiritual children, +for whose use the work was originally composed and to whom it is +dedicated,--"those whom God had counted him worthy to beget to Faith by +his ministry in the Word"--to survey their own religious history, to +"work diligently and leave no corner unsearched." He would have them +"remember their tears and prayers to God; how they sighed under every +hedge for mercy. Had they never a hill Mizar (Psa. xlii. 6) to remember? +Had they forgotten the close, the milkhouse, the stable, the barn, where +God visited their souls? Let them remember the Word on which the Lord +had caused them to hope. If they had sinned against light, if they were +tempted to blaspheme, if they were down in despair, let them remember +that it had been so with him, their spiritual father, and that out of +them all the Lord had delivered him." This dedication ends thus: "My +dear children, the milk and honey is beyond this wilderness. God be +merciful to you, and grant you be not slothful to go in to possess the +land." + +This remarkable book, as we learn from the title-page, was "written by +his own hand in prison." It was first published by George Larkin in +London, in 1666, the sixth year of his imprisonment, the year of the Fire +of London, about the time that he experienced his first brief release. As +with "The Pilgrim's Progress," the work grew in picturesque detail and +graphic power in the author's hand after its first appearance. The later +editions supply some of the most interesting personal facts contained in +the narrative, which were wanting when it first issued from the press. +His two escapes from drowning, and from the supposed sting of an adder; +his being drawn as a soldier, and his providential deliverance from +death; the graphic account of his difficulty in giving up bell-ringing at +Elstow Church, and dancing on Sundays on Elstow Green--these and other +minor touches which give a life and colour to the story, which we should +be very sorry to lose, are later additions. It is impossible to over- +estimate the value of the "Grace Abounding," both for the facts of +Bunyan's earlier life and for the spiritual experience of which these +facts were, in his eyes only the outward framework. Beginning with his +parentage and boyhood, it carries us down to his marriage and life in the +wayside-cottage at Elstow, his introduction to Mr. Gifford's congregation +at Bedford, his joining that holy brotherhood, and his subsequent call to +the work of the ministry among them, and winds up with an account of his +apprehension, examinations, and imprisonment in Bedford gaol. The work +concludes with a report of the conversation between his noble-hearted +wife and Sir Matthew Hale and the other judges at the Midsummer assizes, +narrated in a former chapter, "taken down," he says, "from her own +mouth." The whole story is of such sustained interest that our chief +regret on finishing it is that it stops where it does, and does not go on +much further. Its importance for our knowledge of Bunyan as a man, as +distinguished from an author, and of the circumstances of his life, is +seen by a comparison of our acquaintance with his earlier and with his +later years. When he laid down his pen no one took it up, and beyond two +or three facts, and a few hazy anecdotes we know little or nothing of all +that happened between his final release and his death. + +The value of the "Grace Abounding," however, as a work of experimental +religion may be easily over-estimated. It is not many who can study +Bunyan's minute history of the various stages of his spiritual life with +real profit. To some temperaments, especially among the young, the book +is more likely to prove injurious than beneficial; it is calculated +rather to nourish morbid imaginations, and a dangerous habit of +introspection, than to foster the quiet growth of the inner life. +Bunyan's unhappy mode of dealing with the Bible as a collection of texts, +each of Divine authority and declaring a definite meaning entirely +irrespective of its context, by which the words hide the Word, is also +utterly destructive of the true purpose of the Holy Scriptures as a +revelation of God's loving and holy mind and will. Few things are more +touching than the eagerness with which, in his intense self-torture, +Bunyan tried to evade the force of those "fearful and terrible +Scriptures" which appeared to seal his condemnation, and to lay hold of +the promises to the penitent sinner. His tempest-tossed spirit could +only find rest by doing violence to the dogma, then universally accepted +and not quite extinct even in our own days, that the authority of the +Bible--that "Divine Library"--collectively taken, belongs to each and +every sentence of the Bible taken for and by itself, and that, in +Coleridge's words, "detached sentences from books composed at the +distance of centuries, nay, sometimes at a millenium from each other, +under different dispensations and for different objects," are to be +brought together "into logical dependency." But "where the Spirit of the +Lord is there is liberty." The divinely given life in the soul of man +snaps the bonds of humanly-constructed logical systems. Only those, +however, who have known by experience the force of Bunyan's spiritual +combat, can fully appreciate and profit by Bunyan's narrative. He tells +us on the title-page that it was written "for the support of the weak and +tempted people of God." For such the "Grace Abounding to the chief of +sinners" will ever prove most valuable. Those for whom it was intended +will find in it a message--of comfort and strength. + +As has been said, Bunyan's pen was almost idle during the last six years +of his imprisonment. Only two of his works were produced in this period: +his "Confession of Faith," and his "Defence of the Doctrine of +Justification by Faith." Both were written very near the end of his +prison life, and published in the same year, 1672, only a week or two +before his release. The object of the former work was, as Dr. Brown +tells us, "to vindicate his teaching, and if possible, to secure his +liberty." Writing as one "in bonds for the Gospel," his professed +principles, he asserts, are "faith, and holiness springing therefrom, +with an endeavour so far as in him lies to be at peace with all men." He +is ready to hold communion with all whose principles are the same; with +all whom he can reckon as children of God. With these he will not +quarrel about "things that are circumstantial," such as water baptism, +which he regards as something quite indifferent, men being "neither the +better for having it, nor the worse for having it not." "He will receive +them in the Lord as becometh saints. If they will not have communion +with him, the neglect is theirs not his. But with the openly profane and +ungodly, though, poor people! they have been christened and take the +communion, he will have no communion. It would be a strange community, +he says, that consisted of men and beasts. Men do not receive their +horse or their dog to their table; they put them in a room by +themselves." As regards forms and ceremonies, he "cannot allow his soul +to be governed in its approach to God by the superstitious inventions of +this world. He is content to stay in prison even till the moss grows on +his eyelids rather than thus make of his conscience a continual butchery +and slaughter-shop by putting out his eyes and committing himself to the +blind to lead him. Eleven years' imprisonment was a weighty argument to +pause and pause again over the foundation of the principles for which he +had thus suffered. Those principles he had asserted at his trial, and in +the tedious tract of time since then he had in cold blood examined them +by the Word of God and found them good; nor could he dare to revolt from +or deny them on pain of eternal damnation." + +The second-named work, the "Defence of the Doctrine of Justification by +Faith," is entirely controversial. The Rev. Edward Fowler, afterwards +Bishop of Gloucester, then Rector of Northill, had published in the early +part of 1671, a book entitled "The Design of Christianity." A copy +having found its way into Bunyan's hands, he was so deeply stirred by +what he deemed its subversion of the true foundation of Evangelical +religion that he took up his pen and in the space of six weeks composed a +long and elaborate examination of the book, chapter by chapter, and a +confutation of its teaching. Fowler's doctrines as Bunyan understood +them--or rather misunderstood them--awoke the worst side of his impetuous +nature. His vituperation of the author and his book is coarse and +unmeasured. He roundly charges Fowler with having "closely, privily, and +devilishly turned the grace of God into a licentious doctrine, +bespattering it with giving liberty to lasciviousness;" and he calls him +"a pretended minister of the Word," who, in "his cursed blasphemous book +vilely exposes to public view the rottenness of his heart, in principle +diametrically opposite to the simplicity of the Gospel of Christ, a +glorious latitudinarian that can, as to religion, turn and twist like an +eel on the angle, or rather like the weathercock that stands on the +steeple;" and describes him as "contradicting the wholesome doctrine of +the Church of England." He "knows him not by face much less his personal +practise." He may have "kept himself clear of the ignorant Sir Johns who +had for a long time, as a judgment of God, been made the mouth to the +people--men of debauched lives who for the love of filthy lucre and the +pampering of their idle carcases had made shipwreck of their former +faith;" but he does know that having been ejected as a Nonconformist in +1662, he had afterwards gone over to the winning side, and he fears that +"such an unstable weathercock spirit as he had manifested would stumble +the work and give advantage to the adversary to speak vilifyingly of +religion." No excuse can be offered for the coarse violence of Bunyan's +language in this book; but it was too much the habit of the time to load +a theological opponent with vituperation, to push his assertions to the +furthest extreme, and make the most unwarrantable deductions from them. +It must be acknowledged that Bunyan does not treat Fowler and his +doctrines with fairness, and that, if the latter may be thought to +depreciate unduly the sacrifice of the Death of Christ as an expiation +for man's guilt, and to lay too great a stress on the moral faculties +remaining in the soul after the Fall, Bunyan errs still more widely on +the other side in asserting the absolute, irredeemable corruption of +human nature, leaving nothing for grace to work upon, but demanding an +absolutely fresh creation, not a revivification of the Divine nature +grievously marred but not annihilated by Adam's sin. + +A reply to Bunyan's severe strictures was not slow to appear. The book +bears the title, characteristic of the tone and language of its contents, +of "_Dirt wip't off_; or, a manifest discovery of the Gross Ignorance, +Erroneousness, and most Unchristian and Wicked Spirit of one John Bunyan, +Lay-preacher in Bedford." It professes to be written by a friend of +Fowler's, but Fowler was generally accredited with it. Its violent +tirades against one who, he says, had been "near these twenty years or +longer very infamous in the Town and County of Bedford as a very +Pestilent Schismatick," and whom he suggests the authorities have done +wrong in letting out of prison, and had better clap in gaol again as "an +impudent and malicious Firebrand," have long since been consigned to a +merciful oblivion, where we may safely leave them. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + + +Bunyan's protracted imprisonment came to an end in 1672. The exact date +of his actual liberation is uncertain. His pardon under the Great Seal +bears date September 13th. But we find from the church books that he had +been appointed pastor of the congregation to which he belonged as early +as the 21st of January of that year, and on the 9th of May his +ministerial position was duly recognized by the Government, and a license +was granted to him to act "as preacher in the house of Josias Roughead," +for those "of the Persuasion commonly called Congregational." His +release would therefore seem to have anticipated the formal issue of his +pardon by four months. Bunyan was now half way through his forty-fourth +year. Sixteen years still remained to him before his career of +indefatigable service in the Master's work was brought to a close. Of +these sixteen years, as has already been remarked, we have only a very +general knowledge. Details are entirely wanting; nor is there any known +source from which they can be recovered. If he kept any diary it has not +been preserved. If he wrote letters--and one who was looked up to by so +large a circle of disciples as a spiritual father and guide, and whose +pen was so ready of exercise, cannot fail to have written many--not one +has come down to us. The pages of the church books during his pastorate +are also provokingly barren of record, and little that they contain is in +Bunyan's handwriting. As Dr. Brown has said, "he seems to have been too +busy to keep any records of his busy life." Nor can we fill up the blank +from external authorities. The references to Bunyan in contemporary +biographies are far fewer than we might have expected; certainly far +fewer than we could have desired. But the little that is recorded is +eminently characteristic. We see him constantly engaged in the great +work to which he felt God had called him, and for which, "with much +content through grace," he had suffered twelve years' incarceration. In +addition to the regular discharge of his pastoral duties to his own +congregation, he took a general oversight of the villages far and near +which had been the scene of his earlier ministry, preaching whenever +opportunity offered, and, ever unsparing of his own personal labour, +making long journeys into distant parts of the country for the +furtherance of the gospel. We find him preaching at Leicester in the +year of his release. Reading also is mentioned as receiving occasional +visits from him, and that not without peril after the revival of +persecution; while the congregations in London had the benefit of his +exhortations at stated intervals. Almost the first thing Bunyan did, +after his liberation from gaol, was to make others sharers in his hardly +won "liberty of prophesying," by applying to the Government for licenses +for preachers and preaching places in Bedfordshire and the neighbouring +counties, under the Declaration of Indulgence. The still existing list +sent in to the authorities by him, in his own handwriting, contains the +names of twenty-five preachers and thirty buildings, besides "Josias +Roughead's House in his orchard at Bedford." Nineteen of these were in +his own native county, three in Northamptonshire, three in +Buckinghamshire, two in Cambridgeshire, two in Huntingdonshire, and one +in Hertfordshire. The places sought to be licensed were very various, +barns, malthouses, halls belonging to public companies, &c., but more +usually private houses. Over these religious communities, bound together +by a common faith and common suffering, Bunyan exercised a +quasi-episcopal superintendence, which gained for him the playful title +of "Bishop Bunyan." In his regular circuits,--"visitations" we may not +improperly term them,--we are told that he exerted himself to relieve the +temporal wants of the sufferers under the penal laws,--so soon and so +cruelly revived,--ministered diligently to the sick and afflicted, and +used his influence in reconciling differences between "professors of the +gospel," and thus prevented the scandal of litigation among Christians. +The closing period of Bunyan's life was laborious but happy, spent +"honourably and innocently" in writing, preaching, visiting his +congregations, and planting daughter churches. "Happy," writes Mr. +Froude, "in his work; happy in the sense that his influence was daily +extending--spreading over his own country and to the far-off settlements +of America,--he spent his last years in his own land of Beulah, Doubting +Castle out of sight, and the towers and minarets of Immanuel's Land +growing nearer and clearer as the days went on." + +With his time so largely occupied in his spiritual functions, he could +have had but small leisure to devote to his worldly calling. This, +however, one of so honest and independent a spirit is sure not to have +neglected, it was indeed necessary that to a certain extent he should +work for his living. He had a family to maintain. His congregation were +mostly of the poorer sort, unable to contribute much to their pastor's +support. Had it been otherwise, Bunyan was the last man in the world to +make a trade of the gospel, and though never hesitating to avail himself +of the apostolic privilege to "live of the gospel," he, like the apostle +of the Gentiles, would never be ashamed to "work with his own hands," +that he might "minister to his own necessities," and those of his family. +But from the time of his release he regarded his ministerial work as the +chief work of his life. "When he came abroad," says one who knew him, +"he found his temporal affairs were gone to wreck, and he had as to them +to begin again as if he had newly come into the world. But yet he was +not destitute of friends, who had all along supported him with +necessaries and had been very good to his family, so that by their +assistance getting things a little about him again, he resolved as much +as possible to decline worldly business, and give himself wholly up to +the service of God." The anonymous writer to whom we are indebted for +information concerning his imprisonment and his subsequent life, says +that Bunyan, "contenting himself with that little God had bestowed upon +him, sequestered himself from all secular employments to follow that of +his call to the ministry." The fact, however, that in the "deed of gift" +of all his property to his wife in 1685, he still describes himself as a +"brazier," puts it beyond all doubt that though his ministerial duties +were his chief concern, he prudently kept fast hold of his handicraft as +a certain means of support for himself and those dependent on him. On +the whole, Bunyan's outward circumstances were probably easy. His wants +were few and easily supplied. "Having food and raiment" for himself, his +wife, and his children, he was "therewith content." The house in the +parish of St. Cuthbert's which was his home from his release to his death +(unhappily demolished fifty years back), shows the humble character of +his daily life. It was a small cottage, such as labourers now occupy, +with three small rooms on the ground floor, and a garret with a +diminutive dormer window under the high-pitched tiled roof. Behind stood +an outbuilding which served as his workshop. We have a passing glimpse +of this cottage home in the diary of Thomas Hearne, the Oxford antiquary. +One Mr. Bagford, otherwise unknown to us, had once "walked into the +country" on purpose to see "the study of John Bunyan," and the student +who made it famous. On his arrival the interviewer--as we should now +call him--met with a civil and courteous reception from Bunyan; but he +found the contents of his study hardly larger than those of his prison +cell. They were limited to a Bible, and copies of "The Pilgrim's +Progress," and a few other books, chiefly his own works, "all lying on a +shelf or shelves." Slight as this sketch is, it puts us more in touch +with the immortal dreamer than many longer and more elaborate paragraphs. + +Bunyan's celebrity as a preacher, great before he was shut up in gaol, +was naturally enhanced by the circumstance of his imprisonment. The barn +in Josias Roughead's orchard, where he was licensed as a preacher, was +"so thronged the first time he appeared there to edify, that many were +constrained to stay without; every one that was of his persuasion +striving to partake of his instructions." Wherever he ministered, +sometimes, when troublous days returned, in woods, and in dells, and +other hiding-places, the announcement that John Bunyan was to preach +gathered a large and attentive auditory, hanging on his lips and drinking +from them the word of life. His fame grew the more he was known and +reached its climax when his work was nearest its end. His biographer +Charles Doe tells us that just before his death, "when Mr. Bunyan +preached in London, if there were but one day's notice given, there would +be more people come together than the meeting-house could hold. I have +seen, by my computation, about twelve hundred at a morning lecture by +seven o'clock on a working day, in the dark winter time. I also computed +about three thousand that came to hear him one Lord's Day in London, at a +town's-end meeting-house, so that half were fain to go back again for +want of room, and then himself was fain at a back door to be pulled +almost over people to get upstairs to his pulpit." This "town's-end +meeting house" has been identified by some with a quaint straggling long +building which once stood in Queen Street, Southwark, of which there is +an engraving in Wilkinson's "Londina Illustrata." Doe's account, +however, probably points to another building, as the Zoar Street meeting- +house was not opened for worship till about six months before Bunyan's +death, and then for Presbyterian service. Other places in London +connected with his preaching are Pinners' Hall in Old Broad Street, +where, on one of his occasional visits, he delivered his striking sermon +on "The Greatness of the Soul and the Unspeakableness of the Loss +thereof," first published in 1683; and Dr. Owen's meeting-house in +White's Alley, Moorfields, which was the gathering-place for titled folk, +city merchants, and other Nonconformists of position and degree. At +earlier times, when the penal laws against Nonconformists were in +vigorous exercise, Bunyan had to hold his meetings by stealth in private +houses and other places where he might hope to escape the lynx-eyed +informer. It was at one of these furtive meetings that his earliest +biographer, the honest combmaker at the foot of London Bridge, Charles +Doe, first heard him preach. His choice of an Old Testament text at +first offended Doe, who had lately come into New Testament light and had +had enough of the "historical and doing-for-favour of the Old Testament." +But as he went on he preached "so New Testament like" that his hearer's +prejudices vanished, and he could only "admire, weep for joy, and give +the preacher his affections." + +Bunyan was more than once urged to leave Bedford and settle in the +metropolis. But to all these solicitations he turned a deaf ear. Bedford +was the home of his deepest affections. It was there the holy words of +the poor women "sitting in the sun," speaking "as if joy did make them +speak," had first "made his heart shake," and shown him that he was still +a stranger to vital godliness. It was there he had been brought out of +darkness into light himself, and there too he had been the means of +imparting the same blessing to others. The very fact of his long +imprisonment had identified him with the town and its inhabitants. There +he had a large and loving congregation, to whom he was bound by the ties +of a common faith and common sufferings. Many of these recognized in +Bunyan their spiritual father; all, save a few "of the baser sort," +reverenced him as their teacher and guide. No prospect of a wider field +of usefulness, still less of a larger income, could tempt him to desert +his "few sheep in the wilderness." Some of them, it is true, were +wayward sheep, who wounded the heart of their pastor by breaking from the +fold, and displaying very un-lamb-like behaviour. He had sometimes to +realize painfully that no pale is so close but that the enemy will creep +in somewhere and seduce the flock; and that no rules of communion, +however strict, can effectually exclude unworthy members. Brother John +Stanton had to be admonished "for abusing his wife and beating her often +for very light matters" (if the matters had been less light, would the +beating in these days have been thought justifiable?); and Sister Mary +Foskett, for "privately whispering of a horrid scandal, 'without culler +of truth,' against Brother Honeylove." Evil-speaking and backbiting set +brother against brother. Dissensions and heartburnings grieved Bunyan's +spirit. He himself was not always spared. A letter had to be written to +Sister Hawthorn "by way of reproof for her unseemly language against +Brother Scot and the whole Church." John Wildman was had up before the +Church and convicted of being "an abominable liar and slanderer," +"extraordinary guilty" against "our beloved Brother Bunyan himself." And +though Sister Hawthorn satisfied the Church by "humble acknowledgment of +her miscariag," the bolder misdoer only made matters worse by "a frothy +letter," which left no alternative but a sentence of expulsion. But +though Bunyan's flock contained some whose fleeces were not as white as +he desired, these were the exception. The congregation meeting in Josias +Roughead's barn must have been, take them as a whole, a quiet, +God-fearing, spiritually-minded folk, of whom their pastor could think +with thankfulness and satisfaction as "his hope and joy and crown of +rejoicing." From such he could not be severed lightly. Inducements +which would have been powerful to a meaner nature fell dead on his +independent spirit. He was not "a man that preached by way of bargain +for money," and, writes Doe, "more than once he refused a more plentiful +income to keep his station." As Dr. Brown says: "He was too deeply +rooted on the scene of his lifelong labours and sufferings to think of +striking his tent till the command came from the Master to come up to the +higher service for which he had been ripening so long." At Bedford, +therefore, he remained; quietly staying on in his cottage in St. +Cuthbert's, and ministering to his humble flock, loving and beloved, as +Mr. Froude writes, "through changes of ministry, Popish plots, and +Monmouth rebellions, while the terror of a restoration of Popery was +bringing on the Revolution; careless of kings and cabinets, and confident +that Giant Pope had lost his power for harm, and thenceforward could only +bite his nails at the passing pilgrims." + +Bunyan's peace was not, however, altogether undisturbed. Once it +received a shock in a renewal of his imprisonment, though only for a +brief period, in 1675, to which we owe the world-famous "Pilgrim's +Progress"; and it was again threatened, though not actually disturbed ten +years later, when the renewal of the persecution of the Nonconformists +induced him to make over all his property--little enough in good sooth--to +his wife by deed of gift. + +The former of these events demands our attention, not so much for itself +as for its connection with Bishop Barlow's interference in Bunyan's +behalf, and, still more, for its results in the production of "The +Pilgrim's Progress." Until very recently the bare fact of this later +imprisonment, briefly mentioned by Charles Doe and another of his early +biographers, was all that was known to us. They even leave the date to +be gathered, though both agree in limiting its duration to six months or +thereabouts. The recent discovery, among the Chauncey papers, by Mr. W. +G. Thorpe, of the original warrant under which Bunyan was at this time +sent to gaol, supplies the missing information. It has been already +noticed that the Declaration of Indulgence, under which Bunyan was +liberated in 1672, was very short-lived. Indeed it barely lasted in +force a twelvemonth. Granted on the 15th of March of that year, it was +withdrawn on the 9th of March of the following year, at the instance of +the House of Commons, who had taken alarm at a suspension of the laws of +the realm by the "inherent power" of the sovereign, without the advice or +sanction of Parliament. The Declaration was cancelled by Charles II., +the monarch, it is said, tearing off the Great Seal with his own hands, a +subsidy being promised to the royal spendthrift as a reward for his +complaisance. The same year the Test Act became law. Bunyan therefore +and his fellow Nonconformists were in a position of greater peril, as far +as the letter of the law was concerned, than they had ever been. But, as +Dr. Stoughton has remarked, "the letter of the law is not to be taken as +an accurate index of the Nonconformists' condition. The pressure of a +bad law depends very much upon the hands employed in its administration." +Unhappily for Bunyan, the parties in whose hands the execution of the +penal statutes against Nonconformists rested in Bedfordshire were his +bitter personal enemies, who were not likely to let them lie inactive. +The prime mover in the matter was doubtless Dr. William Foster, that +"right Judas" whom we shall remember holding the candle in Bunyan's face +in the hall of Harlington House at his first apprehension, and showing +such feigned affection "as if he would have leaped on his neck and kissed +him." He had some time before this become Chancellor of the Bishop of +Lincoln, and Commissary of the Court of the Archdeacon of Bedford, +offices which put in his hands extensive powers which he had used with +the most relentless severity. He has damned himself to eternal infamy by +the bitter zeal he showed in hunting down Dissenters, inflicting +exorbitant fines, and breaking into their houses and distraining their +goods for a full discharge, maltreating their wives and daughters, and +haling the offenders to prison. Having been chiefly instrumental in +Bunyan's first committal to gaol, he doubtless viewed his release with +indignation as the leader of the Bedfordshire sectaries who was doing +more mischief to the cause of conformity, which it was his province at +all hazards to maintain, than any other twenty men. The church would +never be safe till he was clapped in prison again. The power to do this +was given by the new proclamation. By this act the licenses to preach +previously granted to Nonconformists were recalled. Henceforward no +conventicle had "any authority, allowance, or encouragement from his +Majesty." We can easily imagine the delight with which Foster would hail +the issue of this proclamation. How he would read and read again with +ever fresh satisfaction its stringent clauses. That pestilent fellow, +Bunyan, was now once more in his clutches. This time there was no chance +of his escape. All licences were recalled, and he was absolutely +defenceless. It should not be Foster's fault if he failed to end his +days in the prison from which he ought never to have been released. The +proclamation is dated the 4th of March, 1674-5, and was published in the +_Gazette_ on the 9th. It would reach Bedford on the 11th. It placed +Bunyan at the mercy of "his enemies, who struck at him forthwith." A +warrant was issued for his apprehension, undoubtedly written by our old +friend, Paul Cobb, the clerk of the peace, who, it will be remembered, +had acted in the same capacity on Bunyan's first committal. It is dated +the 4th of March, and bears the signature of no fewer than thirteen +magistrates, ten of them affixing their seals. + +That so unusually large a number took part in the execution of this +warrant, is sufficient indication of the importance attached to Bunyan's +imprisonment by the gentry of the county. The following is the +document:-- + + "To the Constables of Bedford and to every of them + + Whereas information and complaint is made unto us that + (notwithstanding the Kings Majties late Act of most gracious generall + and free pardon to all his subjects for past misdemeanours that by his + said clemencie and indulgent grace and favor they might bee mooved and + induced for the time to come more carefully to observe his Highenes + lawes and Statutes and to continue in theire loyall and due obedience + to his Majtie) Yett one John Bunnyon of youre said Towne Tynker hath + divers times within one month last past in contempt of his Majtie's + good Lawes preached or teached at a Conventicle Meeting or Assembly + under color or ptence of exercise of Religion in other manner than + according to the Liturgie or practiss of the Church of England These + are therefore in his Majties name to comand you forthwith to apprehend + and bring the Body of the said John Bunnion before us or any of us or + other his Majties Justice of Peace within the said County to answer + the premisses and further to doo and receave as to Lawe and Justice + shall appertaine and hereof you are not to faile. Given under our + handes and seales this ffourth day of March in the seven and twentieth + yeare of the Raigne of our most gracious Soveraigne Lord King Charles + the Second A que Dni., juxta &c 1674 + + J Napier W Beecher G Blundell Hum: Monoux + Will ffranklin John Ventris + Will Spencer + Will Gery St Jo Chernocke Wm Daniels + T Browne W ffoster + Gaius Squire" + +There would be little delay in the execution of the warrant. + +John Bunyan was a marked man and an old offender, who, on his arrest, +would be immediately committed for trial. Once more, then, Bunyan became +a prisoner, and that, there can be little doubt, in his old quarters in +the Bedford gaol. Errors die hard, and those by whom they have been once +accepted find it difficult to give them up. The long-standing tradition +of Bunyan's twelve years' imprisonment in the little lock-up-house on the +Ouse bridge, having been scattered to the winds by the logic of fact and +common sense, those to whom the story is dear, including the latest and +ablest of his biographers, Dr. Brown, see in this second brief +imprisonment a way to rehabilitate it. Probability pointing to this +imprisonment as the time of the composition of "The Pilgrim's Progress," +they hold that on this occasion Bunyan was committed to the bridge-gaol, +and that he there wrote his immortal work, though they fail to bring +forward any satisfactory reasons for the change of the place of his +confinement. The circumstances, however, being the same, there can be no +reasonable ground for questioning that, as before, Bunyan was imprisoned +in the county gaol. + +This last imprisonment of Bunyan's lasted only half as many months as his +former imprisonment had lasted years. At the end of six months he was +again a free man. His release was due to the good officers of Owen, +Cromwell's celebrated chaplain, with Barlow, Bishop of Lincoln. The +suspicion which hung over this intervention from its being erroneously +attributed to his release in 1672, three years before Barlow became a +bishop, has been dispelled by the recently discovered warrant. The dates +and circumstances are now found to tally. The warrant for Bunyan's +apprehension bears date March 4, 1675. On the 14th of the following May +the supple and time-serving Barlow, after long and eager waiting for a +mitre, was elected to the see of Lincoln vacated by the death of Bishop +Fuller, and consecrated on the 27th of June. Barlow, a man of very +dubious churchmanship, who had succeeded in keeping his university +appointments undisturbed all through the Commonwealth, and who was yet +among the first with effusive loyalty to welcome the restoration of +monarchy, had been Owen's tutor at Oxford, and continued to maintain +friendly relations with him. As bishop of the diocese to which +Bedfordshire then, and long after, belonged, Barlow had the power, by the +then existing law, of releasing a prisoner for nonconformity on a bond +given by two persons that he would conform within half a year. A friend +of Bunyan's, probably Ichabod Chauncey, obtained a letter from Owen to +the bishop requesting him to employ this prerogative in Bunyan's behalf. +Barlow with hollow complaisance expressed his particular kindness for Dr. +Owen, and his desire to deny him nothing he could legally grant. He +would even strain a point to serve him. But he had only just been made a +bishop, and what was asked was a new thing to him. He desired a little +time to consider of it. If he could do it, Owen might be assured of his +readiness to oblige him. A second application at the end of a fortnight +found this readiness much cooled. It was true that on inquiry he found +he might do it; but the times were critical, and he had many enemies. It +would be safer for him not to take the initiative. Let them apply to the +Lord Chancellor, and get him to issue an order for him to release Bunyan +on the customary bond. Then he would do what Owen asked. It was vain to +tell Barlow that the way he suggested was chargeable, and Bunyan poor. +Vain also to remind him that there was no point to be strained. He had +satisfied himself that he might do the thing legally. It was hoped he +would remember his promise. But the bishop would not budge from the +position he had taken up. They had his ultimatum; with that they must be +content. If Bunyan was to be liberated, his friends must accept Barlow's +terms. "This at last was done, and the poor man was released. But +little thanks to the bishop." + +This short six months' imprisonment assumes additional importance from +the probability, first suggested by Dr. Brown, which the recovery of its +date renders almost a certainty, that it was during this period that +Bunyan began, if he did not complete, the first part of "The Pilgrim's +Progress." We know from Bunyan's own words that the book was begun in +gaol, and its composition has been hitherto unhesitatingly assigned to +his twelve years' confinement. Dr. Brown was, we believe, the first to +call this in question. Bunyan's imprisonment, we know, ended in 1672. +The first edition of "The Pilgrim's Progress" did not appear till 1678. +If written during his earlier imprisonment, six years must have elapsed +between its writing and its publication. But it was not Bunyan's way to +keep his works in manuscript so long after their completion. His books +were commonly put in the printers' hands as soon as they were finished. +There are no sufficient reasons--though some have been suggested--for his +making an exception to this general habit in the case of "The Pilgrim's +Progress." Besides we should certainly conclude, from the poetical +introduction, that there was little delay between the finishing of the +book and its being given to the world. After having written the book, he +tells us, simply to gratify himself, spending only "vacant seasons" in +his "scribble," to "divert" himself "from worser thoughts," he showed it +to his friends to get their opinion whether it should be published or +not. But as they were not all of one mind, but some counselled one thing +and some another, after some perplexity, he took the matter into his own +hands. + + "Now was I in a strait, and did not see + Which was the best thing to be done by me; + At last I thought, Since you are so divided, + I print it will, and so the case decided." + +We must agree with Dr. Brown that "there is a briskness about this which, +to say the least, is not suggestive of a six years' interval before +publication." The break which occurs in the narrative after the visit of +the Pilgrims to the Delectable Mountains, which so unnecessarily +interrupts the course of the story--"So I awoke from my dream; and I +slept and dreamed again"--has been not unreasonably thought by Dr. Brown +to indicate the point Bunyan had reached when his six months' +imprisonment ended, and from which he continued the book after his +release. + +The First Part of "The Pilgrim's Progress" issued from the press in 1678. +A second edition followed in the same year, and a third with large and +important additions in 1679. The Second Part, after an interval of seven +years, followed early in 1685. Between the two parts appeared two of his +most celebrated works--the "Life and Death of Mr. Badman," published in +1680, originally intended to supply a contrast and a foil to "The +Pilgrim's Progress," by depicting a life which was scandalously bad; and, +in 1682, that which Macaulay, with perhaps exaggerated eulogy, has said, +"would have been our greatest allegory if the earlier allegory had never +been written," the "Holy War made by Shaddai upon Diabolus." Superior to +"The Pilgrim's Progress" as a literary composition, this last work must +be pronounced decidedly inferior to it in attractive power. For one who +reads the "Holy War," five hundred read the "Pilgrim." And those who +read it once return to it again and again, with ever fresh delight. It +is a book that never tires. One or two perusals of the "Holy War" +satisfy: and even these are not without weariness. As Mr. Froude has +said, "The 'Holy War' would have entitled Bunyan to a place among the +masters of English literature. It would never have made his name a +household word in every English-speaking family on the globe." + +Leaving the further notice of these and his other chief literary +productions to another chapter, there is little more to record in +Bunyan's life. Though never again seriously troubled for his +nonconformity, his preaching journeys were not always without risk. There +is a tradition that when he visited Reading to preach, he disguised +himself as a waggoner carrying a long whip in his hand to escape +detection. The name of "Bunyan's Dell," in a wood not very far from +Hitchin, tells of the time when he and his hearers had to conceal their +meetings from their enemies' quest, with scouts planted on every side to +warn them of the approach of the spies and informers, who for reward were +actively plying their odious trade. Reference has already been made to +Bunyan's "deed of gift" of all that he possessed in the world--his +"goods, chattels, debts, ready money, plate, rings, household stuff, +apparel, utensils, brass, pewter, bedding, and all other his substance +whatsoever--to his well-beloved wife Elizabeth Bunyan." Towards the +close of the first year of James the Second, 1685, the apprehensions +under which Bunyan executed this document were far from groundless. At +no time did the persecution of Nonconformists rage with greater +fierceness. Never, not even under the tyranny of Laud, as Lord Macaulay +records had the condition of the Puritans been so deplorable. Never had +spies been so actively employed in detecting congregations. Never had +magistrates, grand-jurors, rectors, and churchwardens been so much on the +alert. Many Nonconformists were cited before the ecclesiastical courts. +Others found it necessary to purchase the connivance of the agents of the +Government by bribes. It was impossible for the sectaries to pray +together without precautions such as are employed by coiners and +receivers of stolen goods. Dissenting ministers, however blameless in +life, however eminent in learning, could not venture to walk the streets +for fear of outrages which were not only not repressed, but encouraged by +those whose duty it was to preserve the peace. Richard Baxter was in +prison. Howe was afraid to show himself in London for fear of insult, +and had been driven to Utrecht. Not a few who up to that time had borne +up boldly lost heart and fled the kingdom. Other weaker spirits were +terrified into a show of conformity. Through many subsequent years the +autumn of 1685 was remembered as a time of misery and terror. There is, +however, no indication of Bunyan having been molested. The "deed of +gift" by which he sought to avoid the confiscation of his goods was never +called into exercise. Indeed its very existence was forgotten by his +wife in whose behalf it had been executed. Hidden away in a recess in +his house in St. Cuthbert's, this interesting document was accidentally +discovered at the beginning of the present century, and is preserved +among the most valued treasures of the congregation which bears his name. + +Quieter times for Nonconformists were however at hand. Active +persecution was soon to cease for them, and happily never to be renewed +in England. The autumn of 1685 showed the first indications of a great +turn of fortune, and before eighteen months had elapsed, the intolerant +king and the intolerant Church were eagerly bidding against each other +for the support of the party which both had so deeply injured. A new +form of trial now awaited the Nonconformists. Peril to their personal +liberty was succeeded by a still greater peril to their honesty and +consistency of spirit. James the Second, despairing of employing the +Tories and the Churchmen as his tools, turned, as his brother had turned +before him, to the Dissenters. The snare was craftily baited with a +Declaration of Indulgence, by which the king, by his sole authority, +annulled a long series of statutes and suspended all penal laws against +Nonconformists of every sort. These lately political Pariahs now held +the balance of power. The future fortunes of England depended mainly on +the course they would adopt. James was resolved to convert the House of +Commons from a free deliberative assembly into a body subservient to his +wishes, and ready to give parliamentary sanction to any edict he might +issue. To obtain this end the electors must be manipulated. Leaving the +county constituencies to be dealt with by the lords-lieutenants, half of +whom preferred dismissal to carrying out the odious service peremptorily +demanded of them, James's next concern was to "regulate" the +Corporations. In those days of narrowly restricted franchise, the +municipalities virtually returned the town members. To obtain an +obedient parliament, he must secure a roll of electors pledged to return +the royal nominees. A committee of seven privy councillors, all Roman +Catholics but the infamous Jeffreys, presided over the business, with +local sub-committees scattered over the country to carry out the details. +Bedford was dealt with in its turn. Under James's policy of courting the +Puritans, the leading Dissenters were the first persons to be approached. +Two are specially named, a Mr. Margetts, formerly Judge-Advocate-General +of the Army under General Monk, and John Bunyan. It is no matter of +surprise that Bunyan, who had been so severe a sufferer under the old +penal statutes, should desire their abrogation, and express his readiness +to "steer his friends and followers" to support candidates who would +pledge themselves to vote for their repeal. But no further would he go. +The Bedford Corporation was "regulated," which means that nearly the +whole of its members were removed and others substituted by royal order. +Of these new members some six or seven were leading persons of Bunyan's +congregation. But, with all his ardent desire for religious liberty, +Bunyan was too keen-witted not to see through James's policy, and too +honest to give it any direct insidious support. "In vain is the net +spread in the sight of any bird." He clearly saw that it was not for any +love of the Dissenters that they were so suddenly delivered from their +persecutions, and placed on a kind of equality with the Church. The +king's object was the establishment of Popery. To this the Church was +the chief obstacle. That must be undermined and subverted first. That +done, all other religious denominations would follow. All that the +Nonconformists would gain by yielding, was the favour Polyphemus promised +Ulysses, to be devoured last. Zealous as he was for the "liberty of +prophesying," even that might be purchased at too high a price. The boon +offered by the king was "good in itself," but not "so intended." So, as +his biographer describes, when the regulators came, "he expressed his +zeal with some weariness as perceiving the bad consequences that would +ensue, and laboured with his congregation" to prevent their being imposed +on by the fair promises of those who were at heart the bitterest enemies +of the cause they professed to advocate. The newly-modelled corporation +of Bedford seems like the other corporations through the country, to have +proved as unmanageable as the old. As Macaulay says, "The sectaries who +had declared in favour of the Indulgence had become generally ashamed of +their error, and were desirous to make atonement." Not knowing the man +they had to deal with, the "regulators" are said to have endeavoured to +buy Bunyan's support by the offer of some place under government. The +bribe was indignantly rejected. Bunyan even refused to see the +government agent who offered it,--"he would, by no means come to him, but +sent his excuse." Behind the treacherous sunshine he saw a black cloud, +ready to break. The Ninevites' remedy he felt was now called for. So he +gathered his congregation together and appointed a day of fasting and +prayer to avert the danger that, under a specious pretext, again menaced +their civil and religious liberties. A true, sturdy Englishman, Bunyan, +with Baxter and Howe, "refused an indulgence which could only be +purchased by the violent overthrow of the law." + +Bunyan did not live to see the Revolution. Four months after he had +witnessed the delirious joy which hailed the acquittal of the seven +bishops, the Pilgrim's earthly Progress ended, and he was bidden to cross +the dark river which has no bridge. The summons came to him in the very +midst of his religious activity, both as a preacher and as a writer. His +pen had never been more busy than when he was bidden to lay it down +finally. Early in 1688, after a two years' silence, attributable perhaps +to the political troubles of the times, his "Jerusalem Sinner Saved, or a +Help to Despairing Souls," one of the best known and most powerfully +characteristic of his works, had issued from the press, and had been +followed by four others between March and August, the month of his death. +These books were, "The Work of Jesus Christ as an Advocate;" a poetical +composition entitled "The Building, Nature, and Excellency of the House +of God," a discourse on the constitution and government of the Christian +Church; the "Water of Life," and "Solomon's Temple Spiritualized." At +the time of his death he was occupied in seeing through the press a sixth +book, "The Acceptable Sacrifice," which was published after his funeral. +In addition to these, Bunyan left behind him no fewer than fourteen works +in manuscript, written at this time, as the fruit of his fertile +imagination and untiring pen. Ten of these were given to the world soon +after Bunyan's death, by one of Bunyan's most devoted followers, Charles +Doe, the combmaker of London Bridge (who naively tells us how one day +between the stairhead and the middle of the stairs, he resolved that the +best work he could do for God was to get Bunyan's books printed and sell +them--adding, "I have sold about 3,000"), and others, a few years later, +including one of the raciest of his compositions, "The Heavenly Footman," +bought by Doe of Bunyan's eldest son, and, he says, "put into the World +in Print Word for Word as it came from him to Me." + +At the time that death surprised him, Bunyan had gained no small +celebrity in London as a popular preacher, and approached the nearest to +a position of worldly honour. Though we must probably reject the idea +that he ever filled the office of Chaplain to the Lord Mayor of London, +Sir John Shorter, the fact that he is styled "his Lordship's teacher" +proves that there was some relation more than that of simple friendship +between the chief magistrate and the Bedford minister. But the society +of the great was never congenial to him. If they were godly as well as +great, he would not shrink from intercourse, with those of a rank above +his own, but his heart was with his own humble folk at Bedford. Worldly +advancement he rejected for his family as well as for himself. A London +merchant, it is said, offered to take his son Joseph into his house of +business without the customary premium. But the offer was declined with +what we may consider an overstrained independence. "God," he said, "did +not send me to advance my family but to preach the gospel." "An instance +of other-worldliness," writes Dr. Brown, "perhaps more consistent with +the honour of the father than with the prosperity of the son." + +Bunyan's end was in keeping with his life. He had ever sought to be a +peacemaker and to reconcile differences, and thus had "hindered many +mishaps and saved many families from ruin." His last effort of the kind +caused his death. The father of a young man in whom he took an interest, +had resolved, on some offence, real or supposed, to disinherit his son. +The young man sought Bunyan's mediation. Anxious to heal the breach, +Bunyan mounted his horse and took the long journey to the father's house +at Reading--the scene, as we have noticed, of his occasional +ministrations--where he pleaded the offender's cause so effectually as to +obtain a promise of forgiveness. Bunyan returned homewards through +London, where he was appointed to preach at Mr. Gamman's meeting-house +near Whitechapel. His forty miles' ride to London was through heavy +driving rain. He was weary and drenched to the skin when he reached the +house of his "very loving friend," John Strudwick, grocer and chandler, +at the sign of the Star, Holborn Bridge, at the foot of Snow Hill, and +deacon of the Nonconformist meeting in Red Cross Street. A few months +before Bunyan had suffered from the sweating sickness. The exposure +caused a return of the malady, and though well enough to fulfil his +pulpit engagement on Sunday, the 19th of August, on the following Tuesday +dangerous symptoms declared themselves, and in ten days the disease +proved fatal. He died within two months of completing his sixtieth year, +on the 31st of August, 1688, just a month before the publication of the +Declaration of the Prince of Orange opened a new era of civil and +religious liberty, and between two and three months before the Prince's +landing in Torbay. He was buried in Mr. Strudwick's newly-purchased +vault, in what Southey has termed the Campo Santo of Nonconformists, the +burial-ground in Finsbury, taking its name of Bunhill or Bonehill Field, +from a vast mass of human remains removed to it from the charnel house of +St. Paul's Cathedral in 1549. At a later period it served as a place of +interment for those who died in the Great Plague of 1665. The day after +Bunyan's funeral, his powerful friend, Sir John Shorter, the Lord Mayor, +had a fatal fall from his horse in Smithfield, and "followed him across +the river." + +By his first wife, whose Christian name is nowhere recorded, Bunyan had +four children--two sons and two daughters; and by his second wife, the +heroic Elizabeth, one son and one daughter. All of these survived him +except his eldest daughter Mary, his tenderly-loved blind child, who died +before him. His wife only survived him for a brief period, "following +her faithful pilgrim from this world to the other whither he was gone +before her" either in 1691 or 1692. Forgetful of the "deed of gift," or +ignorant of its bearing, Bunyan's widow took out letters of +administration of her late husband's estate, which appears from the +Register Book to have amounted to no more than, 42 pounds 19s. On this, +and the proceeds of his books, she supported herself till she rejoined +him. + +Bunyan's character and person are thus described by Charles Doe: "He +appeared in countenance to be of a stern and rough temper. But in his +conversation he was mild and affable, not given to loquacity or much +discourse in company, unless some urgent occasion required it. Observing +never to boast of himself or his parts, but rather to seem low in his own +eyes and submit himself to the judgment of others. Abhorring lying and +swearing, being just, in all that lay in his power, to his word. Not +seeming to revenge injuries; loving to reconcile differences and make +friendship with all. He had a sharp, quick eye, with an excellent +discerning of persons, being of good judgment and quick wit. He was tall +of stature, strong-boned, though not corpulent; somewhat of a ruddy face, +with sparkling eyes, wearing his hair on his upper lip after the old +British fashion. His hair reddish, but in his later days time had +sprinkled it with grey. His nose well set, but not declining or bending. +His mouth moderately large, his forehead something high, and his habit +always plain and modest. Not puffed up in prosperity, nor shaken in +adversity, always holding the golden mean." + +We may add the portrait drawn by one who had been his companion and +fellow-sufferer for many years, John Nelson: "His countenance was grave +and sedate, and did so to the life discover the inward frame of his +heart, that it was convincing to the beholders and did strike something +of awe into them that had nothing of the fear of God." + +The same friend speaks thus of Bunyan's preaching: "As a minister of +Christ he was laborious in his work of preaching, diligent in his +preparation for it, and faithful in dispensing the Word, not sparing +reproof whether in the pulpit or no, yet ready to succour the tempted; a +son of consolation to the broken-hearted, yet a son of thunder to secure +and dead sinners. His memory was tenacious, it being customary with him +to commit his sermons to writing after he had preached them. A rich +anointing of the Spirit was upon him, yet this great saint was always in +his own eyes the chiefest of sinners and the least of saints." + +An anecdote is told which, Southey says, "authenticates itself," that one +day when he had preached "with peculiar warmth and enlargement," one of +his hearers remarked "what a sweet sermon he had delivered." "Ay," was +Bunyan's reply, "you have no need to tell me that, for the devil +whispered it to me before I was well out of the pulpit." As an evidence +of the estimation in which Bunyan was held by the highly-educated, it is +recorded that Charles the Second expressed his surprise to Dr. Owen that +"a learned man such as he could sit and listen to an illiterate tinker." +"May it please your Majesty," Owen replied. "I would gladly give up all +my learning if I could preach like that tinker." + +Although much of Bunyan's literary activity was devoted to controversy, +he had none of the narrowness or bitter spirit of a controversialist. It +is true that his zeal for what he deemed to be truth led him into +vehemence of language in dealing with those whom he regarded as its +perverters. But this intensity of speech was coupled with the utmost +charity of spirit towards those who differed from him. Few ever had less +of the sectarian temper which lays greater stress on the infinitely small +points on which all true Christians differ than on the infinitely great +truths on which they are agreed. Bunyan inherited from his spiritual +father, John Gifford, a truly catholic spirit. External differences he +regarded as insignificant where he found real Christian faith and love. +"I would be," he writes, "as I hope I am, a Christian. But for those +factious titles of Anabaptist, Independent, Presbyterian, and the like, I +conclude that they come neither from Jerusalem nor from Antioch, but from +Hell or from Babylon." "He was," writes one of his early biographers, "a +true lover of all that love our Lord Jesus, and did often bewail the +different and distinguishing appellations that are among the godly, +saying he did believe a time would come when they should be all buried." +The only persons he scrupled to hold communion with were those whose +lives were openly immoral. "Divisions about non-essentials," he said, +"were to churches what wars were to countries. Those who talked most +about religion cared least for it; and controversies about doubtful +things and things of little moment, ate up all zeal for things which were +practical and indisputable." His last sermon breathed the same catholic +spirit, free from the trammels of narrow sectarianism. "If you are the +children of God live together lovingly. If the world quarrel with you it +is no matter; but it is sad if you quarrel together. If this be among +you it is a sign of ill-breeding. Dost thou see a soul that has the +image of God in him? Love him, love him. Say, 'This man and I must go +to heaven one day.' Serve one another. Do good for one another. If any +wrong you pray to God to right you, and love the brotherhood." The +closing words of this his final testimony are such as deserve to be +written in letters of gold as the sum of all true Christian teaching: "Be +ye holy in all manner of conversation: Consider that the holy God is your +Father, and let this oblige you to live like the children of God, that +you may look your Father in the face with comfort another day." "There +is," writes Dean Stanley, "no compromise in his words, no faltering in +his convictions; but his love and admiration are reserved on the whole +for that which all good men love, and his detestation on the whole is +reserved for that which all good men detest." By the catholic spirit +which breathes through his writings, especially through "The Pilgrim's +Progress," the tinker of Elstow "has become the teacher not of any +particular sect, but of the Universal Church." + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + + +We have, in this concluding chapter, to take a review of Bunyan's merits +as a writer, with especial reference to the works on which his fame +mainly rests, and, above all, to that which has given him his chief title +to be included in a series of Great Writers, "The Pilgrim's Progress." +Bunyan, as we have seen, was a very copious author. His works, as +collected by the late industrious Mr. Offor, fill three bulky quarto +volumes, each of nearly eight hundred double-columned pages in small +type. And this copiousness of production is combined with a general +excellence in the matter produced. While few of his books approach the +high standard of "The Pilgrim's Progress" or "Holy War," none, it may be +truly said, sink very far below that standard. It may indeed be affirmed +that it was impossible for Bunyan to write badly. His genius was a +native genius. As soon as he began to write at all, he wrote well. +Without any training, is he says, in the school of Aristotle or Plato, or +any study of the great masters of literature, at one bound he leapt to a +high level of thought and composition. His earliest book, "Some Gospel +Truths Opened," "thrown off," writes Dr. Brown, "at a heat," displays the +same ease of style and directness of speech and absence of stilted +phraseology which he maintained to the end. The great charm which +pervades all Bunyan's writings is their naturalness. You never feel that +he is writing for effect, still less to perform an uncongenial piece of +task-work. He writes because he had something to say which was worth +saying, a message to deliver on which the highest interests of others +were at stake, which demanded nothing more than a straightforward +earnestness and plainness of speech, such as coming from the heart might +best reach the hearts of others. He wrote as he spoke, because a +necessity was laid upon him which he dared not evade. As he says in a +passage quoted in a former chapter, he might have stepped into a much +higher style, and have employed more literary ornament. But to attempt +this would be, to one of his intense earnestness, to degrade his calling. +He dared not do it. Like the great Apostle, "his speech and preaching +was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the +Spirit and in power." God had not played with him, and he dared not play +with others. His errand was much too serious, and their need and danger +too urgent to waste time in tricking out his words with human skill. And +it is just this which, with all their rudeness, their occasional bad +grammar, and homely colloquialisms, gives to Bunyan's writings a power of +riveting the attention and stirring the affections which few writers have +attained to. The pent-up fire glows in every line, and kindles the +hearts of his readers. "Beautiful images, vivid expressions, forcible +arguments all aglow with passion, tender pleadings, solemn warnings, make +those who read him all eye, all ear, all soul." This native vigour is +attributable, in no small degree, to the manner in which for the most +part Bunyan's works came into being. He did not set himself to compose +theological treatises upon stated subjects, but after he had preached +with satisfaction to himself and acceptance with his audience, he usually +wrote out the substance of his discourse from memory, with the +enlargements and additions it might seem to require. And thus his +religious works have all the glow and fervour of the unwritten utterances +of a practised orator, united with the orderliness and precision of a +theologian, and are no less admirable for the excellence of their +arrangement than for their evangelical spirit and scriptural doctrine. +Originally meant to be heard, they lose somewhat by being read. But few +can read them without being delighted with the opulence of his +imagination and impressed with the solemn earnestness of his convictions. +Like the subject of the portrait described by him in the House of the +Interpreter, he stands "like one who pleads with men, the law of truth +written upon his lips, the world behind his back, and a crown of gold +above his head." + +These characteristics, which distinguish Bunyan as a writer from most of +his Puritan contemporaries, are most conspicuous in the works by which he +is chiefly known, "The Pilgrim's Progress," the "Holy War," the "Grace +Abounding," and we may add, though from the repulsiveness of the subject +the book is now scarcely read at all, the "Life and Death of Mr. Badman." + +One great charm of these works, especially of "The Pilgrim's Progress," +lies in the pure Saxon English in which they are written, which render +them models of the English speech, plain but never vulgar, homely but +never coarse, and still less unclean, full of imagery but never obscure, +always intelligible, always forcible, going straight to the point in the +fewest and simplest words; "powerful and picturesque," writes Hallam, +"from concise simplicity." Bunyan's style is recommended by Lord +Macaulay as an invaluable study to every person who wishes to gain a wide +command over his mother tongue. Its vocabulary is the vocabulary of the +common people. "There is not," he truly says, "in 'The Pilgrim's +Progress' a single expression, if we except a few technical terms of +theology, that would puzzle the rudest peasant." We may, look through +whole pages, and not find a word of more than two syllables. Nor is the +source of this pellucid clearness and imaginative power far to seek. +Bunyan was essentially a man of one book, and that book the very best, +not only for its spiritual teaching but for the purity of its style, the +English Bible. "In no book," writes Mr. J. R. Green, "do we see more +clearly than in 'The Pilgrim's Progress' the new imaginative force which +had been given to the common life of Englishmen by their study of the +Bible. Bunyan's English is the simplest and homeliest English that has +ever been used by any great English writer, but it is the English of the +Bible. His images are the images of prophet and evangelist. So +completely had the Bible become Bunyan's life that one feels its phrases +as the natural expression of his thoughts. He had lived in the Bible +till its words became his own." + +All who have undertaken to take an estimate of Bunyan's literary genius +call special attention to the richness of his imaginative power. Few +writers indeed have possessed this power in so high a degree. In +nothing, perhaps, is its vividness more displayed than in the reality of +its impersonations. The _dramatis persons_ are not shadowy abstractions, +moving far above us in a mystical world, or lay figures ticketed with +certain names, but solid men and women of our own flesh and blood, living +in our own everyday world, and of like passions with ourselves. Many of +them we know familiarly; there is hardly one we should be surprised to +meet any day. This lifelike power of characterization belongs in the +highest degree to "The Pilgrim's Progress." It is hardly inferior in +"The Holy War," though with some exceptions the people of "Mansoul" have +failed to engrave themselves on the popular memory as the characters of +the earlier allegory have done. The secret of this graphic power, which +gives "The Pilgrim's Progress" its universal popularity, is that Bunyan +describes men and women of his own day, such as he had known and seen +them. They are not fancy pictures, but literal portraits. Though the +features may be exaggerated, and the colours laid on with an unsparing +brush, the outlines of his bold personifications are truthfully drawn +from his own experience. He had had to do with every one of them. He +could have given a personal name to most of them, and we could do the +same to many. We are not unacquainted with Mr Byends of the town of Fair +Speech, who "always has the luck to jump in his judgment with the way of +the times, and to get thereby," who is zealous for Religion "when he goes +in his silver slippers," and "loves to walk with him in the streets when +the sun shines and the people applaud him." All his kindred and +surroundings are only too familiar to us--his wife, that very virtuous +woman my Lady Feigning's daughter, my Lord Fair-speech, my Lord +Time-server, Mr. Facingbothways, Mr. Anything, and the Parson of the +Parish, his mother's own brother by the father's side, Mr. Twotongues. +Nor is his schoolmaster, one Mr. Gripeman, of the market town of +Lovegain, in the county of Coveting, a stranger to us. Obstinate, with +his dogged determination and stubborn common-sense, and Pliable with his +shallow impressionableness, are among our acquaintances. We have, before +now, come across "the brisk lad Ignorance from the town of Conceit," and +have made acquaintance with Mercy's would-be suitor, Mr. Brisk, "a man of +some breeding and that pretended to religion, but who stuck very close to +the world." The man Temporary who lived in a town two miles off from +Honesty, and next door to Mr. Turnback; Formalist and Hypocrisy, who were +"from the land of Vainglory, and were going for praise to Mount Sion"; +Simple, Sloth, and Presumption, "fast asleep by the roadside with fetters +on their heels," and their companions, Shortwind, Noheart, +Lingerafterlust, and Sleepyhead, we know them all. "The young woman +whose name was Dull" taxes our patience every day. Where is the town +which does not contain Mrs. Timorous and her coterie of gossips, Mrs. +Bats-eyes, Mrs. Inconsiderate, Mrs. Lightmind, and Mrs. Knownothing, "all +as merry as the maids," with that pretty fellow Mr. Lechery at the house +of Madam Wanton, that "admirably well-bred gentlewoman"? Where shall we +find more lifelike portraits than those of Madam Bubble, a "tall, comely +dame, somewhat of a swarthy complexion, speaking very smoothly with a +smile at the end of each sentence, wearing a great purse by her side, +with her hand often in it, fingering her money as if that was her chief +delight;" of poor Feeblemind of the town of Uncertain, with his "whitely +look, the cast in his eye, and his trembling speech;" of Littlefaith, as +"white as a clout," neither able to fight nor fly when the thieves from +Dead Man's Lane were on him; of Ready-to-halt, at first coming along on +his crutches, and then when Giant Despair had been slain and Doubting +Castle demolished, taking Despondency's daughter Much-afraid by the hand +and dancing with her in the road? "True, he could not dance without one +crutch in his hand, but I promise you he footed it well. Also the girl +was to be commanded, for she answered the musick handsomely." In +Bunyan's pictures there is never a superfluous detail. Every stroke +tells, and helps to the completeness of the portraiture. + +The same reality characterizes the descriptive part of "The Pilgrim's +Progress." As his characters are such as he must meet with every day in +his native town, so also the scenery and surroundings of his allegory are +part of his own everyday life, and reproduce what he had been brought up +amidst in his native county, or had noticed in his tinker's wanderings. +"Born and bred," writes Kingsley, "in the monotonous Midland, he had no +natural images beyond the pastures and brooks, the town and country +houses, he saw about him." The Slough of Despond, with its treacherous +quagmire in the midst of the plain, into which a wayfarer might +heedlessly fall, with its stepping-stones half drowned in mire; +Byepathmeadow, promising so fair, with its stile and footpath on the +other side of the fence; the pleasant river fringed with meadows, green +all the year long and overshadowed with trees; the thicket all overgrown +with briars and thorns, where one tumbled over a bush, another stuck fast +in the dirt, some lost their shoes in the mire, and others were fastened +from behind with the brambles; the high wall by the roadside over which +the fruit trees shot their boughs and tempted the boys with their unripe +plums; the arbour with its settle tempting the footsore traveller to +drowsiness; the refreshing spring at the bottom of Hill Difficulty; all +are evidently drawn from his own experience. Bunyan, in his long tramps, +had seen them all. He had known what it was to be in danger of falling +into a pit and being dashed to pieces with Vain Confidence, of being +drowned in the flooded meadows with Christian and Hopeful; of sinking in +deep water when swimming over a river, going down and rising up half +dead, and needing all his companion's strength and skill to keep his head +above the stream. Vanity Fair is evidently drawn from the life. The +great yearly fair of Stourbridge, close to Cambridge, which Bunyan had +probably often visited in his tinker days, with its streets of booths +filled with "wares of all kinds from all countries," its "shows, +jugglings, cheats games, plays, fools, apes, knaves, and rogues, and that +of every kind," its "great one of the fair," its court of justice and +power of judgment, furnished him with the materials for his picture. +Scenes like these he draws with sharp defined outlines. When he had to +describe what he only knew by hearsay, his pictures are shadowy and cold. +Never having been very far from home, he had had no experience of the +higher types of beauty and grandeur in nature, and his pen moves in +fetters when he attempts to describe them. When his pilgrims come to the +Hill Difficulty and the Delectable Mountains, the difference is at once +seen. All his nobler imagery is drawn from Scripture. As Hallam has +remarked, "There is scarcely a circumstance or metaphor in the Old +Testament which does not find a place bodily and literally in 'The +Pilgrim's Progress,' and this has made his imagination appear more +creative than it really is." + +It would but weary the reader to follow the details of a narrative which +is so universally known. Who needs to be told that in the pilgrimage +here described is represented in allegorical dress the course of a human +soul convinced of sin, struggling onwards to salvation through the trials +and temptations that beset its path to its eternal home? The book is so +completely wrought into the mind and memory, that most of us can at once +recall the incidents which chequer the pilgrim's way, and realize their +meaning; the Slough of Despond, in which the man convinced of his guilt +and fleeing from the wrath to come, in his agonizing self-consciousness +is in danger of being swallowed up in despair; the Wicket Gate, by which +he enters on the strait and narrow way of holiness; the Interpreter's +House, with his visions and acted parables; the Wayside Cross, at the +sight of which the burden of guilt falls from the pilgrim's back, and he +is clothed with change of raiment; the Hill Difficulty, which stands +right in his way, and which he must surmount, not circumvent; the lions +which he has to pass, not knowing that they are chained; the Palace +Beautiful, where he is admitted to the communion of the faithful, and +sits down to meat with them; the Valley of Humiliation, the scene of his +desperate but victorious encounter with Apollyon; the Valley of the +Shadow of Death, with its evil sights and doleful sounds, where one of +the wicked ones whispers into his ear thoughts of blasphemy which he +cannot distinguish from the suggestions of his own mind; the cave at the +valley's mouth, in which, Giant Pagan having been dead this many a day, +his brother, Giant Pope, now sits alone, grinning at pilgrims as they +pass by, and biting his nails because he cannot get at them; Vanity Fair, +the picture of the world, as St. John describes it, hating the light that +puts to shame its own self-chosen darkness, and putting it out if it can, +where the Pilgrim's fellow, Faithful, seals his testimony with his death, +and the Pilgrim himself barely escapes; the "delicate plain" called Ease, +and the little hill, Lucre, where Demas stood "gentlemanlike," to invite +the passersby to come and dig in his silver mine; Byepath Meadow, into +which the Pilgrim and his newly-found companion stray, and are made +prisoners by Giant Despair and shut up in the dungeons of Doubting +Castle, and break out of prison by the help of the Key of Promise; the +Delectable Mountains in Immanuel's Land, with their friendly shepherds +and the cheering prospect of the far-off heavenly city; the Enchanted +Land, with its temptations to spiritual drowsiness at the very end of the +journey; the Land of Beulah, the ante-chamber of the city to which they +were bound; and, last stage of all, the deep dark river, without a +bridge, which had to be crossed before the city was entered; the entrance +into its heavenly gates, the pilgrim's joyous reception with all the +bells in the city ringing again for joy; the Dreamer's glimpse of its +glories through the opened portals--is not every stage of the journey, +every scene of the pilgrimage, indelibly printed on our memories, for our +warning, our instruction, our encouragement in the race we, as much as +they, have each one to run? Have we not all, again and again, shared the +Dreamer's feelings--"After that they shut up the Gates; which, when I had +seen, I wished myself among them," and prayed, God helping us, that our +"dangerous journey"--ever the most dangerous when we see its dangers the +least--might end in our "safe arrival at the desired country"? + +"The Pilgrim's Progress" exhibits Bunyan in the character by which he +would have most desired to be remembered, as one of the most influential +of Christian preachers. Hallam, however, claims for him another +distinction which would have greatly startled and probably shocked him, +as the father of our English novelists. As an allegorist Bunyan had many +predecessors, not a few of whom, dating from early times, had taken the +natural allegory of the pilgrimage of human life as the basis of their +works. But as a novelist he had no one to show him the way. Bunyan was +the first to break ground in a field which has since then been so +overabundantly worked that the soil has almost lost its productiveness; +while few novels written purely with the object of entertainment have +ever proved so universally entertaining. Intensely religious as it is in +purpose, "The Pilgrim's Progress" may be safely styled the first English +novel. "The claim to be the father of English romance," writes Dr. +Allon, "which has been sometimes preferred for Defoe, really pertains to +Bunyan. Defoe may claim the parentage of a species, but Bunyan is the +creator of the genus." As the parent of fictitious biography it is that +Bunyan has charmed the world. On its vivid interest as a story, its +universal interest and lasting vitality rest. "Other allegorises," +writes Lord Macaulay, "have shown great ingenuity, but no other +allegorist has ever been able to touch the heart, and to make its +abstractions objects of terror, of pity, and of love." Whatever its +deficiencies, literary and religious, may be; if we find incongruities in +the narrative, and are not insensible to some grave theological +deficiencies; if we are unable without qualification to accept +Coleridge's dictum that it is "incomparably the best 'Summa Theologiae +Evangelicae' ever produced by a writer not miraculously inspired;" even +if, with Hallam, we consider its "excellencies great indeed, but not of +the highest order," and deem it "a little over-praised," the fact of its +universal popularity with readers of all classes and of all orders of +intellect remains, and gives this book a unique distinction. "I have," +says Dr. Arnold, when reading it after a long interval, "always been +struck by its piety. I am now struck equally or even more by its +profound wisdom. It seems to be a complete reflexion of Scripture." And +to turn to a critic of very different character, Dean Swift: "I have been +better entertained and more improved," writes that cynical pessimist, "by +a few pages of this book than by a long discourse on the will and +intellect." The favourite of our childhood, as "the most perfect and +complex of fairy tales, so human and intelligible," read, as Hallam says, +"at an age when the spiritual meaning is either little perceived or +little regarded," the "Pilgrim's Progress" becomes the chosen companion +of our later years, perused with ever fresh appreciation of its teaching, +and enjoyment of its native genius; "the interpreter of life to all who +are perplexed with its problems, and the practical guide and solace of +all who need counsel and sympathy." + +The secret of this universal acceptableness of "The Pilgrim's Progress" +lies in the breadth of its religious sympathies. Rigid Puritan as Bunyan +was, no book is more completely free from sectarian narrowness. Its +reach is as wide as Christianity itself, and it takes hold of every human +heart because it is so intensely human. No apology is needed for +presenting Mr. Froude's eloquent panegyric: "The Pilgrim, though in +Puritan dress, is a genuine man. His experience is so truly human +experience that Christians of every persuasion can identify themselves +with him; and even those who regard Christianity itself as but a natural +outgrowth of the conscience and intellect, and yet desire to live nobly +and make the best of themselves, can recognize familiar footprints in +every step of Christian's journey. Thus 'The Pilgrim's Progress' is a +book which when once read can never be forgotten. We too, every one of +us, are pilgrims on the same road; and images and illustrations come back +to us from so faithful an itinerary, as we encounter similar trials, and +learn for ourselves the accuracy with which Bunyan has described them. +Time cannot impair its interest, or intellectual progress make it cease +to be true to experience." Dr. Brown's appreciative words may be added: +"With deepest pathos it enters into the stern battle so real to all of +us, into those heart-experiences which make up, for all, the discipline +of life. It is this especially which has given to it the mighty hold +which it has always had upon the toiling poor, and made it the one book +above all books well-thumbed and torn to tatters among them. And it is +this which makes it one of the first books translated by the missionary +who seeks to give true thoughts of God and life to heathen men." + +The Second Part of "The Pilgrim's Progress" partakes of the character of +almost all continuations. It is, in Mr. Froude's words, "only a feeble +reverberation of the first part, which has given it a popularity it would +have hardly attained by its own merits. Christiana and her children are +tolerated for the pilgrim's sake to whom they belong." Bunyan seems not +to have been insensible of this himself, when in his metrical preface he +thus introduces his new work: + + "Go now my little book to every place + Where my first Pilgrim has but shown his face. + Call at their door; if any say 'Who's there?' + Then answer thus, 'Christiana is here.' + If they bid thee come in, then enter thou + With all thy boys. And then, as thou know'st how, + Tell who they are, also from whence they came; + Perhaps they'll know them by their looks or name." + +But although the Second Part must be pronounced inferior, on the whole, +to the first, it is a work of striking individuality and graphic power, +such as Bunyan alone could have written. Everywhere we find strokes of +his peculiar genius, and though in a smaller measure than the first, it +has added not a few portraits to Bunyan's spiritual picture gallery we +should be sorry to miss, and supplied us with racy sayings which stick to +the memory. The sweet maid Mercy affords a lovely picture of gentle +feminine piety, well contrasted with the more vigorous but still +thoroughly womanly character of Christiana. Great-Heart is too much of +an abstraction: a preacher in the uncongenial disguise of a knightly +champion of distressed females and the slayer of giants. But the other +new characters have generally a vivid personality. Who can forget Old +Honesty, the dull good man with no mental gifts but of dogged sincerity, +who though coming from the Town of Stupidity, four degrees beyond the +City of Destruction, was "known for a cock of the right kind," because he +said the truth and stuck to it; or his companion, Mr. Fearing, that most +troublesome of pilgrims, stumbling at every straw, lying roaring at the +Slough of Despond above a month together, standing shaking and shrinking +at the Wicket Gate, but making no stick at the Lions, and at last getting +over the river not much above wetshod; or Mr. Valiant for Truth, the +native of Darkland, standing with his sword drawn and his face all bloody +from his three hours' fight with Wildhead, Inconsiderate, and Pragmatick; +Mr. Standfast, blushing to be found on his knees in the Enchanted Ground, +one who loved to hear his Lord spoken of, and coveted to set his foot +wherever he saw the print of his shoe; Mr. Feeblemind, the sickly, +melancholy pilgrim, at whose door death did usually knock once a day, +betaking himself to a pilgrim's life because he was never well at home, +resolved to run when he could, and go when he could not run, and creep +when he could not go, an enemy to laughter and to gay attire, bringing up +the rear of the company with Mr. Readytohalt hobbling along on his +crutches; Giant Despair's prisoners, Mr. Despondency, whom he had all but +starved to death--and Mistress Much-afraid his daughter, who went through +the river singing, though none could understand what she said? Each of +these characters has a distinct individuality which lifts them from +shadowy abstractions into living men and women. But with all its +excellencies, and they are many, the general inferiority of the history +of Christiana and her children's pilgrimage to that of her husband's must +be acknowledged. The story is less skilfully constructed; the interest +is sometimes allowed to flag; the dialogues that interrupt the narrative +are in places dry and wearisome--too much of sermons in disguise. There +is also a want of keeping between the two parts of the allegory. The +Wicket Gate of the First Part has become a considerable building with a +summer parlour in the Second; the shepherds' tents on the Delectable +Mountains have risen into a palace, with a dining-room, and a looking- +glass, and a store of jewels; while Vanity Fair has lost its former bad +character, and has become a respectable country town, where Christiana +and her family, seeming altogether to forget their pilgrimage, settled +down comfortably, enjoy the society of the good people of the place, and +the sons marry and have children. These same children also cause the +reader no little perplexity, when he finds them in the course of the +supposed journey transformed from sweet babes who are terrified with the +Mastiffs barking at the Wicket Gate, who catch at the boughs for the +unripe plums and cry at having to climb the hill; whose faces are stroked +by the Interpreter; who are catechised and called "good boys" by +Prudence; who sup on bread crumbled into basins of milk, and are put to +bed by Mercy--into strong young men, able to go out and fight with a +giant, and lend a hand to the pulling down of Doubting Castle, and +becoming husbands and fathers. We cannot but feel the want of +_vraisemblance_ which brings the whole company of pilgrims to the banks +of the dark river at one time, and sends them over in succession, +following one another rapidly through the Golden Gate of the City. The +four boys with their wives and children, it is true, stay behind awhile, +but there is an evident incongruity in their doing so when the allegory +has brought them all to what stands for the close of their earthly +pilgrimage. Bunyan's mistake was in gratifying his inventive genius and +making his band of pilgrims so large. He could get them together and +make them travel in company without any sacrifice of dramatic truth, +which, however, he was forced to disregard when the time came for their +dismissal. The exquisite pathos of the description of the passage of the +river by Christian and Hopeful blinds us to what may be almost termed the +impossibility of two persons passing through the final struggle together, +and dying at the same moment, but this charm is wanting in the prosaic +picture of the company of fellow-travellers coming down to the water's +edge, and waiting till the postman blows his horn and bids them cross. +Much as the Second Part contains of what is admirable, and what no one +but Bunyan could have written, we feel after reading it that, in Mr. +Froude's words, the rough simplicity is gone, and has been replaced by a +tone of sentiment which is almost mawkish. "Giants, dragons, and angelic +champions carry us into a spurious fairyland where the knight-errant is a +preacher in disguise. Fair ladies and love-matches, however decorously +chastened, suit ill with the sternness of the mortal conflict between the +soul and sin." With the acknowledged shortcomings of the Second Part of +"The Pilgrim's Progress," we may be well content that Bunyan never +carried out the idea hinted at in the closing words of his allegory: +"Shall it be my lot to go that way again, I may give those that desire it +an account of what I am here silent about; in the meantime I bid my +reader--Adieu." + +Bunyan's second great allegorical work, "The Holy War," need not detain +us long. Being an attempt, and in the nature of things an unsuccessful +attempt, to clothe what writers on divinity call "the plan of salvation" +in a figurative dress, the narrative, with all its vividness of +description in parts, its clearly drawn characters with their picturesque +nomenclature, and the stirring vicissitudes of the drama, is necessarily +wanting in the personal interest which attaches to an individual man, +like Christian, and those who are linked with or follow his career. In +fact, the tremendous realities of the spiritual history of the human race +are entirely unfit for allegorical treatment as a whole. Sin, its +origin, its consequences, its remedy, and the apparent failure of that +remedy though administered by Almighty hands, must remain a mystery for +all time. The attempts made by Bunyan, and by one of much higher +intellectual power and greater poetic gifts than Bunyan--John Milton--to +bring that mystery within the grasp of the finite intellect, only render +it more perplexing. The proverbial line tells us that-- + + "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread." + +Bunyan and Milton were as far as possible from being "fools"; but when +both these great writers, on the one hand, carry us up into the Council +Chamber of Heaven and introduce us to the Persons of the ever-blessed +Trinity, debating, consulting, planning, and resolving, like a sovereign +and his ministers when a revolted province has to be brought back to its +allegiance; and, on the other hand, take us down to the infernal regions, +and makes us privy to the plots and counterplots of the rebel leaders and +hearers of their speeches, we cannot but feel that, in spite of the +magnificent diction and poetic imagination of the one, and the homely +picturesque genius of the other, the grand themes treated of are degraded +if not vulgarized, without our being in any way helped to unravel their +essential mysteries. In point of individual personal interest, "The Holy +War" contrasts badly with "The Pilgrim's Progress." The narrative moves +in a more shadowy region. We may admire the workmanship; but the same +undefined sense of unreality pursues us through Milton's noble epic, the +outcome of a divinely-fired genius, and Bunyan's humble narrative, +drawing its scenes and circumstances, and to some extent its _dramatis +personae_, from the writer's own surroundings in the town and corporation +of Bedford, and his brief but stirring experience as a soldier in the +great Parliamentary War. The catastrophe also is eminently +unsatisfactory. When Christian and Hopeful enter the Golden Gates we +feel that the story has come to its proper end, which we have been +looking for all along. But the conclusion of "The Holy War" is too much +like the closing chapter of "Rasselas"--"a conclusion in which nothing is +concluded." After all the endless vicissitudes of the conflict, and the +final and glorious victory of Emmanuel and his forces, and the execution +of the ringleaders of the mutiny, the issue still remains doubtful. The +town of Mansoul is left open to fresh attacks. Diabolus is still at +large. Carnal Sense breaks prison and continues to lurk in the town. +Unbelief, that "nimble Jack," slips away, and can never be laid hold of. +These, therefore, and some few others of the more subtle of the +Diabolonians, continue to make their home in Mansoul, and will do so +until Mansoul ceases to dwell in the kingdom of Universe. It is true +they turn chicken-hearted after the other leaders of their party have +been taken and executed, and keep themselves quiet and close, lurking in +dens and holes lest they should be snapped up by Emmanuel's men. If +Unbelief or any of his crew venture to show themselves in the streets, +the whole town is up in arms against them; the very children raise a hue +and cry against them and seek to stone them. But all in vain. Mansoul, +it is true, enjoys some good degree of peace and quiet. Her Prince takes +up his residence in her borders. Her captains and soldiers do their +duties. She minds her trade with the heavenly land afar off; also she is +busy in her manufacture. But with the remnants of the Diabolonians still +within her walls, ready to show their heads on the least relaxation of +strict watchfulness, keeping up constant communication with Diabolus and +the other lords of the pit, and prepared to open the gates to them when +opportunity offers, this peace can not be lasting. The old battle will +have to be fought over again, only to end in the same undecisive result. +And so it must be to the end. If untrue to art, Bunyan is true to fact. +Whether we regard Mansoul as the soul of a single individual or as the +whole human race, no final victory can be looked for so long as it abides +in "the country of Universe." The flesh will lust against the spirit, +the regenerated man will be in danger of being brought into captivity to +the law of sin and death unless he keeps up his watchfulness and +maintains the struggle to the end. + +And it is here, that, for purposes of art, not for purposes of truth, the +real failing of "The Holy War" lies. The drama of Mansoul is incomplete, +and whether individually or collectively, must remain incomplete till man +puts on a new nature, and the victory, once for all gained on Calvary, is +consummated, in the fulness of time, at the restitution of all things. +There is no uncertainty what the end will be. Evil must be put down, and +good must triumph at last. But the end is not yet, and it seems as far +off as ever. The army of Doubters, under their several captains, +Election Doubters, Vocation Doubters, Salvation Doubters, Grace Doubters, +with their general the great Lord Incredulity at their head, reinforced +by many fresh regiments under novel standards, unknown and unthought of +in Bunyan's days, taking the place of those whose power is past, is ever +making new attacks upon poor Mansoul, and terrifying feeble souls with +their threatenings. Whichever way we look there is much to puzzle, much +to grieve over, much that to our present limited view is entirely +inexplicable. But the mind that accepts the loving will and wisdom of +God as the law of the Universe, can rest in the calm assurance that all, +however mysteriously, is fulfilling His eternal designs, and that though +He seems to permit "His work to be spoilt, His power defied, and even His +victories when won made useless," it is but seeming,--that the triumph of +evil is but temporary, and that these apparent failures and +contradictions, are slowly but surely working out and helping forward + + "The one unseen divine event + To which the whole creation moves." + +"The mysteries and contradictions which the Christian revelation leaves +unsolved are made tolerable by Hope." To adopt Bunyan's figurative +language in the closing paragraph of his allegory, the day is certainly +coming when the famous town of Mansoul shall be taken down and +transported "every stick and stone" to Emmanuel's land, and there set up +for the Father's habitation in such strength and glory as it never saw +before. No Diabolonian shall be able to creep into its streets, burrow +in its walls, or be seen in its borders. No evil tidings shall trouble +its inhabitants, nor sound of Diabolian drum be heard there. Sorrow and +grief shall be ended, and life, always sweet, always new, shall last +longer than they could even desire it, even all the days of eternity. +Meanwhile let those who have such a glorious hope set before them keep +clean and white the liveries their Lord has given them, and wash often in +the open fountain. Let them believe in His love, live upon His word; +watch, fight, and pray, and hold fast till He come. + +One more work of Bunyan's still remains to be briefly noticed, as bearing +the characteristic stamp of his genius, "The Life and Death of Mr. +Badman." The original idea of this book was to furnish a contrast to +"The Pilgrim's Progress." As in that work he had described the course of +a man setting out on his course heavenwards, struggling onwards through +temptation, trials, and difficulties, and entering at last through the +golden gates into the city of God, so in this later work his purpose was +to depict the career of a man whose face from the first was turned in the +opposite direction, going on from bad to worse, ever becoming more and +more irretrievably evil, fitter and fitter for the bottomless pit; his +life full of sin and his death without repentance; reaping the fruit of +his sins in hopeless sinfulness. That this was the original purpose of +the work, Bunyan tells us in his preface. It came into his mind, he +says, as in the former book he had written concerning the progress of the +Pilgrim from this world to glory, so in this second book to write of the +life and death of the ungodly, and of their travel from this world to +hell. The new work, however, as in almost every respect it differs from +the earlier one, so it is decidedly inferior to it. It is totally unlike +"The Pilgrim's Progress" both in form and execution. The one is an +allegory, the other a tale, describing without imagery or metaphor, in +the plainest language, the career of a "vulgar, middle-class, +unprincipled scoundrel." While "The Pilgrim's Progress" pursues the +narrative form throughout, only interrupted by dialogues between the +leading characters, "Mr. Badman's career" is presented to the world in a +dialogue between a certain Mr. Wiseman and Mr. Attentive. Mr. Wiseman +tells the story, and Mr. Attentive supplies appropriate reflections on +it. The narrative is needlessly burdened with a succession of short +sermons, in the form of didactic discourses on lying, stealing, impurity, +and the other vices of which the hero of the story was guilty, and which +brought him to his miserable end. The plainness of speech with which +some of these evil doings are enlarged upon, and Mr. Badman's indulgence +in them described, makes portions of the book very disagreeable, and +indeed hardly profitable reading. With omissions, however, the book well +deserves perusal, as a picture such as only Bunyan or his rival in +lifelike portraiture, Defoe, could have drawn of vulgar English life in +the latter part of the seventeenth century, in a commonplace country town +such as Bedford. It is not at all a pleasant picture. The life +described, when not gross, is sordid and foul, is mean and commonplace. +But as a description of English middle-class life at the epoch of the +Restoration and Revolution, it is invaluable for those who wish to put +themselves in touch with that period. The anecdotes introduced to +illustrate Bunyan's positions of God's judgment upon swearers and +sinners, convicting him of a credulity and a harshness of feeling one is +sorry to think him capable of, are very interesting for the side-lights +they throw upon the times and the people who lived in them. It would +take too long to give a sketch of the story, even if a summary could give +any real estimate of its picturesque and vivid power. It is certainly a +remarkable, if an offensive book. As with "Robinson Crusoe" and Defoe's +other tales, we can hardly believe that we have not a real history before +us. We feel that there is no reason why the events recorded should not +have happened. There are no surprises; no unlooked-for catastrophes; no +providential interpositions to punish the sinner or rescue the good man. +Badman's pious wife is made to pay the penalty of allowing herself to be +deceived by a tall, good-looking, hypocritical scoundrel. He himself +pursues his evil way to the end, and "dies like a lamb, or as men call +it, like a Chrisom child sweetly and without fear," but the selfsame Mr. +Badman still, not only in name, but in condition; sinning onto the last, +and dying with a heart that cannot repent. + +Mr. Froude's summing up of this book is so masterly that we make no +apology for presenting it to our readers. "Bunyan conceals nothing, +assumes nothing, and exaggerates nothing. He makes his bad man sharp and +shrewd. He allows sharpness and shrewdness to bring him the reward which +such qualities in fact command. Badman is successful; is powerful; he +enjoys all the pleasures which money can bring; his bad wife helps him to +ruin, but otherwise he is not unhappy, and he dies in peace. Bunyan has +made him a brute, because such men do become brutes. It is the real +punishment of brutal and selfish habits. There the figure stands--a +picture of a man in the rank of English life with which Bunyan was most +familiar; travelling along the primrose path to the everlasting bonfire, +as the way to Emmanuel's Land was through the Slough of Despond and the +Valley of the Shadow of Death. Pleasures are to be found among the +primroses, such pleasures as a brute can be gratified by. Yet the reader +feels that even if there was no bonfire, he would still prefer to be with +Christian." + + + + +FOOTNOTES + + +{1} A small enclosure behind a cottage. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIFE OF JOHN BUNYAN*** + + +******* This file should be named 1037.txt or 1037.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/0/3/1037 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +https://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at https://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at https://www.gutenberg.org/about/contact + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit https://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: +https://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + diff --git a/1037.zip b/1037.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..9fd5b4a --- /dev/null +++ b/1037.zip diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1adc7b9 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #1037 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1037) diff --git a/old/lfbyn10.txt b/old/lfbyn10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..52c865e --- /dev/null +++ b/old/lfbyn10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5131 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Etext of The Life of John Bunyan by Venables + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. We need your donations. + + +The Life of John Bunyan + +by Edmund Venables, M.A. + +September, 1997 [Etext #1037] + + +Project Gutenberg's Etext of The Life of John Bunyan by Venables +******This file should be named lfbyn10.txt or lfbyn10.zip****** + +Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, lfbyn11.txt. +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, lfbyn10a.txt. + + +This etext was orginally prepared from the 1888 Walter Scott edition +by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk, but will not be kept in +an exact match with that edition as we make corrections/emendations. + + +We are now trying to release all our books one month in advance +of the official release dates, for time for better editing. + +Please note: neither this list nor its contents are final till +midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement. +The official release date of all Project Gutenberg Etexts is at +Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. A +preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment +and editing by those who wish to do so. To be sure you have an +up to date first edition [xxxxx10x.xxx] please check file sizes +in the first week of the next month. Since our ftp program has +a bug in it that scrambles the date [tried to fix and failed] a +look at the file size will have to do, but we will try to see a +new copy has at least one byte more or less. + + +Information about Project Gutenberg (one page) + +We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work. The +fifty hours is one conservative estimate for how long it we take +to get any etext selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright +searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc. This +projected audience is one hundred million readers. If our value +per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2 +million dollars per hour this year as we release thirty-two text +files per month, or 384 more Etexts in 1997 for a total of 1000+ +If these reach just 10% of the computerized population, then the +total should reach over 100 billion Etexts given away. + +The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away One Trillion Etext +Files by the December 31, 2001. [10,000 x 100,000,000=Trillion] +This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers, +which is only 10% of the present number of computer users. 2001 +should have at least twice as many computer users as that, so it +will require us reaching less than 5% of the users in 2001. + + +We need your donations more than ever! + + +All donations should be made to "Project Gutenberg/CMU": and are +tax deductible to the extent allowable by law. (CMU = Carnegie- +Mellon University). + +For these and other matters, please mail to: + +Project Gutenberg +P. O. Box 2782 +Champaign, IL 61825 + +When all other email fails try our Executive Director: +Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com> + +We would prefer to send you this information by email +(Internet, Bitnet, Compuserve, ATTMAIL or MCImail). + +****** +If you have an FTP program (or emulator), please +FTP directly to the Project Gutenberg archives: +[Mac users, do NOT point and click. . .type] + +ftp uiarchive.cso.uiuc.edu +login: anonymous +password: your@login +cd etext/etext90 through /etext96 +or cd etext/articles [get suggest gut for more information] +dir [to see files] +get or mget [to get files. . .set bin for zip files] +GET INDEX?00.GUT +for a list of books +and +GET NEW GUT for general information +and +MGET GUT* for newsletters. + +**Information prepared by the Project Gutenberg legal advisor** +(Three Pages) + + +***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS**START*** +Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers. +They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with +your copy of this etext, even if you got it for free from +someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our +fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement +disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how +you can distribute copies of this etext if you want to. + +*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS ETEXT +By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +etext, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept +this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive +a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this etext by +sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person +you got it from. If you received this etext on a physical +medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request. + +ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM ETEXTS +This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG- +tm etexts, is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor +Michael S. Hart through the Project Gutenberg Association at +Carnegie-Mellon University (the "Project"). Among other +things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright +on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and +distribute it in the United States without permission and +without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth +below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this etext +under the Project's "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark. + +To create these etexts, the Project expends considerable +efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain +works. Despite these efforts, the Project's etexts and any +medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other +things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged +disk or other etext medium, a computer virus, or computer +codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment. + +LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES +But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below, +[1] the Project (and any other party you may receive this +etext from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext) disclaims all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including +legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR +UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT, +INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE +OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE +POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. + +If you discover a Defect in this etext within 90 days of +receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) +you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that +time to the person you received it from. If you received it +on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and +such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement +copy. If you received it electronically, such person may +choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to +receive it electronically. + +THIS ETEXT IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS +TO THE ETEXT OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A +PARTICULAR PURPOSE. + +Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or +the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the +above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you +may have other legal rights. + +INDEMNITY +You will indemnify and hold the Project, its directors, +officers, members and agents harmless from all liability, cost +and expense, including legal fees, that arise directly or +indirectly from any of the following that you do or cause: +[1] distribution of this etext, [2] alteration, modification, +or addition to the etext, or [3] any Defect. + +DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm" +You may distribute copies of this etext electronically, or by +disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this +"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg, +or: + +[1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this + requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the + etext or this "small print!" statement. You may however, + if you wish, distribute this etext in machine readable + binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form, + including any form resulting from conversion by word pro- + cessing or hypertext software, but only so long as + *EITHER*: + + [*] The etext, when displayed, is clearly readable, and + does *not* contain characters other than those + intended by the author of the work, although tilde + (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may + be used to convey punctuation intended by the + author, and additional characters may be used to + indicate hypertext links; OR + + [*] The etext may be readily converted by the reader at + no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent + form by the program that displays the etext (as is + the case, for instance, with most word processors); + OR + + [*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at + no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the + etext in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC + or other equivalent proprietary form). + +[2] Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this + "Small Print!" statement. + +[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Project of 20% of the + net profits you derive calculated using the method you + already use to calculate your applicable taxes. If you + don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are + payable to "Project Gutenberg Association/Carnegie-Mellon + University" within the 60 days following each + date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare) + your annual (or equivalent periodic) tax return. + +WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? +The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time, +scanning machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty +free copyright licenses, and every other sort of contribution +you can think of. Money should be paid to "Project Gutenberg +Association / Carnegie-Mellon University". + +*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +This etext was orginally prepared from the 1888 Walter Scott edition +by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk, but will not be kept in +an exact match with that edition as we make corrections/emendations. + + + + + +The Life of John Bunyan + + + + + +CHAPTER I. + + + +John Bunyan, the author of the book which has probably passed +through more editions, had a greater number of readers, and been +translated into more languages than any other book in the English +tongue, was born in the parish of Elstow, in Bedfordshire, in the +latter part of the year 1628, and was baptized in the parish church +of the village on the last day of November of that year. + +The year of John Bunyan's birth was a momentous one both for the +nation and for the Church of England. Charles I., by the extorted +assent to the Petition of Right, had begun reluctantly to strip +himself of the irresponsible authority he had claimed, and had +taken the first step in the struggle between King and Parliament +which ended in the House of Commons seating itself in the place of +the Sovereign. Wentworth (better known as Lord Strafford) had +finally left the Commons, baffled in his nobly-conceived but vain +hope of reconciling the monarch and his people, and having accepted +a peerage and the promise of the Presidency of the Council of the +North, was foreshadowing his policy of "Thorough," which was +destined to bring both his own head and that of his weak master to +the block. The Remonstrance of Parliament against the toleration +of Roman Catholics and the growth of Arminianism, had been +presented to the indignant king, who, wilfully blinded, had replied +to it by the promotion to high and lucrative posts in the Church of +the very men against whom it was chiefly directed. The most +outrageous upholders of the royal prerogative and the irresponsible +power of the sovereign, Montagu and Mainwaring, had been presented, +the one to the see of Chichester, the other - the impeached and +condemned of the Commons - to the rich living Montagu's +consecration had vacated. Montaigne, the licenser of Mainwaring's +incriminated sermon, was raised to the Archbishopric of York, while +Neile and Laud, who were openly named in the Remonstrance as the +"troublers of the English Israel," were rewarded respectively with +the rich see of Durham and the important and deeply-dyed Puritan +diocese of London. Charles was steadily sowing the wind, and +destined to reap the whirlwind which was to sweep him from his +throne, and involve the monarchy and the Church in the same +overthrow. Three months before Bunyan's birth Buckingham, on the +eve of his departure for the beleaguered and famine-stricken city +of Rochelle, sanguinely hoping to conclude a peace with the French +king beneath its walls, had been struck down by the knife of a +fanatic, to the undisguised joy of the majority of the nation, +bequeathing a legacy of failure and disgrace in the fall of the +Protestant stronghold on which the eyes of Europe had been so long +anxiously fixed. + +The year was closing gloomily, with ominous forecasts of the coming +hurricane, when the babe who was destined to leave so imperishable +a name in English literature, first saw the light in an humble +cottage in an obscure Bedfordshire village. His father, Thomas +Bunyan, though styling himself in his will by the more dignified +title of "brazier," was more properly what is known as a "tinker"; +"a mender of pots and kettles," according to Bunyan's contemporary +biographer, Charles Doe. He was not, however, a mere tramp or +vagrant, as travelling tinkers were and usually are still, much +less a disreputable sot, a counterpart of Shakespeare's Christopher +Sly, but a man with a recognized calling, having a settled home and +an acknowledged position in the village community of Elstow. The +family was of long standing there, but had for some generations +been going down in the world. Bunyan's grandfather, Thomas Bunyan, +as we learn from his still extant will, carried on the occupation +of a "petty chapman," or small retail dealer, in his own freehold +cottage, which he bequeathed, "with its appurtenances," to his +second wife, Ann, to descend, after her death, to her stepson, his +namesake, Thomas, and her own son Edward, in equal shares. This +cottage, which was probably John Bunyan's birthplace, persistent +tradition, confirmed by the testimony of local names, warrants us +in placing near the hamlet of Harrowden, a mile to the east of the +village of Elstow, at a place long called "Bunyan's End," where two +fields are still called by the name of "Bunyans" and "Further +Bunyans." This small freehold appears to have been all that +remained, at the death of John Bunyan's grandfather, of a property +once considerable enough to have given the name of its possessor to +the whole locality. + +The family of Buingnon, Bunyun, Buniun, Boynon, Bonyon, or Binyan +(the name is found spelt in no fewer than thirty-four different +ways, of which the now-established form, Bunyan, is almost the +least frequent) is one that had established itself in Bedfordshire +from very early times. The first place in connection with which +the name appears is Pulloxhill, about nine miles from Elstow. In +1199, the year of King John's accession, the Bunyans had approached +still nearer to that parish. One William Bunion held land at +Wilstead, not more than a mile off. In 1327, the first year of +Edward III., one of the same name, probably his descendant, William +Boynon, is found actually living at Harrowden, close to the spot +which popular tradition names as John Bunyan's birthplace, and was +the owner of property there. We have no further notices of the +Bunyans of Elstow till the sixteenth century. We then find them +greatly fallen. Their ancestral property seems little by little to +have passed into other hands, until in 1542 nothing was left but "a +messuage and pightell (1) with the appurtenances, and nine acres of +land." This small residue other entries on the Court Rolls show to +have been still further diminished by sale. The field already +referred to, known as "Bonyon's End," was sold by "Thomas Bonyon, +of Elstow, labourer," son of William Bonyon, the said Thomas and +his wife being the keepers of a small road-side inn, at which their +overcharges for their home-baked bread and home-brewed beer were +continually bringing them into trouble with the petty local courts +of the day. Thomas Bunyan, John Bunyan's father, was born in the +last days of Elizabeth, and was baptized February 24, 1603, exactly +a month before the great queen passed away. The mother of the +immortal Dreamer was one Margaret Bentley, who, like her husband, +was a native of Elstow and only a few months his junior. The +details of her mother's will, which is still extant, drawn up by +the vicar of Elstow, prove that, like her husband, she did not, in +the words of Bunyan's latest and most complete biographer, the Rev. +Dr. Brown, "come of the very squalid poor, but of people who, +though humble in station, were yet decent and worthy in their +ways." John Bunyan's mother was his father's second wife. The +Bunyans were given to marrying early, and speedily consoled +themselves on the loss of one wife with the companionship of a +successor. Bunyan's grandmother cannot have died before February +24, 1603, the date of his father's baptism. But before the year +was out his grandfather had married again. His father, too, had +not completed his twentieth year when he married his first wife, +Anne Pinney, January 10, 1623. She died in 1627, apparently +without any surviving children, and before the year was half-way +through, on the 23rd of the following May, he was married a second +time to Margaret Bentley. At the end of seventeen years Thomas +Bunyan was again left a widower, and within two months, with +grossly indecent haste, he filled the vacant place with a third +wife. Bunyan himself cannot have been much more than twenty when +he married. We have no particulars of the death of his first wife. +But he had been married two years to his noble-minded second wife +at the time of the assizes in 1661, and the ages of his children by +his first wife would indicate that no long interval elapsed between +his being left a widower and his second marriage. + +Elstow, which, as the birthplace of the author of "The Pilgrim's +Progress," has gained a world-wide celebrity, is a quiet little +village, which, though not much more than a mile from the populous +and busy town of Bedford, yet, lying aside from the main stream of +modern life, preserves its old-world look to an unusual degree. +Its name in its original form of "Helen-stow," or "Ellen-stow," the +STOW or stockaded place of St. Helena, is derived from a +Benedictine nunnery founded in 1078 by Judith, niece of William the +Conqueror, the traitorous wife of the judicially murdered Waltheof, +Earl of Huntingdon, in honour of the mother of the Emperor +Constantine. The parish church, so intimately connected with +Bunyan's personal history, is a fragment of the church of the +nunnery, with a detached campanile, or "steeple-house," built to +contain the bells after the destruction of the central tower and +choir of the conventual church. Few villages are so little +modernized as Elstow. The old half-timbered cottages with +overhanging storeys, peaked dormers, and gabled porches, tapestried +with roses and honeysuckles, must be much what they were in +Bunyan's days. A village street, with detached cottages standing +in gardens gay with the homely flowers John Bunyan knew and loved, +leads to the village green, fringed with churchyard elms, in the +middle of which is the pedestal or stump of the market-cross, and +at the upper end of the old "Moot Hall," a quaint brick and timber +building, with a projecting upper storey, a good example of the +domestic architecture of the fifteenth century, originally, +perhaps, the Guesten-Hall of the adjacent nunnery, and afterwards +the Court House of the manor when lay-lords had succeeded the +abbesses - "the scene," writes Dr. Brown "of village festivities, +statute hirings, and all the public occasions of village life." +The whole spot and its surroundings can be but little altered from +the time when our hero was the ringleader of the youth of the place +in the dances on the greensward, which he tells us he found it so +hard to give up, and in "tip-cat," and the other innocent games +which his diseased conscience afterwards regarded as "ungodly +practices." One may almost see the hole from which he was going to +strike his "cat" that memorable Sunday afternoon when he silenced +the inward voice which rebuked him for his sins, and "returned +desperately to his sport again." On the south side of the green, +as we have said, stands the church, a fine though somewhat rude +fragment of the chapel of the nunnery curtailed at both ends, of +Norman and Early English date, which, with its detached bell tower, +was the scene of some of the fierce spiritual conflicts so vividly +depicted by Bunyan in his "Grace Abounding." On entering every +object speaks of Bunyan. The pulpit - if it has survived the +recent restoration - is the same from which Christopher Hall, the +then "Parson" of Elstow, preached the sermon which first awoke his +sleeping conscience. The font is that in which he was baptized, as +were also his father and mother and remoter progenitors, as well as +his children, Mary, his dearly-loved blind child, on July 20, 1650, +and her younger sister, Elizabeth, on April 14, 1654. An old oaken +bench, polished by the hands of thousands of visitors attracted to +the village church by the fame of the tinker of Elstow, is +traditionally shown as the seat he used to occupy when he "went to +church twice a day, and that, too, with the foremost counting all +things holy that were therein contained." The five bells which +hang in the belfry are the same in which Bunyan so much delighted, +the fourth bell, tradition says, being that he was used to ring. +The rough flagged floor, "all worn and broken with the hobnailed +boots of generations of ringers," remains undisturbed. One cannot +see the door, set in its solid masonry, without recalling the +figure of Bunyan standing in it, after conscience, "beginning to be +tender," told him that "such practice was but vain," but yet unable +to deny himself the pleasure of seeing others ring, hoping that, +"if a bell should fall," he could "slip out" safely "behind the +thick walls," and so "be preserved notwithstanding." Behind the +church, on the south side, stand some picturesque ivy-clad remains +of the once stately mansion of the Hillersdons, erected on the site +of the nunnery buildings in the early part of the seventeenth +century, with a porch attributed to Inigo Jones, which may have +given Bunyan the first idea of "the very stately Palace, the name +of which was Beautiful." + +The cottage where Bunyan was born, between the two brooks in the +fields at Harrowden, has been so long destroyed that even the +knowledge of its site has passed away. That in which he lived for +six years (1649-1655) after his first marriage, and where his +children were born, is still standing in the village street, but +modern reparations have robbed it of all interest. + +From this description of the surroundings among which Bunyan passed +the earliest and most impressionable years of his life, we pass to +the subject of our biography himself. The notion that Bunyan was +of gipsy descent, which was not entirely rejected by Sir Walter +Scott, and which has more recently received elaborate support from +writers on the other side of the Atlantic, may be pronounced +absolutely baseless. Even if Bunyan's inquiry of his father +"whether the family was of Israelitish descent or no," which has +been so strangely pressed into the service of the theory, could be +supposed to have anything to do with the matter, the decided +negative with which his question was met - "he told me, 'No, we +were not'" - would, one would have thought, have settled the point. +But some fictions die hard. However low the family had sunk, so +that in his own words, "his father's house was of that rank that is +meanest and most despised of all the families in the land," "of a +low and inconsiderable generation," the name, as we have seen, was +one of long standing in Bunyan's native county, and had once taken +far higher rank in it. And his parents, though poor, were +evidently worthy people, of good repute among their village +neighbours. Bunyan seems to be describing his own father and his +wandering life when he speaks of "an honest poor labouring man, +who, like Adam unparadised, had all the world to get his bread in, +and was very careful to maintain his family." He and his wife were +also careful with a higher care that their children should be +properly educated. "Notwithstanding the meanness and +inconsiderableness of my parents," writes Bunyan, "it pleased God +to put it into their hearts to put me to school, to learn both to +read and write." If we accept the evidence of the "Scriptural +Poems," published for the first time twelve years after his death, +the genuineness of which, though questioned by Dr. Brown, there +seems no sufficient reason to doubt, the little education he had +was "gained in a grammar school." This would have been that +founded by Sir William Harpur in Queen Mary's reign in the +neighbouring town of Bedford. Thither we may picture the little +lad trudging day by day along the mile and a half of footpath and +road from his father's cottage by the brookside, often, no doubt, +wet and miry enough, not, as he says, to "go to school to Aristotle +or Plato," but to be taught "according to the rate of other poor +men's children." The Bedford school-master about this time, +William Barnes by name, was a negligent sot, charged with "night- +walking" and haunting "taverns and alehouses," and other evil +practices, as well as with treating the poor boys "when present" +with a cruelty which must have made them wish that his absences, +long as they were, had been more protracted. Whether this man was +his master or no, it was little that Bunyan learnt at school, and +that little he confesses with shame he soon lost "almost utterly." +He was before long called home to help his father at the Harrowden +forge, where he says he was "brought up in a very mean condition +among a company of poor countrymen." Here, with but little to +elevate or refine his character, the boy contracted many bad +habits, and grew up what Coleridge somewhat too strongly calls "a +bitter blackguard." According to his own remorseful confession, he +was "filled with all unrighteousness," having "from a child" in his +"tender years," "but few equals both for cursing, swearing, lying +and blaspheming the holy name of God." Sins of this kind he +declares became "a second nature to him;" he "delighted in all +transgression against the law of God," and as he advanced in his +teens he became a "notorious sinbreeder," the "very ringleader," he +says, of the village lads "in all manner of vice and ungodliness." +But the unsparing condemnation passed by Bunyan, after his +conversion, on his former self, must not mislead us into supposing +him ever, either as boy or man, to have lived a vicious life. "The +wickedness of the tinker," writes Southey, "has been greatly +overrated, and it is taking the language of self-accusation too +literally to pronounce of John Bunyan that he was at any time +depraved." The justice of this verdict of acquittal is fully +accepted by Coleridge. "Bunyan," he says, "was never in our +received sense of the word 'wicked.' He was chaste, sober, and +honest." He hints at youthful escapades, such, perhaps, as +orchard-robbing, or when a little older, poaching, and the like, +which might have brought him under "the stroke of the laws," and +put him to "open shame before the face of the world." But he +confesses to no crime or profligate habit. We have no reason to +suppose that he was ever drunk, and we have his own most solemn +declaration that he was never guilty of an act of unchastity. "In +our days," to quote Mr. Froude, "a rough tinker who could say as +much for himself after he had grown to manhood, would be regarded +as a model of self-restraint. If in Bedford and the neighbourhood +there was no young man more vicious than Bunyan, the moral standard +of an English town in the seventeenth century must have been higher +than believers in progress will be pleased to allow." How then, it +may be asked, are we to explain the passionate language in which he +expresses his self-abhorrence, which would hardly seem exaggerated +in the mouth of the most profligate and licentious? We are +confident that Bunyan meant what he said. So intensely honest a +nature could not allow his words to go beyond his convictions. +When he speaks of "letting loose the reins to his lusts," and +sinning "with the greatest delight and ease," we know that however +exaggerated they may appear to us, his expressions did not seem to +him overstrained. Dr. Johnson marvelled that St. Paul could call +himself "the chief of sinners," and expressed a doubt whether he +did so honestly. But a highly-strung spiritual nature like that of +the apostle, when suddenly called into exercise after a period of +carelessness, takes a very different estimate of sin from that of +the world, even the decent moral world, in general. It realizes +its own offences, venial as they appear to others, as sins against +infinite love - a love unto death - and in the light of the +sacrifice on Calvary, recognizes the heinousness of its guilt, and +while it doubts not, marvels that it can be pardoned. The +sinfulness of sin - more especially their own sin - is the +intensest of all possible realities to them. No language is too +strong to describe it. We may not unreasonably ask whether this +estimate, however exaggerated it may appear to those who are +strangers to these spiritual experiences, is altogether a mistaken +one? + +The spiritual instinct was very early awakened in Bunyan. While +still a child "but nine or ten years old," he tells us he was +racked with convictions of sin, and haunted with religious fears. +He was scared with "fearful dreams," and "dreadful visions," and +haunted in his sleep with "apprehensions of devils and wicked +spirits" coming to carry him away, which made his bed a place of +terrors. The thought of the Day of Judgment and of the torments of +the lost, often came as a dark cloud over his mind in the midst of +his boyish sports, and made him tremble. But though these fevered +visions embittered his enjoyment while they lasted, they were but +transient, and after a while they entirely ceased "as if they had +never been," and he gave himself up without restraint to the +youthful pleasures in which his ardent nature made him ever the +ringleader. The "thoughts of religion" became very grievous to +him. He could not endure even to see others read pious books; "it +would be as a prison to me." The awful realities of eternity which +had once been so crushing to his spirit were "both out of sight and +mind." He said to God, "depart from me." According to the later +morbid estimate which stigmatized as sinful what were little more +than the wild acts of a roystering dare-devil young fellow, full of +animal spirits and with an unusually active imagination, he "could +sin with the greatest delight and ease, and take pleasure in the +vileness of his companions." But that the sense of religion was +not wholly dead in him even then, and that while discarding its +restraints he had an inward reverence for it, is shown by the +horror he experienced if those who had a reputation for godliness +dishonoured their profession. "Once," he says, "when I was at the +height of my vanity, hearing one to swear who was reckoned for a +religious man, it had so great a stroke upon my spirit that it made +my heart to ache." + +This undercurrent of religious feeling was deepened by providential +escapes from accidents which threatened his life - "judgments mixed +with mercy" he terms them, - which made him feel that he was not +utterly forsaken of God. Twice he narrowly escaped drowning; once +in "Bedford river" - the Ouse; once in "a creek of the sea," his +tinkering rounds having, perhaps, carried him as far northward as +the tidal inlets of the Wash in the neighbourhood of Spalding or +Lynn, or to the estuaries of the Stour and Orwell to the east. At +another time, in his wild contempt of danger, he tore out, while +his companions looked on with admiration, what he mistakenly +supposed to be an adder's sting. + +These providential deliverances bring us to that incident in his +brief career as a soldier which his anonymous biographer tells us +"made so deep an impression upon him that he would never mention +it, which he often did, without thanksgiving to God." But for this +occurrence, indeed, we should have probably never known that he had +ever served in the army at all. The story is best told in his own +provokingly brief words - "When I was a soldier I with others were +drawn out to go to such a place to besiege it. But when I was just +ready to go, one of the company desired to go in my room; to which +when I consented, he took my place, and coming to the siege, as he +stood sentinel, he was shot in the head with a musket bullet and +died." Here, as is so often the case in Bunyan's autobiography, we +have reason to lament the complete absence of details. This is +characteristic of the man. The religious import of the occurrences +he records constituted their only value in his eyes; their temporal +setting, which imparts their chief interest to us, was of no +account to him. He gives us not the slightest clue to the name of +the besieged place, or even to the side on which he was engaged. +The date of the event is left equally vague. The last point +however we are able to determine with something like accuracy. +November, 1644, was the earliest period at which Bunyan could have +entered the army, for it was not till then that he reached the +regulation age of sixteen. Domestic circumstances had then +recently occurred which may have tended to estrange him from his +home, and turn his thoughts to a military life. In the previous +June his mother had died, her death being followed within a month +by that of his sister Margaret. Before another month was out, his +father, as we have already said, had married again, and whether the +new wife had proved the proverbial INJUSTA NOVERCA or not, his home +must have been sufficiently altered by the double, if we may not +say triple, calamity, to account for his leaving the dull monotony +of his native village for the more stirring career of a soldier. +Which of the two causes then distracting the nation claimed his +adherence, Royalist or Parliamentarian, can never be determined. +As Mr. Froude writes, "He does not tell us himself. His friends in +after life did not care to ask him or he to inform them, or else +they thought the matter of too small importance to be worth +mentioning with exactness." The only evidence is internal, and the +deductions from it vary with the estimate of the counter-balancing +probabilities taken by Bunyan's various biographers. Lord +Macaulay, whose conclusion is ably, and, we think, convincingly +supported by Dr. Brown, decides in favour of the side of the +Parliament. Mr. Froude, on the other hand, together with the +painstaking Mr. Offor, holds that "probability is on the side of +his having been with the Royalists." Bedfordshire, however, was +one of the "Associated Counties" from which the Parliamentary army +drew its main strength, and it was shut in by a strong line of +defence from any combination with the Royalist army. In 1643 the +county had received an order requiring it to furnish "able and +armed men" to the garrison at Newport Pagnel, which was then the +base of operations against the King in that part of England. All +probability therefore points to John Bunyan, the lusty young tinker +of Elstow, the leader in all manly sports and adventurous +enterprises among his mates, and probably caring very little on +what side he fought, having been drafted to Newport to serve under +Sir Samuel Luke, of Cople, and other Parliamentary commanders. The +place of the siege he refers to is equally undeterminable. A +tradition current within a few years of Bunyan's death, which Lord +Macaulay rather rashly invests with the certainty of fact, names +Leicester. The only direct evidence for this is the statement of +an anonymous biographer, who professes to have been a personal +friend of Bunyan's, that he was present at the siege of Leicester, +in 1645, as a soldier in the Parliamentary army. This statement, +however, is in direct defiance of Bunyan's own words. For the one +thing certain in the matter is that wherever the siege may have +been, Bunyan was not at it. He tells us plainly that he was "drawn +to go," and that when he was just starting, he gave up his place to +a comrade who went in his room, and was shot through the head. +Bunyan's presence at the siege of Leicester, which has been so +often reported that it has almost been regarded as an historical +truth, must therefore take its place among the baseless creations +of a fertile fancy. + +Bunyan's military career, wherever passed and under whatever +standard, was very short. The civil war was drawing near the end +of its first stage when he enlisted. He had only been a soldier a +few months when the battle of Naseby, fatal to the royal cause, was +fought, June 14, 1645. Bristol was surrendered by Prince Rupert, +Sept. 10th. Three days later Montrose was totally defeated at +Philiphaugh; and after a vain attempt to relieve Chester, Charles +shut himself up in Oxford. The royal garrisons yielded in quick +succession; in 1646 the armies on both sides were disbanded, and +the first act in the great national tragedy having come to a close, +Bunyan returned to Elstow, and resumed his tinker's work at the +paternal forge. His father, old Thomas Bunyan, it may here be +mentioned, lived all through his famous son's twelve years' +imprisonment, witnessed his growing celebrity as a preacher and a +writer, and died in the early part of 1676, just when John Bunyan +was passing through his last brief period of durance, which was to +give birth to the work which has made him immortal. + + + +CHAPTER II. + + + +It cannot have been more than two or three years after Bunyan's +return home from his short experience of a soldier's life, that he +took the step which, more than any other, influences a man's future +career for good or for evil. The young tinker married. With his +characteristic disregard of all facts or dates but such as concern +his spiritual history, Bunyan tells us nothing about the orphan +girl he made his wife. Where he found her, who her parents were, +where they were married, even her christian name, were all deemed +so many irrelevant details. Indeed the fact of his marriage would +probably have been passed over altogether but for the important +bearing it hid on his inner life. His "mercy," as he calls it, +"was to light upon a wife whose father was counted godly," and who, +though she brought him no marriage portion, so that they "came +together as poor as poor might be," as "poor as howlets," to adopt +his own simile, "without so much household stuff as a dish or a +spoon betwixt" them, yet brought with her to the Elstow cottage two +religious books, which had belonged to her father, and which he +"had left her when he died." These books were "The Plain Man's +Pathway to Heaven," the work of Arthur Dent, the puritan incumbent +of Shoebury, in Essex - "wearisomely heavy and theologically +narrow," writes Dr. Brown - and "The Practise of Piety," by Dr. +Lewis Bayley, Bishop of Bangor, and previously chaplain to Prince +Henry, which enjoyed a wide reputation with puritans as well as +with churchmen. Together with these books, the young wife brought +the still more powerful influence of a religious training, and the +memory of a holy example, often telling her young graceless husband +"what a godly man her father was, and how he would reprove and +correct vice both in his house and amongst his neighbours, and what +a strict and holy life he lived in his days both in word and deed." +Much as Bunyan tells us he had lost of the "little he had learnt" +at school, he had not lost it "utterly." He was still able to read +intelligently. His wife's gentle influence prevailed on him to +begin "sometimes to read" her father's legacy "with her." This +must have been entirely new reading for Bunyan, and certainly at +first not much to his taste. What his favourite reading had been +up to this time, his own nervous words tell us, "Give me a ballad, +a news-book, George on Horseback, or Bevis of Southampton; give me +some book that teaches curious arts, that tells of old fables." +But as he and his young wife read these books together at their +fireside, a higher taste was gradually awakened in Bunyan's mind; +"some things" in them he "found somewhat pleasing" to him, and they +"begot" within him "some desires to religion," producing a degree +of outward reformation. The spiritual instinct was aroused. He +would be a godly man like his wife's father. He began to "go to +church twice a day, and that too with the foremost." Nor was it a +mere formal attendance, for when there he tells us he took his part +with all outward devotion in the service, "both singing and saying +as others did; yet," as he penitently confesses, "retaining his +wicked life," the wickedness of which, however, did not amount to +more than a liking for the sports and games of the lads of the +village, bell-ringing, dancing, and the like. The prohibition of +all liturgical forms issued in 1645, the observance of which varied +with the strictness or laxity of the local authorities, would not +seem to have been put in force very rigidly at Elstow. The vicar, +Christopher Hall, was an Episcopalian, who, like Bishop Sanderson, +retained his benefice unchallenged all through the Protectorate, +and held it some years after the Restoration and the passing of the +Act of Uniformity. He seems, like Sanderson, to have kept himself +within the letter of the law by making trifling variations in the +Prayer Book formularies, consistent with a general conformity to +the old order of the Church, "without persisting to his own +destruction in the usage of the entire liturgy." The decent +dignity of the ceremonial of his parish church had a powerful +effect on Bunyan's freshly awakened religious susceptibility - a +"spirit of superstition" he called it afterwards - and helped to +its fuller development. "I adored," he says, "with great devotion, +even all things, both the High Place" - altars then had not been +entirely broken down and levelled in Bedfordshire - "Priest, Clerk, +Vestment, Service, and what else belonging to the church, counting +all things holy that were therein contained, and especially the +Priest and Clerk most happy, and without doubt greatly blessed +because they were the servants of God and were principal in the +Holy Temple, to do His work therein, . . . their name, their garb, +and work, did so intoxicate and bewitch me." If it is questionable +whether the Act forbidding the use of the Book of Common Prayer was +strictly observed at Elstow, it is certain that the prohibition of +Sunday sports was not. Bunyan's narrative shows that the aspect of +a village green in Bedfordshire during the Protectorate did not +differ much from what Baxter tells us it had been in Shropshire +before the civil troubles began, where, "after the Common Prayer +had been read briefly, the rest of the day even till dark night +almost, except eating time, was spent in dancing under a maypole +and a great tree, when all the town did meet together." These +Sunday sports proved the battle-ground of Bunyan's spiritual +experience, the scene of the fierce inward struggles which he has +described so vividly, through which he ultimately reached the firm +ground of solid peace and hope. As a high-spirited healthy +athletic young fellow, all kinds of manly sports were Bunyan's +delight. On week days his tinker's business, which he evidently +pursued industriously, left him small leisure for such amusements. +Sunday therefore was the day on which he "did especially solace +himself" with them. He had yet to learn the identification of +diversions with "all manner of vice." The teaching came in this +way. One Sunday, Vicar Hall preached a sermon on the sin of +Sabbath-breaking, and like many hearers before and since, he +imagined that it was aimed expressly at him. Sermon ended, he went +home "with a great burden upon his spirit," "sermon-stricken" and +"sermon sick" as he expresses it elsewhere. But his Sunday's +dinner speedily drove away his self-condemning thoughts. He "shook +the sermon out of his mind," and went out to his sports with the +Elstow lads on the village green, with as "great delight" as ever. +But in the midst of his game of tip-cat or "sly," just as he had +struck the "cat" from its hole, and was going to give it a second +blow - the minuteness of the detail shows the unforgetable reality +of the crisis - he seemed to hear a voice from heaven asking him +whether "he would leave his sins and go to heaven, or keep his sins +and go to hell." He thought also that he saw Jesus Christ looking +down on him with threatening countenance. But like his own Hopeful +he "shut his eyes against the light," and silenced the condemning +voice with the feeling that repentance was hopeless. "It was too +late for him to look after heaven; he was past pardon." If his +condemnation was already sealed and he was eternally lost, it would +not matter whether he was condemned for many sins or for few. +Heaven was gone already. The only happiness he could look for was +what he could get out of his sins - his morbidly sensitive +conscience perversely identifying sports with sin - so he returned +desperately to his games, resolved, he says, to "take my fill of +sin, still studying what sin was yet to be committed that I might +taste the sweetness of it." + +This desperate recklessness lasted with him "about a month or +more," till "one day as he was standing at a neighbour's shop- +window, cursing and swearing and playing the madman after his +wonted manner, the woman of the house, though a very loose and +ungodly wretch," rebuked him so severely as "the ungodliest fellow +for swearing that ever she heard, able to spoil all the youth in a +whole town," that, self-convicted, he hung down his head in silent +shame, wishing himself a little child again that he might unlearn +the wicked habit of which he thought it impossible to break +himself. Hopeless as the effort seemed to him, it proved +effectual. He did "leave off his swearing" to his own "great +wonder," and found that he "could speak better and with more +pleasantness" than when he "put an oath before and another behind, +to give his words authority." Thus was one step in his reformation +taken, and never retraced; but, he adds sorrowfully, "all this +while I knew not Jesus Christ, neither did I leave my sports and +plays." We might be inclined to ask, why should he leave them? +But indifferent and innocent in themselves, an overstrained +spirituality had taught him to regard them as sinful. To indulge +in them wounded his morbidly sensitive conscience, and so they were +sin to him. + +The next step onward in this religious progress was the study of +the Bible, to which he was led by the conversation of a poor godly +neighbour. Naturally he first betook himself to the historical +books, which, he tells us, he read "with great pleasure;" but, like +Baxter who, beginning his Bible reading in the same course, writes, +"I neither understood nor relished much the doctrinal part," he +frankly confesses, "Paul's Epistles and such like Scriptures I +could not away with." His Bible reading helped forward the outward +reformation he had begun. He set the keeping the Ten Commandments +before him as his "way to Heaven"; much comforted "sometimes" when, +as he thought, "he kept them pretty well," but humbled in +conscience when "now and then he broke one." "But then," he says, +"I should repent and say I was sorry for it, and promise God to do +better next time, and then get help again; for then I thought I +pleased God as well as any man in England." His progress was slow, +for each step involved a battle, but it was steadily onwards. He +had a very hard struggle in relinquishing his favourite amusements. +But though he had much yet to learn, his feet were set on the +upward way, and he had no mind to go back, great as the temptation +often was. He had once delighted in bell-ringing, but "his +conscience beginning to be tender" - morbid we should rather say - +"he thought such practise to be vain, and therefore forced himself +to leave it." But "hankering after it still," he continued to go +while his old companions rang, and look on at what he "durst not" +join in, until the fear that if he thus winked at what his +conscience condemned, a bell, or even the tower itself, might fall +and kill him, put a stop even to that compromise. Dancing, which +from his boyhood he had practised on the village green, or in the +old Moot Hall, was still harder to give up. "It was a full year +before I could quite leave that." But this too was at last +renounced, and finally. The power of Bunyan's indomitable will was +bracing itself for severe trials yet to come. + +Meanwhile Bunyan's neighbours regarded with amazement the changed +life of the profane young tinker. "And truly," he honestly +confesses, "so they well might for this my conversion was as great +as for Tom of Bedlam to become a sober man." Bunyan's reformation +was soon the town's talk; he had "become godly," "become a right +honest man." These commendations flattered is vanity, and he laid +himself out for them. He was then but a "poor painted hypocrite," +he says, "proud of his godliness, and doing all he did either to be +seen of, or well spoken of by man." This state of self- +satisfaction, he tells us, lasted "for about a twelvemonth or +more." During this deceitful calm he says, "I had great peace of +conscience, and should think with myself, 'God cannot choose but +now be pleased with me,' yea, to relate it in mine own way, I +thought no man in England could please God better than I." But no +outward reformation can bring lasting inward peace. When a man is +honest with himself, the more earnestly he struggles after complete +obedience, the more faulty does his obedience appear. The good +opinion of others will not silence his own inward condemnation. He +needs a higher righteousness than his own; a firmer standing-ground +than the shifting quicksand of his own good deeds. "All this +while," he writes, "poor wretch as I was, I was ignorant of Jesus +Christ, and going about to establish my own righteousness, and had +perished therein had not God in mercy showed me more of my state by +nature." + +This revolution was nearer than he imagined. Bunyan's self- +satisfaction was rudely shaken, and his need of something deeper in +the way of religion than he had yet experienced was shown him by +the conversation of three or four poor women whom, one day, when +pursuing his tinker's calling at Bedford, he came upon "sitting at +a door in the sun, and talking of the things of God." These women +were members of the congregation of "the holy Mr. John Gifford," +who, at that time of ecclesiastical confusion, subsequently became +rector of St. John's Church, in Bedford, and master of the hospital +attached to it. Gifford's career had been a strange one. We hear +of him first as a young major in the king's army at the outset of +the Civil War, notorious for his loose and debauched life, taken by +Fairfax at Maidstone in 1648, and condemned to the gallows. By his +sister's help he eluded his keepers' vigilance, escaped from +prison, and ultimately found his way to Bedford, where for a time +he practised as a physician, though without any change of his loose +habits. The loss of a large sum of money at gaming awoke a disgust +at his dissolute life. A few sentences of a pious book deepened +the impression. He became a converted man, and joined himself to a +handful of earnest Christians in Bedford, who becoming, in the +language of the day, "a church," he was appointed its first +minister. Gifford exercised a deep and vital though narrow +influence, leaving behind him at his death, in 1655, the character +of a "wise, tolerant, and truly Christian man." The conversation +of the poor women who were destined to exercise so momentous an +influence on Bunyan's spiritual life, evidenced how thoroughly they +had drunk in their pastor's teaching. Bunyan himself was at this +time a "brisk talker in the matters of religion," such as he drew +from the life in his own Talkative. But the words of these poor +women were entirely beyond him. They opened a new and blessed land +to which he was a complete stranger. "They spoke of their own +wretchedness of heart, of their unbelief, of their miserable state +by nature, of the new birth, and the work of God in their souls, +and how the Lord refreshed them, and supported them against the +temptations of the Devil by His words and promises." But what +seems to have struck Bunyan the most forcibly was the happiness +which their religion shed in the hearts of these poor women. +Religion up to this time had been to him a system of rules and +restrictions. Heaven was to be won by doing certain things and not +doing certain other things. Of religion as a Divine life kindled +in the soul, and flooding it with a joy which creates a heaven on +earth, he had no conception. Joy in believing was a new thing to +him. "They spake as if joy did make them speak; they spake with +such pleasantness of Scripture language, and with such appearance +of grace in all they said, that they were to me as if they had +found a new world," a veritable "El Dorado," stored with the true +riches. Bunyan, as he says, after he had listened awhile and +wondered at their words, left them and went about his work again. +But their words went with him. He could not get rid of them. He +saw that though he thought himself a godly man, and his neighbours +thought so too, he wanted the true tokens of godliness. He was +convinced that godliness was the only true happiness, and he could +not rest till he had attained it. So he made it his business to be +going again and again into the company of these good women. He +could not stay away, and the more he talked with them the more +uneasy he became - "the more I questioned my own condition." The +salvation of his soul became all in all to him. His mind "lay +fixed on eternity like a horse-leech at the vein." The Bible +became precious to him. He read it with new eyes, "as I never did +before." "I was indeed then never out of the Bible, either by +reading or meditation." The Epistles of St. Paul, which before he +"could not away with," were now "sweet and pleasant" to him. He +was still "crying out to God that he might know the truth and the +way to Heaven and glory." Having no one to guide him in his study +of the most difficult of all books, it is no wonder that he +misinterpreted and misapplied its words in a manner which went far +to unsettle his brain. He read that without faith he could not be +saved, and though he did not clearly know what faith was, it became +a question of supreme anxiety to him to determine whether he had it +or not. If not, he was a castaway indeed, doomed to perish for +ever. So he determined to put it to the test. The Bible told him +that faith, "even as a grain of mustard seed," would enable its +possessor to work miracles. So, as Mr. Froude says, "not +understanding Oriental metaphors," he thought he had here a simple +test which would at once solve the question. One day as he was +walking along the miry road between Elstow and Bedford, which he +had so often paced as a schoolboy, "the temptation came hot upon +him" to put the matter to the proof, by saying to the puddles that +were in the horse-pads "be dry," and to the dry places, "be ye +puddles." He was just about to utter the words when a sudden +thought stopped him. Would it not be better just to go under the +hedge and pray that God would enable him? This pause saved him +from a rash venture, which might have landed him in despair. For +he concluded that if he tried after praying and nothing came of it, +it would prove that he had no faith, but was a castaway. "Nay, +thought I, if it be so, I will never try yet, but will stay a +little longer." "Then," he continues, "I was so tossed betwixt the +Devil and my own ignorance, and so perplexed, especially at +sometimes, that I could not tell what to do." At another time his +mind, as the minds of thousands have been and will be to the end, +was greatly harassed by the insoluble problems of predestination +and election. The question was not now whether he had faith, but +"whether he was one of the elect or not, and if not, what then?" +"He might as well leave off and strive no further." And then the +strange fancy occurred to him, that the good people at Bedford +whose acquaintance he had recently made, were all that God meant to +save in that part of the country, and that the day of grace was +past and gone for him; that he had overstood the time of mercy. +"Oh that he had turned sooner!" was then his cry. "Oh that he had +turned seven years before! What a fool he had been to trifle away +his time till his soul and heaven were lost!" The text, "compel +them to come in, and yet there is room," came to his rescue when he +was so harassed and faint that he was "scarce able to take one step +more." He found them "sweet words," for they showed him that there +was "place enough in heaven for him," and he verily believed that +when Christ spoke them He was thinking of him, and had them +recorded to help him to overcome the vile fear that there was no +place left for him in His bosom. But soon another fear succeeded +the former. Was he truly called of Christ? "He called to them +when He would, and they came to Him." But they could not come +unless He called them. Had He called him? Would He call him? If +He did how gladly would he run after Him. But oh, he feared that +He had no liking to him; that He would not call him. True +conversion was what he longed for. "Could it have been gotten for +gold," he said, "what could I have given for it! Had I a whole +world, it had all gone ten thousand times over for this, that my +soul might have been in a converted state." All those whom he +thought to be truly converted were now lovely in his eyes. "They +shone, they walked like people that carried the broad seal of +heaven about them. Oh that he were like them, and shared in their +goodly heritage!" + +About this time Bunyan was greatly troubled, though at the same +time encouraged in his endeavours after the blessedness he longed +for so earnestly but could not yet attain to, by "a dream or +vision" which presented itself to him, whether in his waking or +sleeping hours he does not tell us. He fancied he saw his four +Bedford friends refreshing themselves on the sunny side of a high +mountain while he was shivering with dark and cold on the other +side, parted from them by a high wall with only one small gap in +it, and that not found but after long searching, and so strait and +narrow withal that it needed long and desperate efforts to force +his way through. At last he succeeded. "Then," he says, "I was +exceeding glad, and went and sat down in the midst of them, and so +was comforted with the light and heat of their sun." + +But this sunshine shone but in illusion, and soon gave place to the +old sad questioning, which filled his soul with darkness. Was he +already called, or should he be called some day? He would give +worlds to know. Who could assure him? At last some words of the +prophet Joel (chap. iii, 21) encouraged him to hope that if not +converted already, the time might come when he should be converted +to Christ. Despair began to give way to hopefulness. + +At this crisis Bunyan took the step which he would have been wise +if he had taken long before. He sought the sympathy and counsel of +others. He began to speak his mind to the poor people in Bedford +whose words of religious experiences had first revealed to him his +true condition. By them he was introduced to their pastor, "the +godly Mr. Gifford," who invited him to his house and gave him +spiritual counsel. He began to attend the meetings of his +disciples. + +The teaching he received here was but ill-suited for one of +Bunyan's morbid sensitiveness. For it was based upon a constant +introspection and a scrupulous weighing of each word and action, +with a torturing suspicion of its motive, which made a man's ever- +varying spiritual feelings the standard of his state before God, +instead of leading him off from self to the Saviour. It is not, +therefore, at all surprising that a considerable period intervened +before, in the language of his school, "he found peace." This +period, which seems to have embraced two or three years, was marked +by that tremendous inward struggle which he has described, "as with +a pen of fire," in that marvellous piece of religious +autobiography, without a counterpart except in "The Confessions of +St. Augustine," his "Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners." +Bunyan's first experiences after his introduction to Mr. Gifford +and the inner circle of his disciples were most discouraging. What +he heard of God's dealings with their souls showed him something of +"the vanity and inward wretchedness of his wicked heart," and at +the same time roused all its hostility to God's will. "It did work +at that rate for wickedness as it never did before." "The +Canaanites WOULD dwell in the land." "His heart hankered after +every foolish vanity, and hung back both to and in every duty, as a +clog on the leg of a bird to hinder her from flying." He thought +that he was growing "worse and worse," and was "further from +conversion than ever before." Though he longed to let Christ into +his heart, "his unbelief would, as it were, set its shoulder to the +door to keep Him out." + +Yet all the while he was tormented with the most perverse +scrupulosity of conscience. "As to the act of sinning, I never was +more tender than now; I durst not take a pin or a stick, though but +so big as a straw, for my conscience now was sore, and would smart +at every twist. I could not now tell how to speak my words, for +fear I should misplace them. Oh! how gingerly did I then go in all +I did or said: I found myself in a miry bog, that shook if I did +but stir, and was as those left both of God, and Christ, and the +Spirit, and all good things." All the misdoings of his earlier +years rose up against him. There they were, and he could not rid +himself of them. He thought that no one could be so bad as he was; +"not even the Devil could be his equal: he was more loathsome in +his own eyes than a toad." What then must God think of him? +Despair seized fast hold of him. He thought he was "forsaken of +God and given up to the Devil, and to a reprobate mind." Nor was +this a transient fit of despondency. "Thus," he writes, "I +continued a long while, even for some years together." + +This is not the place minutely to pursue Bunyan's religious history +through the sudden alternations of hopes and fears, the fierce +temptations, the torturing illusions, the strange perversions of +isolated scraps of Bible language - texts torn from their context - +the harassing doubts as to the truth of Christianity, the depths of +despair and the elevations of joy, which he has portrayed with his +own inimitable graphic power. It is a picture of fearful +fascination that he draws. "A great storm" at one time comes down +upon him, "piece by piece," which "handled him twenty times worse +than all he had met with before," while "floods of blasphemies were +poured upon his spirit," and would "bolt out of his heart." He +felt himself driven to commit the unpardonable sin and blaspheme +the Holy Ghost, "whether he would or no." "No sin would serve but +that." He was ready to "clap his hand under his chin," to keep his +mouth shut, or to leap head-foremost "into some muckhill-hole," to +prevent his uttering the fatal words. At last he persuaded himself +that he had committed the sin, and a good but not overwise man, "an +ancient Christian," whom he consulted on his sad case, told him he +thought so too, "which was but cold comfort." He thought himself +possessed by the devil, and compared himself to a child "carried +off under her apron by a gipsy." "Kick sometimes I did, and also +shriek and cry, but yet I was as bound in the wings of the +temptation, and the wind would carry me away." He wished himself +"a dog or a toad," for they "had no soul to be lost as his was like +to be;" and again a hopeless callousness seemed to settle upon him. +"If I would have given a thousand pounds for a tear I could not +shed one; no, nor sometimes scarce desire to shed one." And yet he +was all the while bewailing this hardness of heart, in which he +thought himself singular. "This much sunk me. I thought my +condition was alone; but how to get out of, or get rid of, these +things I could not." Again the very ground of his faith was +shaken. "Was the Bible true, or was it not rather a fable and +cunning story?" All thought "their own religion true. Might not +the Turks have as good Scriptures to prove their Mahomet Saviour as +Christians had for Christ? What if all we believed in should be +but 'a think-so' too?" So powerful and so real were his illusions +that he had hard work to keep himself from praying to things about +him, to "a bush, a bull, a besom, or the like," or even to Satan +himself. He heard voices behind him crying out that Satan desired +to have him, and that "so loud and plain that he would turn his +head to see who was calling him;" when on his knees in prayer he +fancied he felt the foul fiend pull his clothes from behind, +bidding him "break off, make haste; you have prayed enough." + +This "horror of great darkness" was not always upon him. Bunyan +had his intervals of "sunshine-weather" when Giant Despair's fits +came on him, and the giant "lost the use of his hand." Texts of +Scripture would give him a "sweet glance," and flood his soul with +comfort. But these intervals of happiness were but short-lived. +They were but "hints, touches, and short visits," sweet when +present, but "like Peter's sheet, suddenly caught up again into +heaven." But, though transient, they helped the burdened Pilgrim +onward. So vivid was the impression sometimes made, that years +after he could specify the place where these beams of sunlight fell +on him - "sitting in a neighbour's house," - "travelling into the +country," - as he was "going home from sermon." And the joy was +real while it lasted. The words of the preacher's text, "Behold, +thou art fair, my love," kindling his spirit, he felt his "heart +filled with comfort and hope." "Now I could believe that my sins +would be forgiven." He was almost beside himself with ecstasy. "I +was now so taken with the love and mercy of God that I thought I +could have spoken of it even to the very crows that sat upon the +ploughed lands before me, had they been capable to have understood +me." "Surely," he cried with gladness, "I will not forget this +forty years hence." "But, alas! within less than forty days I +began to question all again." It was the Valley of the Shadow of +Death which Bunyan, like his own Pilgrim, was travelling through. +But, as in his allegory, "by and by the day broke," and "the Lord +did more fully and graciously discover Himself unto him." "One +day," he writes, "as I was musing on the wickedness and blasphemy +of my heart, that scripture came into my mind, 'He hath made peace +by the Blood of His Cross.' By which I was made to see, both again +and again and again that day, that God and my soul were friends by +this blood: Yea, I saw the justice of God and my sinful soul could +embrace and kiss each other. This was a good day to me. I hope I +shall not forget it." At another time the "glory and joy" of a +passage in the Hebrews (ii. 14-15) were "so weighty" that "I was +once or twice ready to swoon as I sat, not with grief and trouble, +but with solid joy and peace." "But, oh! now how was my soul led +on from truth to truth by God; now had I evidence of my salvation +from heaven, with many golden seals thereon all banging in my +sight, and I would long that the last day were come, or that I were +fourscore years old, that I might die quickly that my soul might be +at rest." + +At this time he fell in with an old tattered copy of Luther's +"Commentary on the Galatians," "so old that it was ready to fall +piece from piece if I did but turn it over." As he read, to his +amazement and thankfulness, he found his own spiritual experience +described. "It was as if his book had been written out of my +heart." It greatly comforted him to find that his condition was +not, as he had thought, solitary, but that others had known the +same inward struggles. "Of all the books that ever he had seen," +he deemed it "most fit for a wounded conscience." This book was +also the means of awakening an intense love for the Saviour. "Now +I found, as I thought, that I loved Christ dearly. Oh, methought +my soul cleaved unto Him, my affections cleaved unto Him; I felt +love to Him as hot as fire." + +And very quickly, as he tells us, his "love was tried to some +purpose." He became the victim of an extraordinary temptation - "a +freak of fancy," Mr. Froude terms it - "fancy resenting the +minuteness with which he watched his own emotions." He had "found +Christ" and felt Him "most precious to his soul." He was now +tempted to give Him up, "to sell and part with this most blessed +Christ, to exchange Him for the things of this life; for anything." +Nor was this a mere passing, intermittent delusion. "It lay upon +me for the space of a year, and did follow me so continually that I +was not rid of it one day in a month, no, not sometimes one hour in +many days together, except when I was asleep." Wherever he was, +whatever he was doing day and night, in bed, at table, at work, a +voice kept sounding in his ears, bidding him "sell Christ" for this +or that. He could neither "eat his food, stoop for a pin, chop a +stick, or cast his eyes on anything" but the hateful words were +heard, "not once only, but a hundred times over, as fast as a man +could speak, 'sell Him, sell Him, sell Him,' and, like his own +Christian in the dark valley, he could not determine whether they +were suggestions of the Wicked One, or came from his own heart. +The agony was so intense, while, for hours together, he struggled +with the temptation, that his whole body was convulsed by it. It +was no metaphorical, but an actual, wrestling with a tangible +enemy. He "pushed and thrust with his hands and elbows," and kept +still answering, as fast as the destroyer said "sell Him," "No, I +will not, I will not, I will not! not for thousands, thousands, +thousands of worlds!" at least twenty times together. But the +fatal moment at last came, and the weakened will yielded, against +itself. One morning as he lay in his bed, the voice came again +with redoubled force, and would not be silenced. He fought against +it as long as he could, "even until I was almost out of breath," +when "without any conscious action of his will" the suicidal words +shaped themselves in his heart, "Let Him go if He will." + +Now all was over. He had spoken the words and they could not be +recalled. Satan had "won the battle," and "as a bird that is shot +from the top of a tree, down fell he into great guilt and fearful +despair." He left his bed, dressed, and went "moping into the +field," where for the next two hours he was "like a man bereft of +life, and as one past all recovery and bound to eternal +punishment." The most terrible examples in the Bible came trooping +before him. He had sold his birthright like Esau. He a betrayed +his Master like Judas - "I was ashamed that I should be like such +an ugly man as Judas." There was no longer any place for +repentance. He was past all recovery; shut up unto the judgment to +come. He dared hardly pray. When he tried to do so, he was "as +with a tempest driven away from God," while something within said, +"'Tis too late; I am lost; God hath let me fall." The texts which +once had comforted him gave him no comfort now; or, if they did, it +was but for a brief space. "About ten or eleven o'clock one day, +as I was walking under a hedge and bemoaning myself for this hard +hap that such a thought should arise within me, suddenly this +sentence bolted upon me, 'The blood of Christ cleanseth from all +sin,'" and gave me "good encouragement." But in two or three hours +all was gone. The terrible words concerning Esau's selling his +birthright took possession of his mind, and "held him down." This +"stuck with him." Though he "sought it carefully with tears," +there was no restoration for him. His agony received a terrible +aggravation from a highly coloured narrative of the terrible death +of Francis Spira, an Italian lawyer of the middle of the sixteenth +century, who, having embraced the Protestant religion, was induced +by worldly motives to return to the Roman Catholic Church, and died +full of remorse and despair, from which Bunyan afterwards drew the +awful picture of "the man in the Iron Cage" at "the Interpreter's +house." The reading of this book was to his "troubled spirit" as +"salt when rubbed into a fresh wound," "as knives and daggers in +his soul." We cannot wonder that his health began to give way +under so protracted a struggle. His naturally sturdy frame was +"shaken by a continual trembling." He would "wind and twine and +shrink under his burden," the weight of which so crushed him that +he "could neither stand, nor go, nor lie, either at rest or quiet." +His digestion became disordered, and a pain, "as if his breastbone +would have split asunder," made him fear that as he had been guilty +of Judas' sin, so he was to perish by Judas' end, and "burst +asunder in the midst." In the trembling of his limbs he saw Cain's +mark set upon him; God had marked him out for his curse. No one +was ever so bad as he. No one had ever sinned so flagrantly. When +he compared his sins with those of David and Solomon and Manasseh +and others which had been pardoned, he found his sin so much +exceeded theirs that he could have no hope of pardon. Theirs, "it +was true, were great sins; sins of a bloody colour. But none of +them were of the nature of his. He had sold his Saviour. His sin +was point blank against Christ." "Oh, methought this sin was +bigger than the sins of a country, of a kingdom, or of the whole +world; not all of them together was able to equal mine; mine +outwent them every one." + +It would be wearisome to follow Bunyan through all the mazes of his +self-torturing illusions. Fierce as the storm was, and long in its +duration - for it was more than two years before the storm became a +calm - the waves, though he knew it not, in their fierce tossings +which threatened to drive his soul like a broken vessel headlong on +the rocks of despair, were bearing him nearer and nearer to the +"haven where he would be." His vivid imagination, as we have seen, +surrounded him with audible voices. He had heard, as he thought, +the tempter bidding him "Sell Christ;" now he thought he heard God +"with a great voice, as it were, over his shoulder behind him," +saying, "Return unto Me, for I have redeemed thee;" and though he +felt that the voice mocked him, for he could not return, there was +"no place of repentance" for him, and fled from it, it still +pursued him, "holloaing after him, 'Return, return!'" And return +he did, but not all at once, or without many a fresh struggle. +With his usual graphic power he describes the zigzag path by which +he made his way. His hot and cold fits alternated with fearful +suddenness. "As Esau beat him down, Christ raised him up." "His +life hung in doubt, not knowing which way he should tip." More +sensible evidence came. "One day," he tells us, "as I walked to +and fro in a good man's shop" - we can hardly be wrong in placing +it in Bedford - "bemoaning myself for this hard hap of mine, for +that I should commit so great a sin, greatly fearing that I should +not be pardoned, and ready to sink with fear, suddenly there was as +if there had rushed in at the window the noise of wind upon me, but +very pleasant, and I heard a voice speaking, 'Did'st ever refuse to +be justified by the Blood of Christ?'" Whether the voice were +supernatural or not, he was not, "in twenty years' time," able to +determine. At the time he thought it was. It was "as if an angel +had come upon me." "It commanded a great calm upon me. It +persuaded me there might be hope." But this persuasion soon +vanished. "In three or four days I began to despair again." He +found it harder than ever to pray. The devil urged that God was +weary of him; had been weary for years past; that he wanted to get +rid of him and his "bawlings in his ears," and therefore He had let +him commit this particular sin that he might be cut off altogether. +For such an one to pray was but to add sin to sin. There was no +hope for him. Christ might indeed pity him and wish to help him; +but He could not, for this sin was unpardonable. He had said "let +Him go if He will," and He had taken him at his word. "Then," he +says, "I was always sinking whatever I did think or do." Years +afterwards he remembered how, "in this time of hopelessness, having +walked one day, to a neighbouring town, wearied out with his +misery, he sat down on a settle in the street to ponder over his +fearful state. As he looked up, everything he saw seemed banded +together for the destruction of so vile a sinner. The "sun grudged +him its light, the very stones in the streets and the tiles on the +house-roofs seemed to bend themselves against him." He burst forth +with a grievous sigh, "How can God comfort such a wretch as I?" +Comfort was nearer than he imagined. "No sooner had I said it, but +this returned to me, as an echo doth answer a voice, 'This sin is +not unto death.'" This breathed fresh life into his soul. He was +"as if he had been raised out of a grave." "It was a release to me +from my former bonds, a shelter from my former storm." But though +the storm was allayed it was by no means over. He had to struggle +hard to maintain his ground. "Oh, how did Satan now lay about him +for to bring me down again. But he could by no means do it, for +this sentence stood like a millpost at my back." But after two +days the old despairing thoughts returned, "nor could his faith +retain the word." A few hours, however, saw the return of his +hopes. As he was on his knees before going to bed, "seeking the +Lord with strong cries," a voice echoed his prayer, "I have loved +Thee with an everlasting love." "Now I went to bed at quiet, and +when I awaked the next morning it was fresh upon my soul and I +believed it." + +These voices from heaven - whether real or not he could not tell, +nor did he much care, for they were real to him - were continually +sounding in his ears to help him out of the fresh crises of his +spiritual disorder. At one time "O man, great is thy faith," +"fastened on his heart as if one had clapped him on the back." At +another, "He is able," spoke suddenly and loudly within his heart; +at another, that "piece of a sentence," "My grace is sufficient," +darted in upon him "three times together," and he was "as though he +had seen the Lord Jesus look down through the tiles upon him," and +was sent mourning but rejoicing home. But it was still with him +like an April sky. At one time bright sunshine, at another +lowering clouds. The terrible words about Esau "returned on him as +before," and plunged him in darkness, and then again some good +words, "as it seemed writ in great letters," brought back the light +of day. But the sunshine began to last longer than before, and the +clouds were less heavy. The "visage" of the threatening texts was +changed; "they looked not on him so grimly as before;" "that about +Esau's birthright began to wax weak and withdraw and vanish." "Now +remained only the hinder part of the tempest. The thunder was +gone; only a few drops fell on him now and then." + +The long-expected deliverance was at hand. As he was walking in +the fields, still with some fears in his heart, the sentence fell +upon his soul, "Thy righteousness is in heaven." He looked up and +"saw with the eyes of his soul our Saviour at God's right hand." +"There, I say, was my righteousness; so that wherever I was, or +whatever I was a-doing, God could not say of me, 'He wants my +righteousness,' for that was just before Him. Now did the chains +fall off from my legs. I was loosed from my affliction and irons. +My temptations also fled away, so that from that time those +dreadful Scriptures left off to trouble me. Oh methought Christ, +Christ, there was nothing but Christ that was before mine eyes. I +could look from myself to Him, and should reckon that all those +graces of God that now were green upon me, were yet but like those +crack-groats, and fourpence-halfpennies that rich men carry in +their purses, while their gold is in their trunks at home. Oh, I +saw my gold was in my trunk at home. In Christ my Lord and +Saviour. Further the Lord did lead me into the mystery of union +with the Son of God. His righteousness was mine, His merits mine, +His victory also mine. Now I could see myself in heaven and earth +at once; in heaven by my Christ, by my Head, by my Righteousness +and Life, though on earth by my body or person. These blessed +considerations were made to spangle in mine eyes. Christ was my +all; all my Wisdom, all my Righteousness, all my Sanctification, +and all my Redemption." + + + +CHAPTER III. + + + +The Pilgrim, having now floundered through the Slough of Despond, +passed through the Wicket Gate, climbed the Hill Difficulty, and +got safe by the Lions, entered the Palace Beautiful, and was "had +in to the family." In plain words, Bunyan united himself to the +little Christian brotherhood at Bedford, of which the former loose- +living royalist major, Mr. Gifford, was the pastor, and was +formally admitted into their society. In Gifford we recognize the +prototype of the Evangelist of "The Pilgrim's Progress," while the +Prudence, Piety, and Charity of Bunyan's immortal narrative had +their human representatives in devout female members of the +congregation, known in their little Bedford world as Sister +Bosworth, Sister Munnes, and Sister Fenne, three of the poor women +whose pleasant words on the things of God, as they sat at a doorway +in the sun, "as if joy did make them speak," had first opened +Bunyan's eyes to his spiritual ignorance. He was received into the +church by baptism, which, according to his earliest biographer, +Charles Doe "the Struggler," was performed publicly by Mr. Gifford, +in the river Ouse, the "Bedford river" into which Bunyan tells us +he once fell out of a boat, and barely escaped drowning. This was +about the year 1653. The exact date is uncertain. Bunyan never +mentions his baptism himself, and the church books of Gifford's +congregation do not commence till May, 1656, the year after +Gifford's death. He was also admitted to the Holy Communion, which +for want, as he deemed, of due reverence in his first approach to +it, became the occasion of a temporary revival of his old +temptations. While actually at the Lord's Table he was "forced to +bend himself to pray" to be kept from uttering blasphemies against +the ordinance itself, and cursing his fellow communicants. For +three-quarters of a year he could "never have rest or ease" from +this shocking perversity. The constant strain of beating off this +persistent temptation seriously affected his health. "Captain +Consumption," who carried off his own "Mr. Badman," threatened his +life. But his naturally robust constitution "routed his forces," +and brought him through what at one time he anticipated would prove +a fatal illness. Again and again, during his period of +indisposition, the Tempter took advantage of his bodily weakness to +ply him with his former despairing questionings as to his spiritual +state. That seemed as bad as bad could be. "Live he must not; die +he dare not." He was repeatedly near giving up all for lost. But +a few words of Scripture brought to his mind would revive his +drooping spirits, with a natural reaction on his physical health, +and he became "well both in body and mind at once." "My sickness +did presently vanish, and I walked comfortably in my work for God +again." At another time, after three or four days of deep +dejection, some words from the Epistle to the Hebrews "came bolting +in upon him," and sealed his sense of acceptance with an assurance +he never afterwards entirely lost. "Then with joy I told my wife, +'Now I know, I know.' That night was a good night to me; I never +had but few better. I could scarce lie in my bed for joy and peace +and triumph through Christ." + +During this time Bunyan, though a member of the Bedford +congregation, continued to reside at Elstow, in the little thatched +wayside tenement, with its lean-to forge at one end, already +mentioned, which is still pointed out as "Bunyan's Cottage." There +his two children, Mary, his passionately loved blind daughter, and +Elizabeth were born; the one in 1650, and the other in 1654. It +was probably in the next year, 1655, that he finally quitted his +native village and took up his residence in Bedford, and became a +deacon of the congregation. About this time also he must have lost +the wife to whom he owed so much. Bunyan does not mention the +event, and our only knowledge of it is from the conversation of his +second wife, Elizabeth, with Sir Matthew Hale. He sustained also +an even greater loss in the death of his friend and comrade, Mr. +Gifford, who died in September, 1655. The latter was succeeded by +a young man named John Burton, of very delicate health, who was +taken by death from his congregation, by whom he was much beloved, +in September, 1660, four months after the restoration of the +Monarchy and the Church. Burton thoroughly appreciated Bunyan's +gifts, and stood sponsor for him on the publication of his first +printed work. This was a momentous year for Bunyan, for in it Dr. +Brown has shown, by a "comparison of dates," that we may probably +place the beginning of Bunyan's ministerial life. Bunyan was now +in his twenty-seventh year, in the prime of his manly vigour, with +a vivid imagination, ready speech, minute textual knowledge of the +Bible, and an experience of temptation and the wiles of the evil +one, such as few Christians of double his years have ever reached. +"His gifts could not long be hid." The beginnings of that which +was to prove the great work of his life were slender enough. As +Mr. Froude says, "he was modest, humble, shrinking." The members +of his congregation, recognizing that he had "the gift of +utterance" asked him to speak "a word of exhortation" to them. The +request scared him. The most truly gifted are usually the least +conscious of their gifts. At first it did much "dash and abash his +spirit." But after earnest entreaty he gave way, and made one or +two trials of his gift in private meetings, "though with much +weakness and infirmity." The result proved the correctness of his +brethren's estimate. The young tinker showed himself no common +preacher. His words came home with power to the souls of his +hearers, who "protested solemnly, as in the sight of God, that they +were both affected and comforted by them, and gave thanks to the +Father of mercies for the grace bestowed on him." After this, as +the brethren went out on their itinerating rounds to the villages +about, they began to ask Bunyan to accompany them, and though he +"durst not make use of his gift in an open way," he would +sometimes, "yet more privately still, speak a word of admonition, +with which his hearers professed their souls edified." That he had +a real Divine call to the ministry became increasingly evident, +both to himself and to others. His engagements of this kind +multiplied. An entry in the Church book records "that Brother +Bunyan being taken off by the preaching of the gospel" from his +duties as deacon, another member was appointed in his room. His +appointment to the ministry was not long delayed. After "some +solemn prayer with fasting," he was "called forth and appointed a +preacher of the word," not, however, so much for the Bedford +congregation as for the neighbouring villages. He did not however, +like some, neglect his business, or forget to "show piety at home." +He still continued his craft as a tinker, and that with industry +and success. "God," writes an early biographer, "had increased his +stores so that he lived in great credit among his neighbours." He +speedily became famous as a preacher. People "came in by hundreds +to hear the word, and that from all parts, though upon sundry and +divers accounts," - "some," as Southey writes, "to marvel, and some +perhaps to mock." Curiosity to hear the once profane tinker preach +was not one of the least prevalent motives. But his word proved a +word of power to many. Those "who came to scoff remained to pray." +"I had not preached long," he says, "before some began to be +touched and to be greatly afflicted in their minds." His success +humbled and amazed him, as it must every true man who compares the +work with the worker. "At first," he says, "I could not believe +that God should speak by me to the heart of any man, still counting +myself unworthy; and though I did put it from me that they should +be awakened by me, still they would confess it and affirm it before +the saints of God. They would also bless God for me - unworthy +wretch that I am - and count me God's instrument that showed to +them the way of salvation." He preached wherever he found +opportunity, in woods, in barns, on village greens, or even in +churches. But he liked best to preach "in the darkest places of +the country, where people were the furthest off from profession," +where he could give the fullest scope to "the awakening and +converting power" he possessed. His success as a preacher might +have tempted him to vanity. But the conviction that he was but an +instrument in the hand of a higher power kept it down. He saw that +if he had gifts and wanted grace he was but as a "tinkling cymbal." +"What, thought I, shall I be proud because I am a sounding brass? +Is it so much to be a fiddle?" This thought was, "as it were, a +maul on the head of the pride and vainglory" which he found "easily +blown up at the applause and commendation of every unadvised +christian." His experiences, like those of every public speaker, +especially the most eloquent, were very varied, even in the course +of the same sermon. Sometimes, he tells us, he would begin "with +much clearness, evidence, and liberty of speech," but, before he +had done, he found himself "so straitened in his speech before the +people," that he "scarce knew or remembered what he had been +about," and felt "as if his head had been in a bag all the time of +the exercise." He feared that he would not be able to "speak sense +to the hearers," or he would be "seized with such faintness and +strengthlessness that his legs were hardly able to carry him to his +place of preaching." Old temptations too came back. Blasphemous +thoughts formed themselves into words, which he had hard work to +keep himself from uttering from the pulpit. Or the tempter tried +to silence him by telling him that what he was going to say would +condemn himself, and he would go "full of guilt and terror even to +the pulpit door." "'What,' the devil would say, 'will you preach +this? Of this your own soul is guilty. Preach not of it at all, +or if you do, yet so mince it as to make way for your own escape.'" +All, however, was in vain. Necessity was laid upon him. "Woe," he +cried, "is me, if I preach not the gospel." His heart was "so +wrapped up in the glory of this excellent work, that he counted +himself more blessed and honoured of God than if he had made him +emperor of the Christian world." Bunyan was no preacher of vague +generalities. He knew that sermons miss their mark if they hit no +one. Self-application is their object. "Wherefore," he says, "I +laboured so to speak the word, as that the sin and person guilty +might be particularized by it." And what he preached he knew and +felt to be true. It was not what he read in books, but what he had +himself experienced. Like Dante he had been in hell himself, and +could speak as one who knew its terrors, and could tell also of the +blessedness of deliverance by the person and work of Christ. And +this consciousness gave him confidence and courage in declaring his +message. It was "as if an angel of God had stood at my back." "Oh +it hath been with such power and heavenly evidence upon my own soul +while I have been labouring to fasten it upon the conscience of +others, that I could not be contented with saying, 'I believe and +am sure.' Methought I was more than sure, if it be lawful so to +express myself, that the things I asserted were true." + +Bunyan, like all earnest workers for God, had his disappointments +which wrung his heart. He could be satisfied with nothing less +than the conversion and sanctification of his hearers. "If I were +fruitless, it mattered not who commanded me; but if I were +fruitful, I cared not who did condemn." And the result of a sermon +was often very different from what he anticipated: "When I thought +I had done no good, then I did the most; and when I thought I +should catch them, I fished for nothing." "A word cast in by-the- +bye sometimes did more execution than all the Sermon besides." The +tie between him and his spiritual children was very close. The +backsliding of any of his converts caused him the most extreme +grief; "it was more to me than if one of my own children were going +to the grave. Nothing hath gone so near me as that, unless it was +the fear of the loss of the salvation of my own soul." + +A story, often repeated, but too characteristic to be omitted, +illustrates the power of his preaching even in the early days of +his ministry. "Being to preach in a church in a country village in +Cambridgeshire" - it was before the Restoration - "and the public +being gathered together in the churchyard, a Cambridge scholar, and +none of the soberest neither, inquired what the meaning of that +concourse of people was (it being a week-day); and being told that +one Bunyan, a tinker, was to preach there, he gave a lad twopence +to hold his horse, saying he was resolved to hear the tinker prate; +and so he went into the church to hear him. But God met him there +by His ministry, so that he came out much changed; and would by his +good will hear none but the tinker for a long time after, he +himself becoming a very eminent preacher in that country +afterwards." "This story," continues the anonymous biographer, "I +know to be true, having many times discoursed with the man." To +the same ante-Restoration period, Dr. Brown also assigns the +anecdote of Bunyan's encounter, on the road near Cambridge, with +the university man who asked him how he dared to preach not having +the original Scriptures. With ready wit, Bunyan turned the tables +on the scholar by asking whether he had the actual originals, the +copies written by the apostles and prophets. The scholar replied, +"No," but they had what they believed to be a true copy of the +original. "And I," said Bunyan, "believe the English Bible to be a +true copy, too." "Then away rid the scholar." + +The fame of such a preacher, naturally, soon spread far and wide; +all the countryside flocked eagerly to hear him. In some places, +as at Meldreth in Cambridgeshire, and Yelden in his own county of +Bedfordshire, the pulpits of the parish churches were opened to +him. At Yelden, the Rector, Dr. William Dell, the Puritan Master +of Caius College, Cambridge, formerly Chaplain to the army under +Fairfax, roused the indignation of his orthodox parishioners by +allowing him - "one Bunyon of Bedford, a tinker," as he is +ignominiously styled in the petition sent up to the House of Lords +in 1660 - to preach in his parish church on Christmas Day. But, +generally, the parochial clergy were his bitterest enemies. "When +I first went to preach the word abroad," he writes, "the Doctors +and priests of the country did open wide against me." Many were +envious of his success where they had so signally failed. In the +words of Mr. Henry Deane, when defending Bunyan against the attacks +of Dr. T. Smith, Professor of Arabic and Keeper of the University +Library at Cambridge, who had come upon Bunyan preaching in a barn +at Toft, they were "angry with the tinker because he strove to mend +souls as well as kettles and pans," and proved himself more skilful +in his craft than those who had graduated at a university. Envy is +ever the mother of detraction. Slanders of the blackest dye +against his moral character were freely circulated, and as readily +believed. It was the common talk that he was a thorough reprobate. +Nothing was too bad for him. He was "a witch, a Jesuit, a +highwayman, and the like." It was reported that he had "his misses +and his bastards; that he had two wives at once," &c. Such charges +roused all the man in Bunyan. Few passages in his writings show +more passion than that in "Grace Abounding," in which he defends +himself from the "fools or knaves" who were their authors. He +"begs belief of no man, and if they believe him or disbelieve him +it is all one to him. But he would have them know how utterly +baseless their accusations are." "My foes," he writes, "have +missed their mark in their open shooting at me. I am not the man. +If all the fornicators and adulterers in England were hanged by the +neck till they be dead, John Bunyan would be still alive. I know +not whether there is such a thing as a woman breathing under the +copes of the whole heaven but by their apparel, their children, or +by common fame, except my wife." He calls not only men, but +angels, nay, even God Himself, to bear testimony to his innocence +in this respect. But though they were so absolutely baseless, nay, +the rather because they were so baseless, the grossness of these +charges evidently stung Bunyan very deeply. + +So bitter was the feeling aroused against him by the marvellous +success of his irregular ministry, that his enemies, even before +the restoration of the Church and Crown, endeavoured to put the arm +of the law in motion to restrain him. We learn from the church +books that in March, 1658, the little Bedford church was in trouble +for "Brother Bunyan," against whom an indictment had been laid at +the Assizes for "preaching at Eaton Socon." Of this indictment we +hear no more; so it was probably dropped. But it is an instructive +fact that, even during the boasted religious liberty of the +Protectorate, irregular preaching, especially that of the much +dreaded Anabaptists, was an indictable offence. But, as Dr. Brown +observes, "religious liberty had not yet come to mean liberty all +round, but only liberty for a certain recognized section of +Christians." That there was no lack of persecution during the +Commonwealth is clear from the cruel treatment to which Quakers +were subjected, to say nothing of the intolerance shown to +Episcopalians and Roman Catholics. In Bunyan's own county of +Bedford, Quakeresses were sentenced to be whipped and sent to +Bridewell for reproving a parish priest, perhaps well deserving of +it, and exhorting the folks on a market day to repentance and +amendment of life. "The simple truth is," writes Robert Southey, +"all parties were agreed on the one catholic opinion that certain +doctrines were not to be tolerated:" the only points of difference +between them were "what those doctrines were," and how far +intolerance might be carried. The withering lines are familiar to +us, in which Milton denounces the "New Forcers of Conscience," who +by their intolerance and "super-metropolitan and +hyperarchiepiscopal tyranny," proved that in his proverbial words, +"New Presbyter is but old Priest writ large" - + + +"Because you have thrown off your prelate lord, +And with stiff vows renounce his liturgy +Dare ye for this adjure the civil sword +To force our consciences that Christ set free!" + + +How Bunyan came to escape we know not. But the danger he was in +was imminent enough for the church at Bedford to meet to pray "for +counsail what to doe" in respect of it. + +It was in these closing years of the Protectorate that Bunyan made +his first essay at authorship. He was led to it by a long and +tiresome controversy with the Quakers, who had recently found their +way to Bedford. The foundations of the faith, he thought, were +being undermined. The Quakers' teaching as to the inward light +seemed to him a serious disparagement of the Holy Scriptures, while +their mystical view of the spiritual Christ revealed to the soul +and dwelling in the heart, came perilously near to a denial of the +historic reality of the personal Christ. He had had public +disputations with male and female Quakers from time to time, at the +Market Cross at Bedford, at "Paul's Steeple-house in Bedford town," +and other places. One of them, Anne Blackley by name, openly bade +him throw away the Scriptures, to which Bunyan replied, "No; for +then the devil would be too hard for me." The same enthusiast +charged him with "preaching up an idol, and using conjuration and +witchcraft," because of his assertion of the bodily presence of +Christ in heaven. + +The first work of one who was to prove himself so voluminous an +author, cannot but be viewed with much interest. It was a little +volume in duodecimo, of about two hundred pages, entitled "Some +Gospel Truths Opened, by that unworthy servant of Christ, John +Bunyan, of Bedford, by the Grace of God, preacher of the Gospel of +His dear Son," published in 1656. The little book, which, as Dr. +Brown says, was "evidently thrown off at a heat," was printed in +London and published at Newport Pagnel. Bunyan being entirely +unknown to the world, his first literary venture was introduced by +a commendatory "Epistle" written by Gifford's successor, John +Burton. In this Burton speaks of the young author - Bunyan was +only in his twenty-ninth year - as one who had "neither the +greatness nor the wisdom of the world to commend him," "not being +chosen out of an earthly but out of a heavenly university, the +Church of Christ," where "through grace he had taken three heavenly +degrees, to wit, union with Christ, the anointing of the Spirit, +and experience of the temptations of Satan," and as one of whose +"soundness in the faith, godly conversation, and his ability to +preach the Gospel, not by human aid, but by the Spirit of the +Lord," he "with many other saints had had experience." This book +must be pronounced a very remarkable production for a young +travelling tinker, under thirty, and without any literary or +theological training but such as he had gained for himself after +attaining to manhood. Its arrangement is excellent, the arguments +are ably marshalled, the style is clear, the language pure and well +chosen. It is, in the main, a well-reasoned defence of the +historical truth of the Articles of the Creed relating to the +Second Person of the Trinity, against the mystical teaching of the +followers of George Fox, who, by a false spiritualism, sublimated +the whole Gospel narrative into a vehicle for the representation of +truths relating to the inner life of the believer. No one ever had +a firmer grasp than Bunyan of the spiritual bearing of the facts of +the recorded life of Christ on the souls of men. But he would not +suffer their "subjectivity" - to adopt modern terms - to destroy +their "objectivity." If the Son of God was not actually born of +the Virgin Mary, if He did not live in a real human body, and in +that body die, lie in the grave, rise again, and ascend up into +heaven, whence He would return - and that Bunyan believed shortly - +in the same Body He took of His mortal mother, His preaching was +vain; their faith was vain; they were yet in their sins. Those who +"cried up a Christ within, IN OPPOSITION to a Christ without," who +asserted that Christ had no other Body but the Church, that the +only Crucifixion, rising again, and ascension of Christ was that +WITHIN the believer, and that every man had, as an inner light, a +measure of Christ's Spirit within him sufficient to guide him to +salvation, he asserted were "possessed with a spirit of delusion;" +deceived themselves, they were deceiving others to their eternal +ruin. To the refutation of such fundamental errors, substituting a +mystical for an historical faith, Bunyan's little treatise is +addressed; and it may be truly said the work is done effectually. +To adopt Coleridge's expression concerning Bunyan's greater and +world-famous work, it is an admirable "SUMMA THEOLOIAE +EVANGELICAE," which, notwithstanding its obsolete style and old- +fashioned arrangement, may be read even now with advantage. + +Bunyan's denunciation of the tenets of the Quakers speedily +elicited a reply. This was written by a certain Edward Burrough, a +young man of three and twenty, fearless, devoted, and ardent in the +propagation of the tenets of his sect. Being subsequently thrown +into Newgate with hundreds of his co-religionists, at the same time +that his former antagonist was imprisoned in Bedford Gaol, Burrough +met the fate Bunyan's stronger constitution enabled him to escape; +and in the language of the times, "rotted in prison," a victim to +the loathsome foulness of his place of incarceration, in the year +of the "Bartholomew Act," 1662. + +Burrough entitled his reply, "The Gospel of Peace, contended for in +the Spirit of Meekness and Love against the secret opposition of +John Bunyan, a professed minister in Bedfordshire." His opening +words, too characteristic of the entire treatise, display but +little of the meekness professed. "How long, ye crafty fowlers, +will ye prey upon the innocent? How long shall the righteous be a +prey to your teeth, ye subtle foxes! Your dens are in darkness, +and your mischief is hatched upon your beds of secret whoredoms?" +Of John Burton and the others who recommended Bunyan's treatise, he +says, "They have joined themselves with the broken army of Magog, +and have showed themselves in the defence of the dragon against the +Lamb in the day of war betwixt them." We may well echo Dr. Brown's +wish that "these two good men could have had a little free and +friendly talk face to face. There would probably have been better +understanding, and fewer hard words, for they were really not so +far apart as they thought. Bunyan believed in the inward light, +and Burrough surely accepted an objective Christ. But failing to +see each other's exact point of view, Burrough thunders at Bunyan, +and Bunyan swiftly returns the shot." + +The rapidity of Bunyan's literary work is amazing, especially when +we take his antecedents into account. Within a few weeks he +published his rejoinder to Friend Burrough, under the title of "A +Vindication of Gospel Truths Opened." In this work, which appeared +in 1667, Bunyan repays Burrough in his own coin, styling him "a +proved enemy to the truth," a "grossly railing Rabshakeh, who +breaks out with a taunt and a jeer," is very "censorious and utters +many words without knowledge." In vigorous, nervous language, +which does not spare his opponent, he defends himself from +Burrough's charges, and proves that the Quakers are "deceivers." +"As for you thinking that to drink water, and wear no hatbands is +not walking after your own lusts, I say that whatsoever man do make +a religion out of, having no warrant for it in Scripture, is but +walking after their own lusts, and not after the Spirit of God." +Burrough had most unwarrantably stigmatized Bunyan as one of "the +false prophets, who love the wages of unrighteousness, and through +covetousness make merchandise of souls." Bunyan calmly replies, +"Friend, dost thou speak this as from thy own knowledge, or did any +other tell thee so? However that spirit that led thee out this way +is a lying spirit. For though I be poor and of no repute in the +world as to outward things, yet through grace I have learned by the +example of the Apostle to preach the truth, and also to work with +my hands both for mine own living, and for those that are with me, +when I have opportunity. And I trust that the Lord Jesus who bath +helped me to reject the wages of unrighteousness hitherto, will +also help me still so that I shall distribute that which God hath +given me freely, and not for filthy lucre's sake." The +fruitfulness of his ministry which Burrough had called in question, +charging him with having "run before he was sent," he refuses to +discuss. Bunyan says, "I shall leave it to be taken notice of by +the people of God and the country where I dwell, who will testify +the contrary for me, setting aside the carnal ministry with their +retinue who are so mad against me as thyself." + +In his third book, published in 1658, at "the King's Head, in the +Old Bailey," a few days before Oliver Cromwell's death, Bunyan left +the thorny domain of polemics, for that of Christian exhortation, +in which his chief work was to be done. This work was an +exposition of the parable of "the Rich Man and Lazarus," bearing +the horror-striking title, "A Few Sighs from Hell, or the Groans of +a Damned Soul." In this work, as its title would suggest, Bunyan, +accepting the literal accuracy of the parable as a description of +the realities of the world beyond the grave, gives full scope to +his vivid imagination in portraying the condition of the lost. It +contains some touches of racy humour, especially in the similes, +and is written in the nervous homespun English of which he was +master. Its popularity is shown by its having gone through nine +editions in the author's lifetime. To take an example or two of +its style: dealing with the excuses people make for not hearing +the Gospel, "O, saith one, I dare not for my master, my brother, my +landlord; I shall lose his favour, his house of work, and so decay +my calling. O, saith another, I would willingly go in this way but +for my father; he chides me and tells me he will not stand my +friend when I come to want; I shall never enjoy a pennyworth of his +goods; he will disinherit me - And I dare not, saith another, for +my husband, for he will be a-railing, and tells me he will turn me +out of doors, he will beat me and cut off my legs;" and then +turning from the hindered to the hinderers: "Oh, what red lines +will there be against all those rich ungodly landlords that so keep +under their poor tenants that they dare not go out to hear the word +for fear that their rent should be raised or they turned out of +their houses. Think on this, you drunken proud rich, and scornful +landlords; think on this, you madbrained blasphemous husbands, that +are against the godly and chaste conversation of your wives; also +you that hold your servants so hard to it that you will not spare +them time to hear the Word, unless it will be where and when your +lusts will let you." He bids the ungodly consider that "the +profits, pleasures, and vanities of the world" will one day "give +thee the slip, and leave thee in the sands and the brambles of all +that thou hast done." The careless man lies "like the smith's dog +at the foot of the anvil, though the fire sparks flee in his face." +The rich man remembers how he once despised Lazarus, "scrubbed +beggarly Lazarus. What, shall I dishonour my fair sumptuous and +gay house with such a scabbed creephedge as he? The Lazaruses are +not allowed to warn them of the wrath to come, because they are not +gentlemen, because they cannot with Pontius Pilate speak Hebrew, +Greek, and Latin. Nay, they must not, shall not, speak to them, +and all because of this." + +The fourth production of Bunyan's pen, his last book before his +twelve years of prison life began, is entitled, "The Doctrine of +Law and Grace Unfolded." With a somewhat overstrained humility +which is hardly worthy of him, he describes himself in the title- +page as "that poor contemptible creature John Bunyan, of Bedford." +It was given to the world in May, 1659, and issued from the same +press in the Old Bailey as his last work. It cannot be said that +this is one of Bunyan's most attractive writings. It is as he +describes it, "a parcel of plain yet sound, true, and home +sayings," in which with that clearness of thought and accuracy of +arrangement which belongs to him, and that marvellous acquaintance +with Scripture language which he had gained by his constant study +of the Bible, he sets forth the two covenants - the covenant of +works, and the covenant of Grace - "in their natures, ends, bounds, +together with the state and condition of them that are under the +one, and of them that are under the other." Dr. Brown describes +the book as "marked by a firm grasp of faith and a strong view of +the reality of Christ's person and work as the one Priest and +Mediator for a sinful world." To quote a passage, "Is there +righteousness in Christ? that is mine. Is there perfection in that +righteousness? that is mine. Did He bleed for sin? It was for +mine. Hath He overcome the law, the devil, and hell? The victory +is mine, and I am come forth conqueror, nay, more than a conqueror +through Him that hath loved me. . . Lord, show me continually in +the light of Thy Spirit, through Thy word, that Jesus that was born +in the days of Caesar Augustus, when Mary, a daughter of Judah, +went with Joseph to be taxed in Bethlehem, that He is the very +Christ. Let me not rest contented without such a faith that is so +wrought even by the discovery of His Birth, Crucifying Death, +Blood, Resurrection, Ascension, and Second - which is His Personal +- Coming again, that the very faith of it may fill my soul with +comfort and holiness." Up and down its pages we meet with vivid +reminiscences of his own career, of which he can only speak with +wonder and thankfulness. In the "Epistle to the Reader," which +introduces it, occurs the passage already referred to describing +his education. "I never went to school to Aristotle or Plato, but +was brought up at my father's house in a very mean condition, among +a company of poor countrymen." Of his own religious state before +his conversion he thus speaks: "When it pleased the Lord to begin +to instruct my soul, He found me one of the black sinners of the +world. He found me making a sport of oaths, and also of lies; and +many a soul-poisoning meal did I make out of divers lusts, such as +drinking, dancing, playing, pleasure with the wicked ones of the +world; and so wedded was I to my sins, that thought I to myself, 'I +will have them though I lose my soul.'" And then, after narrating +the struggles he had had with his conscience, the alternations of +hope and fear which he passed through, which are more fully +described in his "Grace Abounding," he thus vividly depicts the +full assurance of faith he had attained to: "I saw through grace +that it was the Blood shed on Mount Calvary that did save and +redeem sinners, as clearly and as really with the eyes of my soul +as ever, methought, I had seen a penny loaf bought with a penny. . +. O let the saints know that unless the devil can pluck Christ out +of heaven he cannot pull a true believer out of Christ." In a +striking passage he shows how, by turning Satan's temptations +against himself, Christians may "Get the art as to outrun him in +his own shoes, and make his own darts pierce himself." "What! +didst thou never learn to outshoot the devil in his own bow, and +cut off his head with his own sword as David served Goliath?" The +whole treatise is somewhat wearisome, but the pious reader will +find much in it for spiritual edification. + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + + +We cannot doubt that one in whom loyalty was so deep and fixed a +principle as Bunyan, would welcome with sincere thankfulness the +termination of the miserable interval of anarchy which followed the +death of the Protector and the abdication of his indolent and +feeble son, by the restoration of monarchy in the person of Charles +the Second. Even if some forebodings might have arisen that with +the restoration of the old monarchy the old persecuting laws might +be revived, which made it criminal for a man to think for himself +in the matters which most nearly concerned his eternal interests, +and to worship in the way which he found most helpful to his +spiritual life, they would have been silenced by the promise, +contained in Charles's "Declaration from Breda," of liberty to +tender consciences, and the assurance that no one should be +disquieted for differences of opinion in religion, so long as such +differences did not endanger the peace and well-being of the realm. +If this declaration meant anything, it meant a breadth of +toleration larger and more liberal than had been ever granted by +Cromwell. Any fears of the renewal of persecution must be +groundless. + +But if such dreams of religious liberty were entertained they were +speedily and rudely dispelled, and Bunyan was one of the first to +feel the shock of the awakening. The promise was coupled with a +reference to the "mature deliberation of Parliament." With such a +promise Charles's easy conscience was relieved of all +responsibility. Whatever he might promise, the nation, and +Parliament which was its mouthpiece, might set his promise aside. +And if he knew anything of the temper of the people he was +returning to govern, he must have felt assured that any scheme of +comprehension was certain to be rejected by them. As Mr. Froude +has said, "before toleration is possible, men must have learnt to +tolerate toleration," and this was a lesson the English nation was +very far from having learnt; at no time, perhaps, were they further +from it. Puritanism had had its day, and had made itself generally +detested. Deeply enshrined as it was in many earnest and devout +hearts, such as Bunyan's, it was necessarily the religion not of +the many, but of the few; it was the religion not of the common +herd, but of a spiritual aristocracy. Its stern condemnation of +all mirth and pastime, as things in their nature sinful, of which +we have so many evidences in Bunyan's own writings; its repression +of all that makes life brighter and more joyous, and the sour +sanctimoniousness which frowned upon innocent relaxation, had +rendered its yoke unbearable to ordinary human nature, and men took +the earliest opportunity of throwing the yoke off and trampling it +under foot. They hailed with rude and boisterous rejoicings the +restoration of the Monarchy which they felt, with a true instinct, +involved the restoration of the old Church of England, the church +of their fathers and of the older among themselves, with its larger +indulgence for the instincts of humanity, its wider +comprehensiveness, and its more dignified and decorous ritual. + +The reaction from Puritanism pervaded all ranks. In no class, +however, was its influence more powerful than among the country +gentry. Most of them had been severe sufferers both in purse and +person during the Protectorate. Fines and sequestrations had +fallen heavily upon them, and they were eager to retaliate on their +oppressors. Their turn had come; can we wonder that they were +eager to use it? As Mr. J. R. Green has said: "The Puritan, the +Presbyterian, the Commonwealthsman, all were at their feet. . . +Their whole policy appeared to be dictated by a passionate spirit +of reaction. . . The oppressors of the parson had been the +oppressors of the squire. The sequestrator who had driven the one +from his parsonage had driven the other from his manor-house. Both +had been branded with the same charge of malignity. Both had +suffered together, and the new Parliament was resolved that both +should triumph together." + +The feeling thus eloquently expressed goes far to explain the +harshness which Bunyan experienced at the hands of the +administrators of justice at the crisis of his life at which we +have now arrived. Those before whom he was successively arraigned +belonged to this very class, which, having suffered most severely +during the Puritan usurpation, was least likely to show +consideration to a leading teacher of the Puritan body. Nor were +reasons wanting to justify their severity. The circumstances of +the times were critical. The public mind was still in an excitable +state, agitated by the wild schemes of political and religious +enthusiasts plotting to destroy the whole existing framework both +of Church and State, and set up their own chimerical fabric. We +cannot be surprised that, as Southey has said, after all the nation +had suffered from fanatical zeal, "The government, rendered +suspicious by the constant sense of danger, was led as much by fear +as by resentment to seventies which are explained by the +necessities of self-defence," and which the nervous apprehensions +of the nation not only condoned, but incited. Already Churchmen in +Wales had been taking the law into their own hands, and manifesting +their orthodoxy by harrying Quakers and Nonconformists. In the May +and June of this year, we hear of sectaries being taken from their +beds and haled to prison, and brought manacled to the Quarter +Sessions and committed to loathsome dungeons. Matters had advanced +since then. The Church had returned in its full power and +privileges together with the monarchy, and everything went back +into its old groove. Every Act passed for the disestablishment and +disendowment of the Church was declared a dead letter. Those of +the ejected incumbents who remained alive entered again into their +parsonages, and occupied their pulpits as of old; the surviving +bishops returned to their sees; and the whole existing statute law +regarding the Church revived from its suspended animation. No new +enactment was required to punish Nonconformists and to silence +their ministers; though, to the disgrace of the nation and its +parliament, many new ones were subsequently passed, with ever- +increasing disabilities. The various Acts of Elizabeth supplied +all that was needed. Under these Acts all who refused to attend +public worship in their parish churches were subject to fines; +while those who resorted to conventicles were to be imprisoned till +they made their submissions; if at the end of three months they +refused to submit they were to be banished the realm, and if they +returned from banishment, without permission of the Crown, they +were liable to execution as felons. This long-disused sword was +now drawn from its rusty sheath to strike terror into the hearts of +Nonconformists. It did not prove very effectual. All the true- +hearted men preferred to suffer rather than yield in so sacred a +cause. Bunyan was one of the earliest of these, as he proved one +of the staunchest. + +Early in October, 1660, the country magistrates meeting in Bedford +issued an order for the public reading of the Liturgy of the Church +of England. Such an order Bunyan would not regard as concerning +him. Anyhow he would not give obeying it a thought. One of the +things we least like in Bunyan is the feeling he exhibits towards +the Book of Common Prayer. To him it was an accursed thing, the +badge and token of a persecuting party, a relic of popery which he +exhorted his adherents to "take heed that they touched not" if they +would be "steadfast in the faith of Jesus Christ." Nothing could +be further from his thoughts than to give any heed to the +magistrates' order to go to church and pray "after the form of +men's inventions." + +The time for testing Bunyan's resolution was now near at hand. +Within six months of the king's landing, within little more than a +month of the issue of the magistrate's order for the use of the +Common Prayer Book, his sturdy determination to yield obedience to +no authority in spiritual matters but that of his own conscience +was put to the proof. Bunyan may safely be regarded as at that +time the most conspicuous of the Nonconformists of the +neighbourhood. He had now preached for five or six years with +ever-growing popularity. No name was so rife in men's mouths as +his. At him, therefore, as the representative of his brother +sectaries, the first blow was levelled. It is no cause of surprise +that in the measures taken against him he recognized the direct +agency of Satan to stop the course of the truth: "That old enemy +of man's salvation," he says, "took his opportunity to inflame the +hearts of his vassals against me, insomuch that at the last I was +laid out for the warrant of a justice." The circumstances were +these, on November 12, 1660, Bunyan had engaged to go to the little +hamlet of Lower Samsell near Harlington, to hold a religious +service. His purpose becoming known, a neighbouring magistrate, +Mr. Francis Wingate, of Harlington House, was instructed to issue a +warrant for his apprehension under the Act of Elizabeth. The +meeting being represented to him as one of seditious persons +bringing arms, with a view to the disturbance of the public peace, +he ordered that a strong watch should be kept about the house, "as +if," Bunyan says, "we did intend to do some fearful business to the +destruction of the country." The intention to arrest him oozed +out, and on Bunyan's arrival the whisperings of his friends warned +him of his danger. He might have easily escaped if he "had been +minded to play the coward." Some advised it, especially the +brother at whose house the meeting was to take place. He, "living +by them," knew "what spirit" the magistrates "were of," before whom +Bunyan would be taken if arrested, and the small hope there would +be of his avoiding being committed to gaol. The man himself, as a +"harbourer of a conventicle," would also run no small danger of the +same fate, but Bunyan generously acquits him of any selfish object +in his warning: "he was, I think, more afraid of (for) me, than of +(for) himself." The matter was clear enough to Bunyan. At the +same time it was not to be decided in a hurry. The time fixed for +the service not being yet come, Bunyan went into the meadow by the +house, and pacing up and down thought the question well out. "If +he who had up to this time showed himself hearty and courageous in +his preaching, and had made it his business to encourage others, +were now to run and make an escape, it would be of an ill savour in +the country. If he were now to flee because there was a warrant +out for him, would not the weak and newly-converted brethren be +afraid to stand when great words only were spoken to them. God +had, in His mercy, chosen him to go on the forlorn hope; to be the +first to be opposed for the gospel; what a discouragement it must +be to the whole body if he were to fly. No, he would never by any +cowardliness of his give occasion to the enemy to blaspheme the +gospel." So back to the house he came with his mind made up. He +had come to hold the meeting, and hold the meeting he would. He +was not conscious of saying or doing any evil. If he had to suffer +it was the Lord's will, and he was prepared for it. He had a full +hour before him to escape if he had been so minded, but he was +resolved "not to go away." He calmly waited for the time fixed for +the brethren to assemble, and then, without hurry or any show of +alarm, he opened the meeting in the usual manner, with prayer for +God's blessing. He had given out his text, the brethren had just +opened their Bibles and Bunyan was beginning to preach, when the +arrival of the constable with the warrant put an end to the +exercise. Bunyan requested to be allowed to say a few parting +words of encouragement to the terrified flock. This was granted, +and he comforted the little company with the reflection that it was +a mercy to suffer in so good a cause; and that it was better to be +the persecuted than the persecutors; better to suffer as Christians +than as thieves or murderers. The constable and the justice's +servant soon growing weary of listening to Bunyan's exhortations, +interrupted him and "would not be quiet till they had him away" +from the house. + +The justice who had issued the warrant, Mr. Wingate, not being at +home that day, a friend of Bunyan's residing on the spot offered to +house him for the night, undertaking that he should be forthcoming +the next day. The following morning this friend took him to the +constable's house, and they then proceeded together to Mr. +Wingate's. A few inquiries showed the magistrate that he had +entirely mistaken the character of the Samsell meeting and its +object. Instead of a gathering of "Fifth Monarchy men," or other +turbulent fanatics as he had supposed, for the disturbance of the +public peace, he learnt from the constable that they were only a +few peaceable, harmless people, met together "to preach and hear +the word," without any political meaning. Wingate was now at a +nonplus, and "could not well tell what to say." For the credit of +his magisterial character, however, he must do something to show +that he had not made a mistake in issuing the warrant. So he asked +Bunyan what business he had there, and why it was not enough for +him to follow his own calling instead of breaking the law by +preaching. Bunyan replied that his only object in coming there was +to exhort his hearers for their souls' sake to forsake their sinful +courses and close in with Christ, and this he could do and follow +his calling as well. Wingate, now feeling himself in the wrong, +lost his temper, and declared angrily that he would "break the neck +of these unlawful meetings," and that Bunyan must find securities +for his good behaviour or go to gaol. There was no difficulty in +obtaining the security. Bail was at once forthcoming. The real +difficulty lay with Bunyan himself. No bond was strong enough to +keep him from preaching. If his friends gave them, their bonds +would be forfeited, for he "would not leave speaking the word of +God." Wingate told him that this being so, he must be sent to gaol +to be tried at the next Quarter Sessions, and left the room to make +out his mittimus. While the committal was preparing, one whom +Bunyan bitterly styles "an old enemy to the truth," Dr. Lindall, +Vicar of Harlington, Wingate's father-in-law, came in and began +"taunting at him with many reviling terms," demanding what right he +had to preach and meddle with that for which he had no warrant, +charging him with making long prayers to devour widows houses, and +likening him to "one Alexander the Coppersmith he had read of," +"aiming, 'tis like," says Bunyan, "at me because I was a tinker." +The mittimus was now made out, and Bunyan in the constable's charge +was on his way to Bedford, when he was met by two of his friends, +who begged the constable to wait a little while that they might use +their interest with the magistrate to get Bunyan released. After a +somewhat lengthened interview with Wingate, they returned with the +message that if Bunyan would wait on the magistrate and "say +certain words" to him, he might go free. To satisfy his friends, +Bunyan returned with them, though not with any expectation that the +engagement proposed to him would be such as he could lawfully take. +"If the words were such as he could say with a good conscience he +would say them, or else he would not." + +After all this coming and going, by the time Bunyan and his friends +got back to Harlington House, night had come on. As he entered the +hall, one, he tells us, came out of an inner room with a lighted +candle in his hand, whom Bunyan recognized as one William Foster, a +lawyer of Bedford, Wingate's brother-in-law, afterwards a fierce +persecutor of the Nonconformists of the district. With a simulated +affection, "as if he would have leapt on my neck and kissed me," +which put Bunyan on his guard, as he had ever known him for "a +close opposer of the ways of God," he adopted the tone of one who +had Bunyan's interest at heart, and begged him as a friend to yield +a little from his stubbornness. His brother-in-law, he said, was +very loath to send him to gaol. All he had to do was only to +promise that he would not call people together, and he should be +set at liberty and might go back to his home. Such meetings were +plainly unlawful and must be stopped. Bunyan had better follow his +calling and leave off preaching, especially on week-days, which +made other people neglect their calling too. God commanded men to +work six days and serve Him on the seventh. It was vain for Bunyan +to reply that he never summoned people to hear him, but that if +they came he could not but use the best of his skill and wisdom to +counsel them for their soul's salvation; that he could preach and +the people could come to hear without neglecting their callings, +and that men were bound to look out for their souls' welfare on +week-days as well as Sundays. Neither could convince the other. +Bunyan's stubbornness was not a little provoking to Foster, and was +equally disappointing to Wingate. They both evidently wished to +dismiss the case, and intentionally provided a loophole for +Bunyan's escape. The promise put into his mouth - "that he would +not call the people together" - was purposely devised to meet his +scrupulous conscience. But even if he could keep the promise in +the letter, Bunyan knew that he was fully purposed to violate its +spirit. He was the last man to forfeit self-respect by playing +fast and loose with his conscience. All evasion was foreign to his +nature. The long interview came to an end at last. Once again +Wingate and Foster endeavoured to break down Bunyan's resolution; +but when they saw he was "at a point, and would not be moved or +persuaded," the mittimus was again put into the constable's hands, +and he and his prisoner were started on the walk to Bedford gaol. +It was dark, as we have seen, when this protracted interview began. +It must have now been deep in the night. Bunyan gives no hint +whether the walk was taken in the dark or in the daylight. There +was however no need for haste. Bedford was thirteen miles away, +and the constable would probably wait till the morning to set out +for the prison which was to be Bunyan's home for twelve long years, +to which he went carrying, he says, the "peace of God along with +me, and His comfort in my poor soul." + + + +CHAPTER V. + + + +A long-standing tradition has identified Bunyan's place of +imprisonment with a little corporation lock-up-house, some fourteen +feet square, picturesquely perched on one of the mid-piers of the +many-arched mediaeval bridge which, previously to 1765, spanned the +Ouse at Bedford, and as Mr. Froude has said, has "furnished a +subject for pictures," both of pen and pencil, "which if correct +would be extremely affecting." Unfortunately, however, for the +lovers of the sensational, these pictures are not "correct," but +are based on a false assumption which grew up out of a desire to +heap contumely on Bunyan's enemies by exaggerating the severity of +his protracted, but by no means harsh imprisonment. Being arrested +by the warrant of a county magistrate for a county offence, +Bunyan's place of incarceration was naturally the county gaol. +There he undoubtedly passed the twelve years of his captivity, and +there the royal warrant for his release found him "a prisoner in +the common gaol for our county of Bedford." But though far +different from the pictures which writers, desirous of exhibiting +the sufferings of the Puritan confessor in the most telling form, +have drawn - if not "a damp and dreary cell" into which "a narrow +chink admits a few scanty rays of light to render visible the +prisoner, pale and emaciated, seated on the humid earth, pursuing +his daily task to earn the morsel which prolongs his existence and +his confinement together," - "the common gaol" of Bedford must have +been a sufficiently strait and unwholesome abode, especially for +one, like the travelling tinker, accustomed to spend the greater +part of his days in the open-air in unrestricted freedom. Prisons +in those days, and indeed long afterwards, were, at their best, +foul, dark, miserable places. A century later Howard found Bedford +gaol, though better than some, in what would now be justly deemed a +disgraceful condition. One who visited Bunyan during his +confinement speaks of it as "an uncomfortable and close prison." +Bunyan however himself, in the narrative of his imprisonment, makes +no complaint of it, nor do we hear of his health having in any way +suffered from the conditions of his confinement, as was the case +with not a few of his fellow-sufferers for the sake of religion in +other English gaols, some of them even unto death. Bad as it must +have been to be a prisoner, as far as his own testimony goes, there +is no evidence that his imprisonment, though varying in its +strictness with his various gaolers, was aggravated by any special +severity; and, as Mr. Froude has said, "it is unlikely that at any +time he was made to suffer any greater hardships than were +absolutely inevitable." + +The arrest of one whose work as a preacher had been a blessing to +so many, was not at once tamely acquiesced in by the religious body +to which he belonged. A few days after Bunyan's committal to gaol, +some of "the brethren" applied to Mr. Crompton, a young magistrate +at Elstow, to bail him out, offering the required security for his +appearance at the Quarter Sessions. The magistrate was at first +disposed to accept the bail; but being a young man, new in his +office, and thinking it possible that there might be more against +Bunyan than the "mittimus" expressed, he was afraid of compromising +himself by letting him go at large. His refusal, though it sent +him back to prison, was received by Bunyan with his usual calm +trust in God's overruling providence. "I was not at all daunted, +but rather glad, and saw evidently that the Lord had heard me." +Before he set out for the justice's house, he tells us he had +committed the whole event to God's ordering, with the prayer that +"if he might do more good by being at liberty than in prison," the +bail might be accepted, "but if not, that His will might be done." +In the failure of his friends' good offices he saw an answer to his +prayer, encouraging the hope that the untoward event, which +deprived them of his personal ministrations, "might be an awaking +to the saints in the country," and while "the slender answer of the +justice," which sent him back to his prison, stirred something akin +to contempt, his soul was full of gladness. "Verily I did meet my +God sweetly again, comforting of me, and satisfying of me, that it +was His will and mind that I should be there." The sense that he +was being conformed to the image of his great Master was a stay to +his soul. "This word," he continues, "did drop in upon my heart +with some life, for he knew that 'for envy they had delivered +him.'" + +Seven weeds after his committal, early in January, 1661, the +Quarter Sessions came on, and "John Bunyan, of the town of Bedford, +labourer," was indicted in the customary form for having +"devilishly and perniciously abstained from coming to church to +hear Divine Service," and as "a common upholder of several unlawful +meetings and conventions, to the great disturbance and distraction +of the good subjects of the kingdom." The chairman of the bench +was the brutal and blustering Sir John Keeling, the prototype of +Bunyan's Lord Hategood in Faithful's trial at Vanity Fair, who +afterwards, by his base subserviency to an infamous government, +climbed to the Lord Chief Justice's seat, over the head of Sir +Matthew Hale. Keeling had suffered much from the Puritans during +the great Rebellion, when, according to Clarendon, he was "always +in gaol," and was by no means disposed to deal leniently with an +offender of that persuasion. His brethren of the bench were +country gentlemen hating Puritanism from their heart, and eager for +retaliation for the wrongs it had wrought them. From such a bench, +even if Bunyan had been less uncompromising, no leniency was to be +anticipated. But Bunyan's attitude forbade any leniency. As the +law stood he had indisputably broken it, and he expressed his +determination, respectfully but firmly, to take the first +opportunity of breaking it again. "I told them that if I was let +out of prison today I would preach the gospel again to-morrow by +the help of God." We may dislike the tone adopted by the +magistrates towards the prisoner; we may condemn it as overbearing +and contemptuous; we may smile at Keeling's expositions of +Scripture and his stock arguments against unauthorized prayer and +preaching, though we may charitably believe that Bunyan +misunderstood him when he makes him say that "the Book of Common +Prayer had been ever since the apostles' time"; we may think that +the prisoner, in his "canting pedlar's French," as Keeling called +it, had the better of his judges in knowledge of the Bible, in +Christian charity, as well as in dignity and in common sense, and +that they showed their wisdom in silencing him in court - "Let him +speak no further," said one of them, "he will do harm," - since +they could not answer him more convincingly: but his legal offence +was clear. He confessed to the indictment, if not in express +terms, yet virtually. He and his friends had held "many meetings +together, both to pray to God and to exhort one another. I +confessed myself guilty no otherwise." Such meetings were +forbidden by the law, which it was the duty of the justices to +administer, and they had no choice whether they would convict or +no. Perhaps they were not sorry they had no such choice. Bunyan +was a most "impracticable" prisoner, and as Mr. Froude says, the +"magistrates being but unregenerate mortals may be pardoned if they +found him provoking." The sentence necessarily followed. It was +pronounced, not, we are sure reluctantly, by Keeling, in the terms +of the Act. "He was to go back to prison for three months. If at +three months' end he still refused to go to church to hear Divine +service and leave his preaching, he was to be banished the realm," +- in modern language "transported," and if "he came back again +without special royal license," he must "stretch by the neck for +it." + +"This," said Keeling, "I tell you plainly." Bunyan's reply that +"as to that matter he was at a point with the judge," for "that he +would repeat the offence the first time he could," provoked a +rejoinder from one of the bench, and the unseemly wrangling might +have been still further prolonged, had it not been stopped by the +gaoler, who "pulling him away to be gone," had him back to prison, +where he says, and "blesses the Lord Jesus Christ for it," his +heart was as "sweetly refreshed" in returning to it as it had "been +during his examination. So that I find Christ's words more than +bare trifles, where He saith, He will give a mouth and wisdom, even +such as all the adversaries shall not gainsay or resist. And that +His peace no man can take from us." + +The magistrates, however, though not unnaturally irritated by what +seemed to them Bunyan's unreasonable obstinacy, were not desirous +to push matters to extremity. The three months named in his +sentence, at the expiration of which he was either to conform or be +banished the realm, were fast drawing to an end, without any sign +of submission on his part. As a last resort Mr. Cobb, the Clerk of +the Peace, was sent to try what calm and friendly reasoning might +effect. Cobb, who evidently knew Bunyan personally, did his best, +as a kind-hearted, sensible man, to bring him to reason. Cobb did +not profess to be "a man that could dispute," and Bunyan had the +better of him in argument. His position, however, was +unassailable. The recent insurrection of Venner and his Fifth +Monarchy men, he said, had shown the danger to the public peace +there was in allowing fanatical gatherings to assemble unchecked. +Bunyan, whose loyalty was unquestioned, must acknowledge the +prudence of suppressing meetings which, however good their +ostensible aim, might issue in nothing less than the ruin of the +kingdom and commonwealth. Bunyan had confessed his readiness to +obey the apostolic precept by submitting himself to the king as +supreme. The king forbade the holding of private meetings, which, +under colour of religion, might be prejudicial to the State. Why +then did he not submit? This need not hinder him from doing good +in a neighbourly way. He might continue to use his gifts and +exhort his neighbours in private discourse, provided he did not +bring people together in public assemblies. The law did not +abridge him of this liberty. Why should he stand so strictly on +public meetings? Or why should he not come to church and hear? +Was his gift so far above that of others that he could learn of no +one? If he could not be persuaded, the judges were resolved to +prosecute the law against him. He would be sent away beyond the +seas to Spain or Constantinople - either Cobb's or Bunyan's +colonial geography was rather at fault here - or some other remote +part of the world, and what good could he do to his friends then? +"Neighbour Bunyan" had better consider these things seriously +before the Quarter Session, and be ruled by good advice. The +gaoler here put in his word in support of Cobb's arguments: +"Indeed, sir, I hope he will be ruled." But all Cobb's friendly +reasonings and expostulations were ineffectual to bend Bunyan's +sturdy will. He would yield to no-one in his loyalty to his +sovereign, and his readiness to obey the law. But, he said, with a +hairsplitting casuistry he would have indignantly condemned in +others, the law provided two ways of obeying, "one to obey +actively, and if his conscience forbad that, then to obey +passively; to lie down and suffer whatever they might do to him." +The Clerk of the Peace saw that it was no use to prolong the +argument any further. "At this," writes Bunyan, "he sat down, and +said no more; which, when he had done, I did thank him for his +civil and meek discoursing with me; and so we parted: O that we +might meet in heaven!" + +The Coronation which took place very soon after this interview, +April 13, 1661, afforded a prospect of release without unworthy +submission. The customary proclamation, which allowed prisoners +under sentence for any offence short of felony to sue out a pardon +for twelve months from that date, suspended the execution of the +sentence of banishment and gave a hope that the prison doors might +be opened for him. The local authorities taking no steps to enable +him to profit by the royal clemency, by inserting his name in the +list of pardonable offenders, his second wife, Elizabeth, travelled +up to London, - no slight venture for a young woman not so long +raised from the sick bed on which the first news of her husband's +arrest had laid her, - and with dauntless courage made her way to +the House of Lords, where she presented her petition to one of the +peers, whom she calls Lord Barkwood, but whom unfortunately we +cannot now identify. He treated her kindly, and showed her +petition to other peers, who appear to have been acquainted with +the circumstances of Bunyan's case. They replied that the matter +was beyond their province, and that the question of her husband's +release was committed to the judges at the next assizes. These +assizes were held at Bedford in the following August. The judges +of the circuit were Twisden and Sir Matthew Hale. From the latter +- the friend of Richard Baxter, who, as Burnet records, took great +care to "cover the Nonconformists, whom he thought too hardly used, +all he could from the seventies some designed; and discouraged +those who were inclined to stretch the laws too much against them" +- Bunyan's case would be certain to meet with sympathetic +consideration. But being set to administer the law, not according +to his private wishes, but according to its letter and its spirit, +he was powerless to relieve him. Three several times did Bunyan's +noble-hearted wife present her husband's petition that he might be +heard, and his case taken impartially into consideration. But the +law forbad what Burnet calls Sir Matthew Hale's "tender and +compassionate nature" to have free exercise. He "received the +petition very mildly at her hand, telling her that he would do her +and her husband the best good he could; but he feared he could do +none." His brother judge's reception of her petition was very +different. Having thrown it into the coach, Twisden "snapt her +up," telling her, what after all was no more than the truth, that +her husband was a convicted person, and could not be released +unless he would promise to obey the law and abstain from preaching. +On this the High Sheriff, Edmund Wylde, of Houghton Conquest, spoke +kindly to the poor woman, and encouraged her to make a fresh +application to the judges before they left the town. So she made +her way, "with abashed face and trembling heart," to the large +chamber at the Old Swan Inn at the Bridge Foot, where the two +judges were receiving a large number of the justices of the peace +and other gentry of the county. Addressing Sir Matthew Hale she +said, "My lord, I make bold to come again to your lordship to know +what may be done with my husband." Hale received her with the same +gentleness as before, repeated what he had said previously, that as +her husband had been legally convicted, and his conviction was +recorded, unless there was something to undo that he could do her +no good. Twisden, on the other hand, got violently angry, charged +her brutally with making poverty her cloak, told her that her +husband was a breaker of the peace, whose doctrine was the doctrine +of the devil, and that he ran up and down and did harm, while he +was better maintained by his preaching than by following his +tinker's craft. At last he waxed so violent that "withal she +thought he would have struck her." In the midst of all his coarse +abuse, however, Twisden hit the mark when he asked: "What! you +think we can do what we list?" And when we find Hale, confessedly +the soundest lawyer of the time, whose sympathies were all with the +prisoner, after calling for the Statute Book, thus summing up the +matter: "I am sorry, woman, that I can do thee no good. Thou must +do one of these three things, viz., either apply thyself to the +king, or sue out his pardon, or get a writ of error," which last, +he told her, would be the cheapest course - we may feel sure that +Bunyan's Petition was not granted because it could not be granted +legally. The blame of his continued imprisonment lay, if anywhere, +with the law, not with its administrators. This is not always +borne in mind as it ought to be. As Mr. Froude remarks, "Persons +often choose to forget that judges are sworn to administer the law +which they find, and rail at them as if the sentences which they +are obliged by their oath to pass were their own personal acts." +It is not surprising that Elizabeth Bunyan was unable to draw this +distinction, and that she left the Swan chamber in tears, not, +however, so much at what she thought the judges' "hardheartedness +to her and her husband," as at the thought of "the sad account such +poor creatures would have to give" hereafter, for what she deemed +their "opposition to Christ and His gospel." + +No steps seem to have been taken by Bunyan's wife, or any of his +influential friends, to carry out either of the expedients named by +Hale. It may have been that the money needed was not forthcoming, +or, what Southey remarks is "quite probable," - "because it is +certain that Bunyan, thinking himself in conscience bound to preach +in defiance of the law, would soon have made his case worse than it +then was." + +At the next assizes, which were held in January, 1662, Bunyan again +made strenuous efforts to get his name put on the calendar of +felons, that he might have a regular trial before the king's judges +and be able to plead his cause in person. This, however, was +effectually thwarted by the unfriendly influence of the county +magistrates by whom he had been committed, and the Clerk of the +Peace, Mr. Cobb, who having failed in his kindly meant attempt to +induce "Neighbour Bunyan" to conform, had turned bitterly against +him and become one of his chief enemies. "Thus," writes Bunyan, +"was I hindered and prevented at that time also from appearing +before the judge, and left in prison." Of this prison, the county +gaol of Bedford, he remained an inmate, with one, short interval in +1666, for the next twelve years, till his release by order of the +Privy Council, May 17, 1672. + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + + +The exaggeration of the severity of Bunyan's imprisonment long +current, now that the facts are better known, has led, by a very +intelligible reaction, to an undue depreciation of it. Mr. Froude +thinks that his incarceration was "intended to be little more than +nominal," and was really meant in kindness by the authorities who +"respected his character," as the best means of preventing him from +getting himself into greater trouble by "repeating an offence that +would compel them to adopt harsh measures which they were earnestly +trying to avoid." If convicted again he must be transported, and +"they were unwilling to drive him out of the country." It is, +however, to be feared that it was no such kind consideration for +the tinker-preacher which kept the prison doors closed on Bunyan. +To the justices he was simply an obstinate law-breaker, who must be +kept in prison as long as he refused compliance with the Act. If +he rotted in gaol, as so many of his fellow sufferers for +conscience' sake did in those unhappy times, it was no concern of +theirs. He and his stubbornness would be alone to blame. + +It is certainly true that during a portion of his captivity, +Bunyan, in Dr. Brown's words, "had an amount of liberty which in +the case of a prisoner nowadays would be simply impossible." But +the mistake has been made of extending to the whole period an +indulgence which belonged only to a part, and that a very limited +part of it. When we are told that Bunyan was treated as a prisoner +at large, and like one "on parole," free to come and go as he +pleased, even as far as London, we must remember that Bunyan's own +words expressly restrict this indulgence to the six months between +the Autumn Assizes of 1661 and the Spring Assizes of 1662. +"Between these two assizes," he says, "I had by my jailer some +liberty granted me more than at the first." This liberty was +certainly of the largest kind consistent with his character of a +prisoner. The church books show that he was occasionally present +at their meetings, and was employed on the business of the +congregation. Nay, even his preaching, which was the cause of his +imprisonment, was not forbidden. "I followed," he says, writing of +this period, "my wonted course of preaching, taking all occasions +that were put into my hand to visit the people of God." But this +indulgence was very brief and was brought sharply to an end. It +was plainly irregular, and depended on the connivance of his +jailer. We cannot be surprised that when it came to the +magistrates' ears - "my enemies," Bunyan rather unworthily calls +them - they were seriously displeased. Confounding Bunyan with the +Fifth Monarchy men and other turbulent sectaries, they imagined +that his visits to London had a political object, "to plot, and +raise division, and make insurrections," which, he honestly adds, +"God knows was a slander." The jailer was all but "cast out of his +place," and threatened with an indictment for breach of trust, +while his own liberty was so seriously "straitened" that he was +prohibited even "to look out at the door." The last time Bunyan's +name appears as present at a church meeting is October 28, 1661, +nor do we see it again till October 9, 1668, only four years before +his twelve years term of imprisonment expired. + +But though his imprisonment was not so severe, nor his prison quite +so narrow and wretched as some word-painters have described them, +during the greater part of the time his condition was a dreary and +painful one, especially when spent, as it sometimes was, "under +cruel and oppressive jailers." The enforced separation from his +wife and children, especially his tenderly loved blind daughter, +Mary, was a continually renewed anguish to his loving heart. "The +parting with them," he writes, "hath often been to me as pulling +the flesh from the bones; and that not only because I am somewhat +too fond of these great mercies, but also because I should often +have brought to my mind the many hardships, miseries, and wants my +poor family was like to meet with, should I be taken from them; +especially my poor blind child, who lay nearer to my heart than all +beside. Poor child, thought I, thou must be beaten, thou must beg, +thou must suffer hunger, cold, nakedness, and a thousand +calamities, though I cannot now endure the wind should blow on +thee. O, the thoughts of the hardships my blind one might go under +would break my heart to pieces." He seemed to himself like a man +pulling down his house on his wife and children's head, and yet he +felt, "I must do it; O, I must do it." He was also, he tells us, +at one time, being but "a young prisoner," greatly troubled by the +thoughts that "for aught he could tell," his "imprisonment might +end at the gallows," not so much that he dreaded death as that he +was apprehensive that when it came to the point, even if he made "a +scrabbling shift to clamber up the ladder," he might play the +coward and so do discredit to the cause of religion. "I was +ashamed to die with a pale face and tottering knees for such a +cause as this." The belief that his imprisonment might be +terminated by death on the scaffold, however groundless, evidently +weighed long on his mind. The closing sentences of his third +prison book, "Christian Behaviour," published in 1663, the second +year of his durance, clearly point to such an expectation. "Thus +have I in few words written to you before I die, . . . not knowing +the shortness of my life, nor the hindrances that hereafter I may +have of serving my God and you." The ladder of his apprehensions +was, as Mr. Froude has said, "an imaginary ladder," but it was very +real to Bunyan. "Oft I was as if I was on the ladder with a rope +about my neck." The thought of it, as his autobiography shows, +caused him some of his deepest searchings of heart, and noblest +ventures of faith. He was content to suffer by the hangman's hand +if thus he might have an opportunity of addressing the crowd that +he thought would come to see him die. "And if it must be so, if +God will but convert one soul by my very last words, I shall not +count my life thrown away or lost." And even when hours of +darkness came over his soul, and he was tempted to question the +reality of his Christian profession, and to doubt whether God would +give him comfort at the hour of death, he stayed himself up with +such bold words as these. "I was bound, but He was free. Yea, +'twas my duty to stand to His word whether He would ever look on me +or no, or save me at the last. If God doth not come in, thought I, +I will leap off the ladder even blindfold into Eternity, sink or +swim, come heaven, come hell. Lord Jesus, if Thou wilt catch me, +do. If not, I will venture for Thy name." + +Bunyan being precluded by his imprisonment from carrying on his +brazier's craft for the support of his wife and family, and his +active spirit craving occupation, he got himself taught how to make +"long tagged laces," "many hundred gross" of which, we are told by +one who first formed his acquaintance in prison, he made during his +captivity, for "his own and his family's necessities." "While his +hands were thus busied," writes Lord Macaulay, "he had often +employment for his mind and for his lips." "Though a prisoner he +was a preacher still." As with St. Paul in his Roman chains, "the +word of God was not bound." The prisoners for conscience' sake, +who like him, from time to time, were cooped up in Bedford gaol, +including several of his brother ministers and some of his old +friends among the leading members of his own little church, +furnished a numerous and sympathetic congregation. At one time a +body of some sixty, who had met for worship at night in a +neighbouring wood, were marched off to gaol, with their minister at +their head. But while all about him was in confusion, his spirit +maintained its even calm, and he could at once speak the words of +strength and comfort that were needed. In the midst of the hurry +which so many "newcomers occasioned," writes the friend to whom we +are indebted for the details of his prison life, "I have heard Mr. +Bunyan both preach and pray with that mighty spirit of faith and +plerophory of Divine assistance that has made me stand and wonder." +These sermons addressed to his fellow prisoners supplied, in many +cases, the first outlines of the books which, in rapid succession, +flowed from his pen during the earlier years of his imprisonment, +relieving the otherwise insupportable tedium of his close +confinement. Bunyan himself tells us that this was the case with +regard to his "Holy City," the first idea of which was borne in +upon his mind when addressing "his brethren in the prison chamber," +nor can we doubt that the case was the same with other works of +his. To these we shall hereafter return. Nor was it his fellow +prisoners only who profited by his counsels. In his "Life and +Death of Mr. Badman," he gives us a story of a woman who came to +him when he was in prison, to confess how she had robbed her +master, and to ask his help. Hers was probably a representative +case. The time spared from his handicraft, and not employed in +religious counsel and exhortation, was given to study and +composition. For this his confinement secured him the leisure +which otherwise he would have looked for in vain. The few books he +possessed he studied indefatigably. His library was, at least at +one period, a very limited one, - "the least and the best library," +writes a friend who visited him in prison, "that I ever saw, +consisting only of two books - the Bible, and Foxe's 'Book of +Martyrs.'" "But with these two books," writes Mr. Froude, "he had +no cause to complain of intellectual destitution." Bunyan's mode +of composition, though certainly exceedingly rapid, - thoughts +succeeding one another with a quickness akin to inspiration, - was +anything but careless. The "limae labor" with him was unsparing. +It was, he tells us, "first with doing, and then with undoing, and +after that with doing again," that his books were brought to +completion, and became what they are, a mine of Evangelical +Calvinism of the richest ore, entirely free from the narrow +dogmatism and harsh predestinarianism of the great Genevan divine; +books which for clearness of thought, lucidity of arrangement, +felicity of language, rich even if sometimes homely force of +illustration, and earnestness of piety have never been surpassed. + +Bunyan's prison life when the first bitterness of it was past, and +habit had done away with its strangeness, was a quiet and it would +seem, not an unhappy one. A manly self-respect bore him up and +forbade his dwelling on the darker features of his position, or +thinking or speaking harshly of the authors of his durance. "He +was," writes one who saw him at this time, "mild and affable in +conversation; not given to loquacity or to much discourse unless +some urgent occasion required. It was observed he never spoke of +himself or his parents, but seemed low in his own eyes. He was +never heard to reproach or revile, whatever injury he received, but +rather rebuked those who did so. He managed all things with such +exactness as if he had made it his study not to give offence." + +According to his earliest biographer, Charles Doe, in 1666, the +year of the Fire of London, after Bunyan had lain six years in +Bedford gaol, "by the intercession of some interest or power that +took pity on his sufferings," he enjoyed a short interval of +liberty. Who these friends and sympathisers were is not mentioned, +and it would be vain to conjecture. This period of freedom, +however, was very short. He at once resumed his old work of +preaching, against which the laws had become even more stringent +during his imprisonment, and was apprehended at a meeting just as +he was about to preach a sermon. He had given out his text, "Dost +thou believe on the Son of God?" (John ix. 35), and was standing +with his open Bible in his hand, when the constable came in to take +him. Bunyan fixed his eyes on the man, who turned pale, let go his +hold, and drew back, while Bunyan exclaimed, "See how this man +trembles at the word of God!" This is all we know of his second +arrest, and even this little is somewhat doubtful. The time, the +place, the circumstances, are as provokingly vague as much else of +Bunyan's life. The fact, however, is certain. Bunyan returned to +Bedford gaol, where he spent another six years, until the issuing +of the "Declaration of Indulgence" early in 1672 opened the long- +closed doors, and he walked out a free man, and with what he valued +far more than personal liberty, freedom to deliver Christ's message +as he understood it himself, none making him afraid, and to declare +to his brother sinners what their Saviour had done for them, and +what he expected them to do that they might obtain the salvation He +died to win. + +From some unknown cause, perhaps the depressing effect of +protracted confinement, during this second six years Bunyan's pen +was far less prolific than during the former period. Only two of +his books are dated in these years. The last of these, "A Defence +of the Doctrine of Justification by Faith," a reply to a work of +Edward Fowler, afterwards Bishop of Gloucester, the rector of +Northill, was written in hot haste immediately before his release, +and issued from the press contemporaneously with it, the prospect +of liberty apparently breathing new life into his wearied soul. +When once Bunyan became a free man again, his pen recovered its +former copiousness of production, and the works by which he has +been immortalized, "The Pilgrim's Progress" - which has been +erroneously ascribed to Bunyan's twelve years' imprisonment - and +its sequel, "The Holy War," and the "Life and Death of Mr. Badman," +and a host of more strictly theological works, followed one another +in rapid succession. + +Bunyan's second term of imprisonment was certainly less severe than +that which preceded it. At its commencement we learn that, like +Joseph in Egypt, he found favour in his jailer's eyes, who "took +such pity of his rigorous suffering, that he put all care and trust +into his hands." Towards the close of his imprisonment its rigour +was still further relaxed. The Bedford church book begins its +record again in 1688, after an interval of ominous silence of five +years, when the persecution was at the hottest. In its earliest +entries we find Bunyan's name, which occurs repeatedly up to the +date of his final release in 1672. Not one of these notices gives +the slightest allusion of his being a prisoner. He is deputed with +others to visit and remonstrate with backsliding brethren, and +fulfil other commissions on behalf of the congregation, as if he +were in the full enjoyment of his liberty. This was in the two +years' interval between the expiration of the Conventicle Act, +March 2, 1667-8, and the passing of the new Act, styled by Marvell, +"the quintessence of arbitrary malice," April 11, 1670. After a +few months of hot persecution, when a disgraceful system of +espionage was set on foot and the vilest wretches drove a lucrative +trade as spies on "meetingers," the severity greatly lessened. +Charles II. was already meditating the issuing of a Declaration of +Indulgence, and signified his disapprobation of the "forceable +courses" in which, "the sad experience of twelve years" showed, +there was "very little fruit." One of the first and most notable +consequences of this change of policy was Bunyan's release. + +Mr. Offor's patient researches in the State Paper Office have +proved that the Quakers, than whom no class of sectaries had +suffered more severely from the persecuting edicts of the Crown, +were mainly instrumental in throwing open the prison doors to those +who, like Bunyan, were in bonds for the sake of their religion. +Gratitude to John Groves, the Quaker mate of Tattersall's fishing +boat, in which Charles had escaped to France after the battle of +Worcester, had something, and the untiring advocacy of George +Whitehead, the Quaker, had still more, to do with this act of royal +clemency. We can readily believe that the good-natured Charles was +not sorry to have an opportunity of evidencing his sense of former +services rendered at a time of his greatest extremity. But the +main cause lay much deeper, and is connected with what Lord +Macaulay justly styles "one of the worst acts of one of the worst +governments that England has ever seen" - that of the Cabal. Our +national honour was at its lowest ebb. Charles had just concluded +the profligate Treaty of Dover, by which, in return for the +"protection" he sought from the French king, he declared himself a +Roman Catholic at heart, and bound himself to take the first +opportunity of "changing the present state of religion in England +for a better," and restoring the authority of the Pope. The +announcement of his conversion Charles found it convenient to +postpone. Nor could the other part of his engagement be safely +carried into effect at once. It called for secret and cautious +preparation. But to pave the way for it, by an unconstitutional +exercise of his prerogative he issued a Declaration of Indulgence +which suspended all penal laws against "whatever sort of +Nonconformists or Recusants." The latter were evidently the real +object of the indulgence; the former class were only introduced the +better to cloke his infamous design. Toleration, however, was thus +at last secured, and the long-oppressed Nonconformists hastened to +profit by it. "Ministers returned," writes Mr. J. R. Green, "after +years of banishment, to their homes and their flocks. Chapels were +re-opened. The gaols were emptied. Men were set free to worship +God after their own fashion. John Bunyan left the prison which had +for twelve years been his home." More than three thousand licenses +to preach were at once issued. One of the earliest of these, dated +May 9, 1672, four months before his formal pardon under the Great +Seal, was granted to Bunyan, who in the preceding January had been +chosen their minister by the little congregation at Bedford, and +"giving himself up to serve Christ and His Church in that charge, +had received of the elders the right hand of fellowship." The +place licensed for the exercise of Bunyan's ministry was a barn +standing in an orchard, once forming part of the Castle Moat, which +one of the congregation, Josias Roughead, acting for the members of +his church, had purchased. The license bears date May 9, 1672. +This primitive place of worship, in which Bunyan preached regularly +till his death, was pulled down in 1707, when a "three-ridged +meeting-house" was erected in its place. This in its turn gave +way, in 1849, to the existing more seemly chapel, to which the +present Duke of Bedford, in 1876, presented a pair of noble bronze +doors bearing scenes, in high relief, from "The Pilgrim's +Progress," the work of Mr. Frederick Thrupp. In the vestry are +preserved Bunyan's chair, and other relics of the man who has made +the name of Bedford famous to the whole civilized world. + + + +CHAPTER VII. + + + +Mr. Green has observed that Bunyan "found compensation for the +narrow bounds of his prison in the wonderful activity of his pen. +Tracts, controversial treatises, poems, meditations, his 'Grace +Abounding,' and his 'Holy War,' followed each other in quick +succession." Bunyan's literary fertility in the earlier half of +his imprisonment was indeed amazing. Even if, as seems almost +certain, we have been hitherto in error in assigning the First Part +of "The Pilgrim's Progress" to this period, while the "Holy War" +certainly belongs to a later, the works which had their birth in +Bedford Gaol during the first six years of his confinement, are of +themselves sufficient to make the reputation of any ordinary +writer. As has been already remarked, for some unexplained cause, +Bunyan's gifts as an author were much more sparingly called into +exercise during the second half of his captivity. Only two works +appear to have been written between 1666 and his release in 1672. + +Mr. Green has spoken of "poems" as among the products of Bunyan's +pen during this period. The compositions in verse belonging to +this epoch, of which there are several, hardly deserve to be +dignified with so high a title. At no part of his life had Bunyan +much title to be called a poet. He did not aspire beyond the rank +of a versifier, who clothed his thoughts in rhyme or metre instead +of the more congenial prose, partly for the pleasure of the +exercise, partly because he knew by experience that the lessons he +wished to inculcate were more likely to be remembered in that form. +Mr. Froude, who takes a higher estimate of Bunyan's verse than is +commonly held, remarks that though it is the fashion to apply the +epithet of "doggerel" to it, the "sincere and rational meaning" +which pervades his compositions renders such an epithet improper. +"His ear for rhythm," he continues, "though less true than in his +prose, is seldom wholly at fault, and whether in prose or verse, he +had the superlative merit that he could never write nonsense." +Bunyan's earliest prison work, entitled "Profitable Meditations," +was in verse, and neither this nor his later metrical ventures +before his release - his "Four Last Things," his "Ebal and +Gerizim," and his "Prison Meditations" - can be said to show much +poetical power. At best he is a mere rhymester, to whom rhyme and +metre, even when self-chosen, were as uncongenial accoutrements "as +Saul's armour was to David." The first-named book, which is +entitled a "Conference between Christ and a Sinner," in the form of +a poetical dialogue, according to Dr. Brown has "small literary +merit of any sort." The others do not deserve much higher +commendation. There is an individuality about the "Prison +Meditations" which imparts to it a personal interest, which is +entirely wanting in the other two works, which may be characterized +as metrical sermons, couched in verse of the Sternhold and Hopkins +type. A specimen or two will suffice. The "Four Last Things" thus +opens:- + + +"These lines I at this time present +To all that will them heed, +Wherein I show to what intent +God saith, 'Convert with speed.' +For these four things come on apace, +Which we should know full well, +Both death and judgment, and, in place +Next to them, heaven and hell." + + +The following lines are from "Ebal and Gerizim":- + + +"Thou art like one that hangeth by a thread +Over the mouth of hell, as one half dead; +And oh, how soon this thread may broken be, +Or cut by death, is yet unknown to thee. +But sure it is if all the weight of sin, +And all that Satan too hath doing been +Or yet can do, can break this crazy thread, +'Twill not be long before among the dead +Thou tumble do, as linked fast in chains, +With them to wait in fear for future pains." + + +The poetical effusion entitled "Prison Meditations" does not in any +way rise above the prosaic level of its predecessors. But it can +be read with less weariness from the picture it presents of +Bunyan's prison life, and of the courageous faith which sustained +him. Some unnamed friend, it would appear, fearing he might +flinch, had written him a letter counselling him to keep "his head +above the flood." Bunyan replied in seventy stanzas in ballad +measure, thanking his correspondent for his good advice, of which +he confesses he stood in need, and which he takes it kindly of him +to send, even though his feet stand upon Mount Zion, and the gaol +is to him like a hill from which he could see beyond this world, +and take his fill of the blessedness of that which remains for the +Christian. Though in bonds his mind is free, and can wander where +it will. + + +"For though men keep my outward man +Within their locks and bars, +Yet by the faith of Christ, I can +Mount higher than the stars." + + +Meanwhile his captivity is sweetened by the thought of what it was +that brought him there:- + + +"I here am very much refreshed +To think, when I was out, +I preached life, and peace, and rest, +To sinners round about. + +My business then was souls to save +By preaching grace and faith, +Of which the comfort now I have +And have it shall till death. + +That was the work I was about +When hands on me they laid. +'Twas this for which they plucked me out +And vilely to me said, + +'You heretic, deceiver, come, +To prison you must go, +You preach abroad, and keep not home, +You are the Church's foe.' + +Wherefore to prison they me sent, +Where to this day I lie, +And can with very much content +For my profession die. + +The prison very sweet to me +Hath been since I came here, +And so would also hanging be +If God would there appear. + +To them that here for evil lie +The place is comfortless; +But not to me, because that I +Lie here for righteousness. + +The truth and I were both here cast +Together, and we do +Lie arm in arm, and so hold fast +Each other, this is true. + +Who now dare say we throw away +Our goods or liberty, +When God's most holy Word doth say +We gain thus much thereby?" + + +It will be seen that though Bunyan's verses are certainly not high- +class poetry, they are very far removed from doggerel. Nothing +indeed that Bunyan ever wrote, however rugged the rhymes and +limping the metre, can be so stigmatized. The rude scribblings on +the margins of the copy of the "Book of Martyrs," which bears +Bunyan's signature on the title-pages, though regarded by Southey +as "undoubtedly" his, certainly came from a later and must less +instructed pen. And as he advanced in his literary career, his +claim to the title of a poet, though never of the highest, was much +strengthened. The verses which diversify the narrative in the +Second Part of "The Pilgrim's Progress" are decidedly superior to +those in the First Part, and some are of high excellence. Who is +ignorant of the charming little song of the Shepherd Boy in the +Valley of Humiliation, "in very mean clothes, but with a very fresh +and well-favoured countenance, and wearing more of the herb called +Heartsease in his bosom than he that is clad in silk and velvet?" - + + +"He that is down need fear no fall; +He that is low, no pride; +He that is humble, ever shall +Have God to be his guide. + +I am content with what I have, +Little be it or much, +And, Lord, contentment still I crave, +Because Thou savest such. + +Fulness to such a burden is +That go on Pilgrimage, +Here little, and hereafter Bliss +Is best from age to age." + + +Bunyan reaches a still higher flight in Valiant-for-Truth's song, +later on, the Shakesperian ring of which recalls Amiens' in "As You +Like It," + + +"Under the greenwood tree, +Who loves to lie with me. . . +Come hither, come hither," + + +and has led some to question whether it can be Bunyan's own. The +resemblance, as Mr. Froude remarks, is "too near to be accidental." +"Perhaps he may have heard the lines, and the rhymes may have clung +to him without his knowing whence they came." + + +"Who would true Valour see, +Let him come hither, +One here will constant be, +Come wind, come weather. +There's no discouragement +Shall make him once relent +His first avowed intent +To be a Pilgrim. + +Who so beset him round +With dismal stories, +Do but themselves confound +His strength the more is. +No lion can him fright, +He'll with a giant fight, +But he will have a right +To be a Pilgrim. + +Hobgoblin nor foul fiend +Can daunt his spirit, +He knows he at the end +Shall life inherit. +Then fancies fly away +He'll fear not what men say, +He'll labour night and day +To be a Pilgrim." + + +All readers of "The Pilgrim's Progress" and "The Holy War" are +familiar with the long metrical compositions giving the history of +these works by which they are prefaced and the latter work is +closed. No more characteristic examples of Bunyan's muse can be +found. They show his excellent command of his native tongue in +racy vernacular, homely but never vulgar, and his power of +expressing his meaning "with sharp defined outlines and without the +waste of a word." + +Take this account of his perplexity, when the First Part of his +"Pilgrim's Progress" was finished, whether it should be given to +the world or no, and the characteristic decision with which he +settled the question for himself:- + + +"Well, when I had then put mine ends together, +I show'd them others that I might see whether +They would condemn them, or them justify; +And some said Let them live; some, Let them die. +Some said, John, print it; others said, Not so; +Some said it might do good; others said No. +Now was I in a strait, and did not see +Which was the best thing to be done by me; +At last I thought since you are thus divided +I print it will; and so the case decided;" + + +or the lines in which he introduces the Second Part of the Pilgrim +to the readers of the former part:- + + +"Go now, my little Book, to every place +Where my first Pilgrim hath but shown his face: +Call at their door: If any say, 'Who's there?' +Then answer that Christiana is here. +If they bid thee come in, then enter thou +With all thy boys. And then, as thou knowest how, +Tell who they are, also from whence they came; +Perhaps they'll know them by their looks or name. +But if they should not, ask them yet again +If formerly they did not entertain +One Christian, a pilgrim. If they say +They did, and were delighted in his way: +Then let them know that these related are +Unto him, yea, his wife and children are. +Tell them that they have left their house and home, +Are turned Pilgrims, seek a world to come; +That they have met with hardships on the way, +That they do meet with troubles night and day." + + +How racy, even if the lines are a little halting, is the defence of +the genuineness of his Pilgrim in "The Advertisement to the Reader" +at the end of "The Holy War." + + +"Some say the Pilgrim's Progress is not mine, +Insinuating as if I would shine +In name or fame by the worth of another, +Like some made rich by robbing of their brother; +Or that so fond I am of being sire +I'll father bastards; or if need require, +I'll tell a lie or print to get applause. +I scorn it. John such dirt-heap never was +Since God converted him. . . +Witness my name, if anagram'd to thee +The letters make NU HONY IN A B. +IOHN BUNYAN." + + +How full of life and vigour his sketch of the beleaguerment and +deliverance of "Mansoul," as a picture of his own spiritual +experience, in the introductory verses to "The Holy War"! - + + +"For my part I, myself, was in the town, +Both when 'twas set up, and when pulling down; +I saw Diabolus in possession, +And Mansoul also under his oppression. +Yes, I was there when she crowned him for lord, +And to him did submit with one accord. +When Mansoul trampled upon things divine, +And wallowed in filth as doth a swine, +When she betook herself unto her arms, +Fought her Emmanuel, despised his charms: +Then I was there, and did rejoice to see +Diabolus and Mansoul so agree. +I saw the prince's armed men come down +By troops, by thousands, to besiege the town, +I saw the captains, heard the trumpets sound, +And how his forces covered all the ground, +Yea, how they set themselves in battle array, +I shall remember to my dying day." + + +Bunyan's other essays in the domain of poetry need not detain us +long. The most considerable of these - at least in bulk - if it be +really his, is a version of some portions of the Old and New +Testaments: the life of Joseph, the Book of Ruth, the history of +Samson, the Book of Jonah, the Sermon on the Mount, and the General +Epistle of St. James. The attempt to do the English Bible into +verse has been often made and never successfully: in the nature of +things success in such a task is impossible, nor can this attempt +be regarded as happier than that of others. Mr. Froude indeed, who +undoubtingly accepts their genuineness, is of a different opinion. +He styles the "Book of Ruth" and the "History of Joseph" "beautiful +idylls," of such high excellence that, "if we found them in the +collected works of a poet laureate, we should consider that a +difficult task had been accomplished successfully." It would seem +almost doubtful whether Mr. Froude can have read the compositions +that he commends so largely, and so much beyond their merit. The +following specimen, taken haphazard, will show how thoroughly +Bunyan or the rhymester, whoever he may be, has overcome what Mr. +Froude regards as an almost insuperable difficulty, and has managed +to "spoil completely the faultless prose of the English +translation":- + + +"Ruth replied, +Intreat me not to leave thee or return; +For where thou goest I'll go, where thou sojourn +I'll sojourn also - and what people's thine, +And who thy God, the same shall both be mine. +Where thou shalt die, there will I die likewise, +And I'll be buried where thy body lies. +The Lord do so to me and more if I +Do leave thee or forsake thee till I die." + + +The more we read of these poems, not given to the world till twelve +years after Bunyan's death, and that by a publisher who was "a +repeated offender against the laws of honest dealing," the more we +are inclined to agree with Dr. Brown, that the internal evidence of +their style renders their genuineness at the least questionable. +In the dull prosaic level of these compositions there is certainly +no trace of the "force and power" always present in Bunyan's rudest +rhymes, still less of the "dash of genius" and the "sparkle of +soul" which occasionally discover the hand of a master. + +Of the authenticity of Bunyan's "Divine Emblems," originally +published three years after his death under the title of "Country +Rhymes for Children," there is no question. The internal evidence +confirms the external. The book is thoroughly in Bunyan's vein, +and in its homely naturalness of imagery recalls the similitudes of +the "Interpreter's House," especially those expounded to Christiana +and her boys. As in that "house of imagery" things of the most +common sort, the sweeping of a room, the burning of a fire, the +drinking of a chicken, a robin with a spider in his mouth, are made +the vehicle of religious teaching; so in this "Book for Boys and +Girls," a mole burrowing in the ground, a swallow soaring in the +air, the cuckoo which can do nothing but utter two notes, a flaming +and a blinking candle, or a pound of candles falling to the ground, +a boy chasing a butterfly, the cackling of a hen when she has laid +her egg, all, to his imaginative mind, set forth some spiritual +truth or enforce some wholesome moral lesson. How racy, though +homely, are these lines on a Frog! - + + +"The Frog by nature is but damp and cold, +Her mouth is large, her belly much will hold, +She sits somewhat ascending, loves to be +Croaking in gardens, though unpleasantly. + +The hypocrite is like unto this Frog, +As like as is the puppy to the dog. +He is of nature cold, his mouth is wide +To prate, and at true goodness to deride. +And though this world is that which he doth love, +He mounts his head as if he lived above. +And though he seeks in churches for to croak, +He neither seeketh Jesus nor His yoke." + + +There is some real poetry in those on the Cuckoo, though we may be +inclined to resent his harsh treatment of our universal favourite:- + + +"Thou booby says't thou nothing but Cuckoo? +The robin and the wren can that outdo. +They to us play thorough their little throats +Not one, but sundry pretty tuneful notes. +But thou hast fellows, some like thee can do +Little but suck our eggs, and sing Cuckoo. + +Thy notes do not first welcome in our spring, +Nor dost thou its first tokens to us bring. +Birds less than thee by far like prophets do +Tell us 'tis coming, though not by Cuckoo, +Nor dost thou summer bear away with thee +Though thou a yawling bawling Cuckoo be. +When thou dost cease among us to appear, +Then doth our harvest bravely crown our year. +But thou hast fellows, some like thee can do +Little but suck our eggs, and sing Cuckoo. + +Since Cuckoos forward not our early spring +Nor help with notes to bring our harvest in, +And since while here, she only makes a noise +So pleasing unto none as girls and boys, +The Formalist we may compare her to, +For he doth suck our eggs and sing Cuckoo." + + +A perusal of this little volume with its roughness and quaintness, +sometimes grating on the ear but full of strong thought and +picturesque images, cannot fail to raise Bunyan's pretensions as a +poet. His muse, it is true, as Alexander Smith has said, is a +homely one. She is "clad in russet, wears shoes and stockings, has +a country accent, and walks along the level Bedfordshire roads." +But if the lines are unpolished, "they have pith and sinew, like +the talk of a shrewd peasant," with the "strong thought and the +knack of the skilled workman who can drive by a single blow the +nail home to the head." + +During his imprisonment Bunyan's pen was much more fertile in prose +than in poetry. Besides his world-famous "Grace Abounding," he +produced during the first six years of his gaol life a treatise on +prayer, entitled "Praying in the Spirit;" a book on "Christian +Behaviour," setting forth with uncompromising plainness the +relative duties of husbands and wives, parents and children, +masters and servants, by which those who profess a true faith are +bound to show forth its reality and power; the "Holy City," an +exposition of the vision in the closing chapters of the Book of +Revelation, brilliant with picturesque description and rich in +suggestive thought, which, he tells us, had its origin in a sermon +preached by him to his brethren in bonds in their prison chamber; +and a work on the "Resurrection of the Dead and Eternal Judgment." +On these works we may not linger. There is not one of them which +is not marked by vigour of thought, clearness of language, accuracy +of arrangement, and deep spiritual experience. Nor is there one +which does not here and there exhibit specimens of Bunyan's +picturesque imaginative power, and his command of forcible and racy +language. Each will reward perusal. His work on "Prayer" is +couched in the most exalted strain, and is evidently the production +of one who by long and agonizing experience had learnt the true +nature of prayer, as a pouring out of the soul to God, and a +wrestling with Him until the blessing, delayed not denied, is +granted. It is, however, unhappily deformed by much ignorant +reviling of the Book of Common Prayer. He denounces it as "taken +out of the papistical mass-book, the scraps and fragments of some +popes, some friars, and I know not what;" and ridicules the order +of service it propounds to the worshippers. "They have the matter +and the manner of their prayer at their fingers' ends; they set +such a prayer for such a day, and that twenty years before it +comes: one for Christmas, another for Easter, and six days after +that. They have also bounded how many syllables must be said in +every one of them at their public exercises. For each saint's day +also they have them ready for the generations yet unborn to say. +They can tell you also when you shall kneel, when you shall stand, +when you should abide in your seats, when you should go up into the +chancel, and what you should do when you come there. All which the +apostles came short of, as not being able to compose so profound a +manner." This bitter satirical vein in treating of sacred things +is unworthy of its author, and degrading to his sense of reverence. +It has its excuse in the hard measure he had received from those +who were so unwisely endeavouring to force the Prayer Book on a +generation which had largely forgotten it. In his mind, the men +and the book were identified, and the unchristian behaviour of its +advocates blinded his eyes to its merits as a guide to devotion. +Bunyan, when denouncing forms in worship, forgot that the same +apostle who directs that in our public assemblies everything should +be done "to edification," directs also that everything should be +done "decently and in order." + +By far the most important of these prison works - "The Pilgrim's +Progress," belonging, as will be seen, to a later period - is the +"Grace Abounding," in which with inimitable earnestness and +simplicity Bunyan gives the story of his early life and his +religious history. This book, if he had written no other, would +stamp Bunyan as one of the greatest masters of the English language +of his own or any other age. In graphic delineation of the +struggles of a conscience convicted of sin towards a hardly won +freedom and peace, the alternations of light and darkness, of hope +and despair, which chequered its course, its morbid self-torturing +questionings of motive and action, this work of the travelling +tinker, as a spiritual history, has never been surpassed. Its +equal can hardly be found, save perhaps in the "Confessions of St. +Augustine." These, however, though describing a like spiritual +conflict, are couched in a more cultured style, and rise to a +higher metaphysical region than Bunyan was capable of attaining to. +His level is a lower one, but on that level Bunyan is without a +rival. Never has the history of a soul convinced of the reality of +eternal perdition in its most terrible form as the most certain of +all possible facts, and of its own imminent danger of hopeless, +irreversible doom - seeing itself, to employ his own image, +hanging, as it were, over the pit of hell by a thin line, which +might snap any moment - been portrayed in more nervous and awe- +inspiring language. And its awfulness is enhanced by its self- +evident truth. Bunyan was drawing no imaginary picture of what +others might feel, but simply telling in plain unadorned language +what he had felt. The experience was a very tremendous reality to +him. Like Dante, if he had not actually been in hell, he had been +on the very threshold of it; he had in very deed traversed "the +Valley of the Shadow of Death," had heard its "hideous noises," and +seen "the Hobgoblins of the Pit." He "spake what he knew and +testified what he had seen." Every sentence breathes the most +tremendous earnestness. His words are the plainest, drawn from his +own homely vernacular. He says in his preface, which will amply +repay reading, as one of the most characteristic specimens of his +style, that he could have stepped into a higher style, and adorned +his narrative more plentifully. But he dared not. "God did not +play in convincing him. The devil did not play in tempting him. +He himself did not play when he sunk as into a bottomless pit, and +the pangs of hell caught hold on him. Nor could he play in +relating them. He must be plain and simple and lay down the thing +as it was. He that liked it might receive it. He that did not +might produce a better." The remembrance of "his great sins, his +great temptations, his great fears of perishing for ever, recalled +the remembrance of his great help, his great support from heaven, +the great grace God extended to such a wretch as he was." Having +thus enlarged on his own experience, he calls on his spiritual +children, for whose use the work was originally composed and to +whom it is dedicated, - "those whom God had counted him worthy to +beget to Faith by his ministry in the Word" - to survey their own +religious history, to "work diligently and leave no corner +unsearched." He would have them "remember their tears and prayers +to God; how they sighed under every hedge for mercy. Had they +never a hill Mizar (Psa. xlii. 6) to remember? Had they forgotten +the close, the milkhouse, the stable, the barn, where God visited +their souls? Let them remember the Word on which the Lord had +caused them to hope. If they had sinned against light, if they +were tempted to blaspheme, if they were down in despair, let them +remember that it had been so with him, their spiritual father, and +that out of them all the Lord had delivered him." This dedication +ends thus: "My dear children, the milk and honey is beyond this +wilderness. God be merciful to you, and grant you be not slothful +to go in to possess the land." + +This remarkable book, as we learn from the title-page, was "written +by his own hand in prison." It was first published by George +Larkin in London, in 1666, the sixth year of his imprisonment, the +year of the Fire of London, about the time that he experienced his +first brief release. As with "The Pilgrim's Progress," the work +grew in picturesque detail and graphic power in the author's hand +after its first appearance. The later editions supply some of the +most interesting personal facts contained in the narrative, which +were wanting when it first issued from the press. His two escapes +from drowning, and from the supposed sting of an adder; his being +drawn as a soldier, and his providential deliverance from death; +the graphic account of his difficulty in giving up bell-ringing at +Elstow Church, and dancing on Sundays on Elstow Green - these and +other minor touches which give a life and colour to the story, +which we should be very sorry to lose, are later additions. It is +impossible to over-estimate the value of the "Grace Abounding," +both for the facts of Bunyan's earlier life and for the spiritual +experience of which these facts were, in his eyes only the outward +framework. Beginning with his parentage and boyhood, it carries us +down to his marriage and life in the wayside-cottage at Elstow, his +introduction to Mr. Gifford's congregation at Bedford, his joining +that holy brotherhood, and his subsequent call to the work of the +ministry among them, and winds up with an account of his +apprehension, examinations, and imprisonment in Bedford gaol. The +work concludes with a report of the conversation between his noble- +hearted wife and Sir Matthew Hale and the other judges at the +Midsummer assizes, narrated in a former chapter, "taken down," he +says, "from her own mouth." The whole story is of such sustained +interest that our chief regret on finishing it is that it stops +where it does, and does not go on much further. Its importance for +our knowledge of Bunyan as a man, as distinguished from an author, +and of the circumstances of his life, is seen by a comparison of +our acquaintance with his earlier and with his later years. When +he laid down his pen no one took it up, and beyond two or three +facts, and a few hazy anecdotes we know little or nothing of all +that happened between his final release and his death. + +The value of the "Grace Abounding," however, as a work of +experimental religion may be easily over-estimated. It is not many +who can study Bunyan's minute history of the various stages of his +spiritual life with real profit. To some temperaments, especially +among the young, the book is more likely to prove injurious than +beneficial; it is calculated rather to nourish morbid imaginations, +and a dangerous habit of introspection, than to foster the quiet +growth of the inner life. Bunyan's unhappy mode of dealing with +the Bible as a collection of texts, each of Divine authority and +declaring a definite meaning entirely irrespective of its context, +by which the words hide the Word, is also utterly destructive of +the true purpose of the Holy Scriptures as a revelation of God's +loving and holy mind and will. Few things are more touching than +the eagerness with which, in his intense self-torture, Bunyan tried +to evade the force of those "fearful and terrible Scriptures" which +appeared to seal his condemnation, and to lay hold of the promises +to the penitent sinner. His tempest-tossed spirit could only find +rest by doing violence to the dogma, then universally accepted and +not quite extinct even in our own days, that the authority of the +Bible - that "Divine Library" - collectively taken, belongs to each +and every sentence of the Bible taken for and by itself, and that, +in Coleridge's words, "detached sentences from books composed at +the distance of centuries, nay, sometimes at a millenium from each +other, under different dispensations and for different objects," +are to be brought together "into logical dependency." But "where +the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty." The divinely given +life in the soul of man snaps the bonds of humanly-constructed +logical systems. Only those, however, who have known by experience +the force of Bunyan's spiritual combat, can fully appreciate and +profit by Bunyan's narrative. He tells us on the title-page that +it was written "for the support of the weak and tempted people of +God." For such the "Grace Abounding to the chief of sinners" will +ever prove most valuable. Those for whom it was intended will find +in it a message - of comfort and strength. + +As has been said, Bunyan's pen was almost idle during the last six +years of his imprisonment. Only two of his works were produced in +this period: his "Confession of Faith," and his "Defence of the +Doctrine of Justification by Faith." Both were written very near +the end of his prison life, and published in the same year, 1672, +only a week or two before his release. The object of the former +work was, as Dr. Brown tells us, "to vindicate his teaching, and if +possible, to secure his liberty." Writing as one "in bonds for the +Gospel," his professed principles, he asserts, are "faith, and +holiness springing therefrom, with an endeavour so far as in him +lies to be at peace with all men." He is ready to hold communion +with all whose principles are the same; with all whom he can reckon +as children of God. With these he will not quarrel about "things +that are circumstantial," such as water baptism, which he regards +as something quite indifferent, men being "neither the better for +having it, nor the worse for having it not." "He will receive them +in the Lord as becometh saints. If they will not have communion +with him, the neglect is theirs not his. But with the openly +profane and ungodly, though, poor people! they have been christened +and take the communion, he will have no communion. It would be a +strange community, he says, that consisted of men and beasts. Men +do not receive their horse or their dog to their table; they put +them in a room by themselves." As regards forms and ceremonies, he +"cannot allow his soul to be governed in its approach to God by the +superstitious inventions of this world. He is content to stay in +prison even till the moss grows on his eyelids rather than thus +make of his conscience a continual butchery and slaughter-shop by +putting out his eyes and committing himself to the blind to lead +him. Eleven years' imprisonment was a weighty argument to pause +and pause again over the foundation of the principles for which he +had thus suffered. Those principles he had asserted at his trial, +and in the tedious tract of time since then he had in cold blood +examined them by the Word of God and found them good; nor could he +dare to revolt from or deny them on pain of eternal damnation." + +The second-named work, the "Defence of the Doctrine of +Justification by Faith," is entirely controversial. The Rev. +Edward Fowler, afterwards Bishop of Gloucester, then Rector of +Northill, had published in the early part of 1671, a book entitled +"The Design of Christianity." A copy having found its way into +Bunyan's hands, he was so deeply stirred by what he deemed its +subversion of the true foundation of Evangelical religion that he +took up his pen and in the space of six weeks composed a long and +elaborate examination of the book, chapter by chapter, and a +confutation of its teaching. Fowler's doctrines as Bunyan +understood them - or rather misunderstood them - awoke the worst +side of his impetuous nature. His vituperation of the author and +his book is coarse and unmeasured. He roundly charges Fowler with +having "closely, privily, and devilishly turned the grace of God +into a licentious doctrine, bespattering it with giving liberty to +lasciviousness;" and he calls him "a pretended minister of the +Word," who, in "his cursed blasphemous book vilely exposes to +public view the rottenness of his heart, in principle diametrically +opposite to the simplicity of the Gospel of Christ, a glorious +latitudinarian that can, as to religion, turn and twist like an eel +on the angle, or rather like the weathercock that stands on the +steeple;" and describes him as "contradicting the wholesome +doctrine of the Church of England." He "knows him not by face much +less his personal practise." He may have "kept himself clear of +the ignorant Sir Johns who had for a long time, as a judgment of +God, been made the mouth to the people - men of debauched lives who +for the love of filthy lucre and the pampering of their idle +carcases had made shipwreck of their former faith;" but he does +know that having been ejected as a Nonconformist in 1662, he had +afterwards gone over to the winning side, and he fears that "such +an unstable weathercock spirit as he had manifested would stumble +the work and give advantage to the adversary to speak vilifyingly +of religion." No excuse can be offered for the coarse violence of +Bunyan's language in this book; but it was too much the habit of +the time to load a theological opponent with vituperation, to push +his assertions to the furthest extreme, and make the most +unwarrantable deductions from them. It must be acknowledged that +Bunyan does not treat Fowler and his doctrines with fairness, and +that, if the latter may be thought to depreciate unduly the +sacrifice of the Death of Christ as an expiation for man's guilt, +and to lay too great a stress on the moral faculties remaining in +the soul after the Fall, Bunyan errs still more widely on the other +side in asserting the absolute, irredeemable corruption of human +nature, leaving nothing for grace to work upon, but demanding an +absolutely fresh creation, not a revivification of the Divine +nature grievously marred but not annihilated by Adam's sin. + +A reply to Bunyan's severe strictures was not slow to appear. The +book bears the title, characteristic of the tone and language of +its contents, of "DIRT WIP'T OFF; or, a manifest discovery of the +Gross Ignorance, Erroneousness, and most Unchristian and Wicked +Spirit of one John Bunyan, Lay-preacher in Bedford." It professes +to be written by a friend of Fowler's, but Fowler was generally +accredited with it. Its violent tirades against one who, he says, +had been "near these twenty years or longer very infamous in the +Town and County of Bedford as a very Pestilent Schismatick," and +whom he suggests the authorities have done wrong in letting out of +prison, and had better clap in gaol again as "an impudent and +malicious Firebrand," have long since been consigned to a merciful +oblivion, where we may safely leave them. + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + + + +Bunyan's protracted imprisonment came to an end in 1672. The exact +date of his actual liberation is uncertain. His pardon under the +Great Seal bears date September 13th. But we find from the church +books that he had been appointed pastor of the congregation to +which he belonged as early as the 21st of January of that year, and +on the 9th of May his ministerial position was duly recognized by +the Government, and a license was granted to him to act "as +preacher in the house of Josias Roughead," for those "of the +Persuasion commonly called Congregational." His release would +therefore seem to have anticipated the formal issue of his pardon +by four months. Bunyan was now half way through his forty-fourth +year. Sixteen years still remained to him before his career of +indefatigable service in the Master's work was brought to a close. +Of these sixteen years, as has already been remarked, we have only +a very general knowledge. Details are entirely wanting; nor is +there any known source from which they can be recovered. If he +kept any diary it has not been preserved. If he wrote letters - +and one who was looked up to by so large a circle of disciples as a +spiritual father and guide, and whose pen was so ready of exercise, +cannot fail to have written many - not one has come down to us. +The pages of the church books during his pastorate are also +provokingly barren of record, and little that they contain is in +Bunyan's handwriting. As Dr. Brown has said, "he seems to have +been too busy to keep any records of his busy life." Nor can we +fill up the blank from external authorities. The references to +Bunyan in contemporary biographies are far fewer than we might have +expected; certainly far fewer than we could have desired. But the +little that is recorded is eminently characteristic. We see him +constantly engaged in the great work to which he felt God had +called him, and for which, "with much content through grace," he +had suffered twelve years' incarceration. In addition to the +regular discharge of his pastoral duties to his own congregation, +he took a general oversight of the villages far and near which had +been the scene of his earlier ministry, preaching whenever +opportunity offered, and, ever unsparing of his own personal +labour, making long journeys into distant parts of the country for +the furtherance of the gospel. We find him preaching at Leicester +in the year of his release. Reading also is mentioned as receiving +occasional visits from him, and that not without peril after the +revival of persecution; while the congregations in London had the +benefit of his exhortations at stated intervals. Almost the first +thing Bunyan did, after his liberation from gaol, was to make +others sharers in his hardly won "liberty of prophesying," by +applying to the Government for licenses for preachers and preaching +places in Bedfordshire and the neighbouring counties, under the +Declaration of Indulgence. The still existing list sent in to the +authorities by him, in his own handwriting, contains the names of +twenty-five preachers and thirty buildings, besides "Josias +Roughead's House in his orchard at Bedford." Nineteen of these +were in his own native county, three in Northamptonshire, three in +Buckinghamshire, two in Cambridgeshire, two in Huntingdonshire, and +one in Hertfordshire. The places sought to be licensed were very +various, barns, malthouses, halls belonging to public companies, +&c., but more usually private houses. Over these religious +communities, bound together by a common faith and common suffering, +Bunyan exercised a quasi-episcopal superintendence, which gained +for him the playful title of "Bishop Bunyan." In his regular +circuits, - "visitations" we may not improperly term them, - we are +told that he exerted himself to relieve the temporal wants of the +sufferers under the penal laws, - so soon and so cruelly revived, - +ministered diligently to the sick and afflicted, and used his +influence in reconciling differences between "professors of the +gospel," and thus prevented the scandal of litigation among +Christians. The closing period of Bunyan's life was laborious but +happy, spent "honourably and innocently" in writing, preaching, +visiting his congregations, and planting daughter churches. +"Happy," writes Mr. Froude, "in his work; happy in the sense that +his influence was daily extending - spreading over his own country +and to the far-off settlements of America, - he spent his last +years in his own land of Beulah, Doubting Castle out of sight, and +the towers and minarets of Immanuel's Land growing nearer and +clearer as the days went on." + +With his time so largely occupied in his spiritual functions, he +could have had but small leisure to devote to his worldly calling. +This, however, one of so honest and independent a spirit is sure +not to have neglected, it was indeed necessary that to a certain +extent he should work for his living. He had a family to maintain. +His congregation were mostly of the poorer sort, unable to +contribute much to their pastor's support. Had it been otherwise, +Bunyan was the last man in the world to make a trade of the gospel, +and though never hesitating to avail himself of the apostolic +privilege to "live of the gospel," he, like the apostle of the +Gentiles, would never be ashamed to "work with his own hands," that +he might "minister to his own necessities," and those of his +family. But from the time of his release he regarded his +ministerial work as the chief work of his life. "When he came +abroad," says one who knew him, "he found his temporal affairs were +gone to wreck, and he had as to them to begin again as if he had +newly come into the world. But yet he was not destitute of +friends, who had all along supported him with necessaries and had +been very good to his family, so that by their assistance getting +things a little about him again, he resolved as much as possible to +decline worldly business, and give himself wholly up to the service +of God." The anonymous writer to whom we are indebted for +information concerning his imprisonment and his subsequent life, +says that Bunyan, "contenting himself with that little God had +bestowed upon him, sequestered himself from all secular employments +to follow that of his call to the ministry." The fact, however, +that in the "deed of gift" of all his property to his wife in 1685, +he still describes himself as a "brazier," puts it beyond all doubt +that though his ministerial duties were his chief concern, he +prudently kept fast hold of his handicraft as a certain means of +support for himself and those dependent on him. On the whole, +Bunyan's outward circumstances were probably easy. His wants were +few and easily supplied. "Having food and raiment" for himself, +his wife, and his children, he was "therewith content." The house +in the parish of St. Cuthbert's which was his home from his release +to his death (unhappily demolished fifty years back), shows the +humble character of his daily life. It was a small cottage, such +as labourers now occupy, with three small rooms on the ground +floor, and a garret with a diminutive dormer window under the high- +pitched tiled roof. Behind stood an outbuilding which served as +his workshop. We have a passing glimpse of this cottage home in +the diary of Thomas Hearne, the Oxford antiquary. One Mr. Bagford, +otherwise unknown to us, had once "walked into the country" on +purpose to see "the study of John Bunyan," and the student who made +it famous. On his arrival the interviewer - as we should now call +him - met with a civil and courteous reception from Bunyan; but he +found the contents of his study hardly larger than those of his +prison cell. They were limited to a Bible, and copies of "The +Pilgrim's Progress," and a few other books, chiefly his own works, +"all lying on a shelf or shelves." Slight as this sketch is, it +puts us more in touch with the immortal dreamer than many longer +and more elaborate paragraphs. + +Bunyan's celebrity as a preacher, great before he was shut up in +gaol, was naturally enhanced by the circumstance of his +imprisonment. The barn in Josias Roughead's orchard, where he was +licensed as a preacher, was "so thronged the first time he appeared +there to edify, that many were constrained to stay without; every +one that was of his persuasion striving to partake of his +instructions." Wherever he ministered, sometimes, when troublous +days returned, in woods, and in dells, and other hiding-places, the +announcement that John Bunyan was to preach gathered a large and +attentive auditory, hanging on his lips and drinking from them the +word of life. His fame grew the more he was known and reached its +climax when his work was nearest its end. His biographer Charles +Doe tells us that just before his death, "when Mr. Bunyan preached +in London, if there were but one day's notice given, there would be +more people come together than the meeting-house could hold. I +have seen, by my computation, about twelve hundred at a morning +lecture by seven o'clock on a working day, in the dark winter time. +I also computed about three thousand that came to hear him one +Lord's Day in London, at a town's-end meeting-house, so that half +were fain to go back again for want of room, and then himself was +fain at a back door to be pulled almost over people to get upstairs +to his pulpit." This "town's-end meeting house" has been +identified by some with a quaint straggling long building which +once stood in Queen Street, Southwark, of which there is an +engraving in Wilkinson's "Londina Illustrata." Doe's account, +however, probably points to another building, as the Zoar Street +meeting-house was not opened for worship till about six months +before Bunyan's death, and then for Presbyterian service. Other +places in London connected with his preaching are Pinners' Hall in +Old Broad Street, where, on one of his occasional visits, he +delivered his striking sermon on "The Greatness of the Soul and the +Unspeakableness of the Loss thereof," first published in 1683; and +Dr. Owen's meeting-house in White's Alley, Moorfields, which was +the gathering-place for titled folk, city merchants, and other +Nonconformists of position and degree. At earlier times, when the +penal laws against Nonconformists were in vigorous exercise, Bunyan +had to hold his meetings by stealth in private houses and other +places where he might hope to escape the lynx-eyed informer. It +was at one of these furtive meetings that his earliest biographer, +the honest combmaker at the foot of London Bridge, Charles Doe, +first heard him preach. His choice of an Old Testament text at +first offended Doe, who had lately come into New Testament light +and had had enough of the "historical and doing-for-favour of the +Old Testament." But as he went on he preached "so New Testament +like" that his hearer's prejudices vanished, and he could only +"admire, weep for joy, and give the preacher his affections." + +Bunyan was more than once urged to leave Bedford and settle in the +metropolis. But to all these solicitations he turned a deaf ear. +Bedford was the home of his deepest affections. It was there the +holy words of the poor women "sitting in the sun," speaking "as if +joy did make them speak," had first "made his heart shake," and +shown him that he was still a stranger to vital godliness. It was +there he had been brought out of darkness into light himself, and +there too he had been the means of imparting the same blessing to +others. The very fact of his long imprisonment had identified him +with the town and its inhabitants. There he had a large and loving +congregation, to whom he was bound by the ties of a common faith +and common sufferings. Many of these recognized in Bunyan their +spiritual father; all, save a few "of the baser sort," reverenced +him as their teacher and guide. No prospect of a wider field of +usefulness, still less of a larger income, could tempt him to +desert his "few sheep in the wilderness." Some of them, it is +true, were wayward sheep, who wounded the heart of their pastor by +breaking from the fold, and displaying very un-lamb-like behaviour. +He had sometimes to realize painfully that no pale is so close but +that the enemy will creep in somewhere and seduce the flock; and +that no rules of communion, however strict, can effectually exclude +unworthy members. Brother John Stanton had to be admonished "for +abusing his wife and beating her often for very light matters" (if +the matters had been less light, would the beating in these days +have been thought justifiable?); and Sister Mary Foskett, for +"privately whispering of a horrid scandal, 'without culler of +truth,' against Brother Honeylove." Evil-speaking and backbiting +set brother against brother. Dissensions and heartburnings grieved +Bunyan's spirit. He himself was not always spared. A letter had +to be written to Sister Hawthorn "by way of reproof for her +unseemly language against Brother Scot and the whole Church." John +Wildman was had up before the Church and convicted of being "an +abominable liar and slanderer," "extraordinary guilty" against "our +beloved Brother Bunyan himself." And though Sister Hawthorn +satisfied the Church by "humble acknowledgment of her miscariag," +the bolder misdoer only made matters worse by "a frothy letter," +which left no alternative but a sentence of expulsion. But though +Bunyan's flock contained some whose fleeces were not as white as he +desired, these were the exception. The congregation meeting in +Josias Roughead's barn must have been, take them as a whole, a +quiet, God-fearing, spiritually-minded folk, of whom their pastor +could think with thankfulness and satisfaction as "his hope and joy +and crown of rejoicing." From such he could not be severed +lightly. Inducements which would have been powerful to a meaner +nature fell dead on his independent spirit. He was not "a man that +preached by way of bargain for money," and, writes Doe, "more than +once he refused a more plentiful income to keep his station." As +Dr. Brown says: "He was too deeply rooted on the scene of his +lifelong labours and sufferings to think of striking his tent till +the command came from the Master to come up to the higher service +for which he had been ripening so long." At Bedford, therefore, he +remained; quietly staying on in his cottage in St. Cuthbert's, and +ministering to his humble flock, loving and beloved, as Mr. Froude +writes, "through changes of ministry, Popish plots, and Monmouth +rebellions, while the terror of a restoration of Popery was +bringing on the Revolution; careless of kings and cabinets, and +confident that Giant Pope had lost his power for harm, and +thenceforward could only bite his nails at the passing pilgrims." + +Bunyan's peace was not, however, altogether undisturbed. Once it +received a shock in a renewal of his imprisonment, though only for +a brief period, in 1675, to which we owe the world-famous +"Pilgrim's Progress"; and it was again threatened, though not +actually disturbed ten years later, when the renewal of the +persecution of the Nonconformists induced him to make over all his +property - little enough in good sooth - to his wife by deed of +gift. + +The former of these events demands our attention, not so much for +itself as for its connection with Bishop Barlow's interference in +Bunyan's behalf, and, still more, for its results in the production +of "The Pilgrim's Progress." Until very recently the bare fact of +this later imprisonment, briefly mentioned by Charles Doe and +another of his early biographers, was all that was known to us. +They even leave the date to be gathered, though both agree in +limiting its duration to six months or thereabouts. The recent +discovery, among the Chauncey papers, by Mr. W. G. Thorpe, of the +original warrant under which Bunyan was at this time sent to gaol, +supplies the missing information. It has been already noticed that +the Declaration of Indulgence, under which Bunyan was liberated in +1672, was very short-lived. Indeed it barely lasted in force a +twelvemonth. Granted on the 15th of March of that year, it was +withdrawn on the 9th of March of the following year, at the +instance of the House of Commons, who had taken alarm at a +suspension of the laws of the realm by the "inherent power" of the +sovereign, without the advice or sanction of Parliament. The +Declaration was cancelled by Charles II., the monarch, it is said, +tearing off the Great Seal with his own hands, a subsidy being +promised to the royal spendthrift as a reward for his complaisance. +The same year the Test Act became law. Bunyan therefore and his +fellow Nonconformists were in a position of greater peril, as far +as the letter of the law was concerned, than they had ever been. +But, as Dr. Stoughton has remarked, "the letter of the law is not +to be taken as an accurate index of the Nonconformists' condition. +The pressure of a bad law depends very much upon the hands employed +in its administration." Unhappily for Bunyan, the parties in whose +hands the execution of the penal statutes against Nonconformists +rested in Bedfordshire were his bitter personal enemies, who were +not likely to let them lie inactive. The prime mover in the matter +was doubtless Dr. William Foster, that "right Judas" whom we shall +remember holding the candle in Bunyan's face in the hall of +Harlington House at his first apprehension, and showing such +feigned affection "as if he would have leaped on his neck and +kissed him." He had some time before this become Chancellor of the +Bishop of Lincoln, and Commissary of the Court of the Archdeacon of +Bedford, offices which put in his hands extensive powers which he +had used with the most relentless severity. He has damned himself +to eternal infamy by the bitter zeal he showed in hunting down +Dissenters, inflicting exorbitant fines, and breaking into their +houses and distraining their goods for a full discharge, +maltreating their wives and daughters, and haling the offenders to +prison. Having been chiefly instrumental in Bunyan's first +committal to gaol, he doubtless viewed his release with indignation +as the leader of the Bedfordshire sectaries who was doing more +mischief to the cause of conformity, which it was his province at +all hazards to maintain, than any other twenty men. The church +would never be safe till he was clapped in prison again. The power +to do this was given by the new proclamation. By this act the +licenses to preach previously granted to Nonconformists were +recalled. Henceforward no conventicle had "any authority, +allowance, or encouragement from his Majesty." We can easily +imagine the delight with which Foster would hail the issue of this +proclamation. How he would read and read again with ever fresh +satisfaction its stringent clauses. That pestilent fellow, Bunyan, +was now once more in his clutches. This time there was no chance +of his escape. All licences were recalled, and he was absolutely +defenceless. It should not be Foster's fault if he failed to end +his days in the prison from which he ought never to have been +released. The proclamation is dated the 4th of March, 1674-5, and +was published in the GAZETTE on the 9th. It would reach Bedford on +the 11th. It placed Bunyan at the mercy of "his enemies, who +struck at him forthwith." A warrant was issued for his +apprehension, undoubtedly written by our old friend, Paul Cobb, the +clerk of the peace, who, it will be remembered, had acted in the +same capacity on Bunyan's first committal. It is dated the 4th of +March, and bears the signature of no fewer than thirteen +magistrates, ten of them affixing their seals. + +That so unusually large a number took part in the execution of this +warrant, is sufficient indication of the importance attached to +Bunyan's imprisonment by the gentry of the county. The following +is the document:- + + +"To the Constables of Bedford and to every of them + +Whereas information and complaint is made unto us that +(notwithstanding the Kings Majties late Act of most gracious +generall and free pardon to all his subjects for past misdemeanours +that by his said clemencie and indulgent grace and favor they might +bee mooved and induced for the time to come more carefully to +observe his Highenes lawes and Statutes and to continue in theire +loyall and due obedience to his Majtie) Yett one John Bunnyon of +youre said Towne Tynker hath divers times within one month last +past in contempt of his Majtie's good Lawes preached or teached at +a Conventicle Meeting or Assembly under color or ptence of exercise +of Religion in other manner than according to the Liturgie or +practiss of the Church of England These are therefore in his +Majties name to comand you forthwith to apprehend and bring the +Body of the said John Bunnion before us or any of us or other his +Majties Justice of Peace within the said County to answer the +premisses and further to doo and receave as to Lawe and Justice +shall appertaine and hereof you are not to faile. Given under our +handes and seales this ffourth day of March in the seven and +twentieth yeare of the Raigne of our most gracious Soveraigne Lord +King Charles the Second A que Dni., juxta &c 1674 + +J Napier W Beecher G Blundell Hum: Monoux +Will ffranklin John Ventris +Will Spencer +Will Gery St Jo Chernocke Wm Daniels +T Browne W ffoster +Gaius Squire" + + +There would be little delay in the execution of the warrant. + +John Bunyan was a marked man and an old offender, who, on his +arrest, would be immediately committed for trial. Once more, then, +Bunyan became a prisoner, and that, there can be little doubt, in +his old quarters in the Bedford gaol. Errors die hard, and those +by whom they have been once accepted find it difficult to give them +up. The long-standing tradition of Bunyan's twelve years' +imprisonment in the little lock-up-house on the Ouse bridge, having +been scattered to the winds by the logic of fact and common sense, +those to whom the story is dear, including the latest and ablest of +his biographers, Dr. Brown, see in this second brief imprisonment a +way to rehabilitate it. Probability pointing to this imprisonment +as the time of the composition of "The Pilgrim's Progress," they +hold that on this occasion Bunyan was committed to the bridge-gaol, +and that he there wrote his immortal work, though they fail to +bring forward any satisfactory reasons for the change of the place +of his confinement. The circumstances, however, being the same, +there can be no reasonable ground for questioning that, as before, +Bunyan was imprisoned in the county gaol. + +This last imprisonment of Bunyan's lasted only half as many months +as his former imprisonment had lasted years. At the end of six +months he was again a free man. His release was due to the good +officers of Owen, Cromwell's celebrated chaplain, with Barlow, +Bishop of Lincoln. The suspicion which hung over this intervention +from its being erroneously attributed to his release in 1672, three +years before Barlow became a bishop, has been dispelled by the +recently discovered warrant. The dates and circumstances are now +found to tally. The warrant for Bunyan's apprehension bears date +March 4, 1675. On the 14th of the following May the supple and +time-serving Barlow, after long and eager waiting for a mitre, was +elected to the see of Lincoln vacated by the death of Bishop +Fuller, and consecrated on the 27th of June. Barlow, a man of very +dubious churchmanship, who had succeeded in keeping his university +appointments undisturbed all through the Commonwealth, and who was +yet among the first with effusive loyalty to welcome the +restoration of monarchy, had been Owen's tutor at Oxford, and +continued to maintain friendly relations with him. As bishop of +the diocese to which Bedfordshire then, and long after, belonged, +Barlow had the power, by the then existing law, of releasing a +prisoner for nonconformity on a bond given by two persons that he +would conform within half a year. A friend of Bunyan's, probably +Ichabod Chauncey, obtained a letter from Owen to the bishop +requesting him to employ this prerogative in Bunyan's behalf. +Barlow with hollow complaisance expressed his particular kindness +for Dr. Owen, and his desire to deny him nothing he could legally +grant. He would even strain a point to serve him. But he had only +just been made a bishop, and what was asked was a new thing to him. +He desired a little time to consider of it. If he could do it, +Owen might be assured of his readiness to oblige him. A second +application at the end of a fortnight found this readiness much +cooled. It was true that on inquiry he found he might do it; but +the times were critical, and he had many enemies. It would be +safer for him not to take the initiative. Let them apply to the +Lord Chancellor, and get him to issue an order for him to release +Bunyan on the customary bond. Then he would do what Owen asked. +It was vain to tell Barlow that the way he suggested was +chargeable, and Bunyan poor. Vain also to remind him that there +was no point to be strained. He had satisfied himself that he +might do the thing legally. It was hoped he would remember his +promise. But the bishop would not budge from the position he had +taken up. They had his ultimatum; with that they must be content. +If Bunyan was to be liberated, his friends must accept Barlow's +terms. "This at last was done, and the poor man was released. But +little thanks to the bishop." + +This short six months' imprisonment assumes additional importance +from the probability, first suggested by Dr. Brown, which the +recovery of its date renders almost a certainty, that it was during +this period that Bunyan began, if he did not complete, the first +part of "The Pilgrim's Progress." We know from Bunyan's own words +that the book was begun in gaol, and its composition has been +hitherto unhesitatingly assigned to his twelve years' confinement. +Dr. Brown was, we believe, the first to call this in question. +Bunyan's imprisonment, we know, ended in 1672. The first edition +of "The Pilgrim's Progress" did not appear till 1678. If written +during his earlier imprisonment, six years must have elapsed +between its writing and its publication. But it was not Bunyan's +way to keep his works in manuscript so long after their completion. +His books were commonly put in the printers' hands as soon as they +were finished. There are no sufficient reasons - though some have +been suggested - for his making an exception to this general habit +in the case of "The Pilgrim's Progress." Besides we should +certainly conclude, from the poetical introduction, that there was +little delay between the finishing of the book and its being given +to the world. After having written the book, he tells us, simply +to gratify himself, spending only "vacant seasons" in his +"scribble," to "divert" himself "from worser thoughts," he showed +it to his friends to get their opinion whether it should be +published or not. But as they were not all of one mind, but some +counselled one thing and some another, after some perplexity, he +took the matter into his own hands. + + +"Now was I in a strait, and did not see +Which was the best thing to be done by me; +At last I thought, Since you are so divided, +I print it will, and so the case decided." + + +We must agree with Dr. Brown that "there is a briskness about this +which, to say the least, is not suggestive of a six years' interval +before publication." The break which occurs in the narrative after +the visit of the Pilgrims to the Delectable Mountains, which so +unnecessarily interrupts the course of the story - "So I awoke from +my dream; and I slept and dreamed again" - has been not +unreasonably thought by Dr. Brown to indicate the point Bunyan had +reached when his six months' imprisonment ended, and from which he +continued the book after his release. + +The First Part of "The Pilgrim's Progress" issued from the press in +1678. A second edition followed in the same year, and a third with +large and important additions in 1679. The Second Part, after an +interval of seven years, followed early in 1685. Between the two +parts appeared two of his most celebrated works - the "Life and +Death of Mr. Badman," published in 1680, originally intended to +supply a contrast and a foil to "The Pilgrim's Progress," by +depicting a life which was scandalously bad; and, in 1682, that +which Macaulay, with perhaps exaggerated eulogy, has said, "would +have been our greatest allegory if the earlier allegory had never +been written," the "Holy War made by Shaddai upon Diabolus." +Superior to "The Pilgrim's Progress" as a literary composition, +this last work must be pronounced decidedly inferior to it in +attractive power. For one who reads the "Holy War," five hundred +read the "Pilgrim." And those who read it once return to it again +and again, with ever fresh delight. It is a book that never tires. +One or two perusals of the "Holy War" satisfy: and even these are +not without weariness. As Mr. Froude has said, "The 'Holy War' +would have entitled Bunyan to a place among the masters of English +literature. It would never have made his name a household word in +every English-speaking family on the globe." + +Leaving the further notice of these and his other chief literary +productions to another chapter, there is little more to record in +Bunyan's life. Though never again seriously troubled for his +nonconformity, his preaching journeys were not always without risk. +There is a tradition that when he visited Reading to preach, he +disguised himself as a waggoner carrying a long whip in his hand to +escape detection. The name of "Bunyan's Dell," in a wood not very +far from Hitchin, tells of the time when he and his hearers had to +conceal their meetings from their enemies' quest, with scouts +planted on every side to warn them of the approach of the spies and +informers, who for reward were actively plying their odious trade. +Reference has already been made to Bunyan's "deed of gift" of all +that he possessed in the world - his "goods, chattels, debts, ready +money, plate, rings, household stuff, apparel, utensils, brass, +pewter, bedding, and all other his substance whatsoever - to his +well-beloved wife Elizabeth Bunyan." Towards the close of the +first year of James the Second, 1685, the apprehensions under which +Bunyan executed this document were far from groundless. At no time +did the persecution of Nonconformists rage with greater fierceness. +Never, not even under the tyranny of Laud, as Lord Macaulay records +had the condition of the Puritans been so deplorable. Never had +spies been so actively employed in detecting congregations. Never +had magistrates, grand-jurors, rectors, and churchwardens been so +much on the alert. Many Nonconformists were cited before the +ecclesiastical courts. Others found it necessary to purchase the +connivance of the agents of the Government by bribes. It was +impossible for the sectaries to pray together without precautions +such as are employed by coiners and receivers of stolen goods. +Dissenting ministers, however blameless in life, however eminent in +learning, could not venture to walk the streets for fear of +outrages which were not only not repressed, but encouraged by those +whose duty it was to preserve the peace. Richard Baxter was in +prison. Howe was afraid to show himself in London for fear of +insult, and had been driven to Utrecht. Not a few who up to that +time had borne up boldly lost heart and fled the kingdom. Other +weaker spirits were terrified into a show of conformity. Through +many subsequent years the autumn of 1685 was remembered as a time +of misery and terror. There is, however, no indication of Bunyan +having been molested. The "deed of gift" by which he sought to +avoid the confiscation of his goods was never called into exercise. +Indeed its very existence was forgotten by his wife in whose behalf +it had been executed. Hidden away in a recess in his house in St. +Cuthbert's, this interesting document was accidentally discovered +at the beginning of the present century, and is preserved among the +most valued treasures of the congregation which bears his name. + +Quieter times for Nonconformists were however at hand. Active +persecution was soon to cease for them, and happily never to be +renewed in England. The autumn of 1685 showed the first +indications of a great turn of fortune, and before eighteen months +had elapsed, the intolerant king and the intolerant Church were +eagerly bidding against each other for the support of the party +which both had so deeply injured. A new form of trial now awaited +the Nonconformists. Peril to their personal liberty was succeeded +by a still greater peril to their honesty and consistency of +spirit. James the Second, despairing of employing the Tories and +the Churchmen as his tools, turned, as his brother had turned +before him, to the Dissenters. The snare was craftily baited with +a Declaration of Indulgence, by which the king, by his sole +authority, annulled a long series of statutes and suspended all +penal laws against Nonconformists of every sort. These lately +political Pariahs now held the balance of power. The future +fortunes of England depended mainly on the course they would adopt. +James was resolved to convert the House of Commons from a free +deliberative assembly into a body subservient to his wishes, and +ready to give parliamentary sanction to any edict he might issue. +To obtain this end the electors must be manipulated. Leaving the +county constituencies to be dealt with by the lords-lieutenants, +half of whom preferred dismissal to carrying out the odious service +peremptorily demanded of them, James's next concern was to +"regulate" the Corporations. In those days of narrowly restricted +franchise, the municipalities virtually returned the town members. +To obtain an obedient parliament, he must secure a roll of electors +pledged to return the royal nominees. A committee of seven privy +councillors, all Roman Catholics but the infamous Jeffreys, +presided over the business, with local sub-committees scattered +over the country to carry out the details. Bedford was dealt with +in its turn. Under James's policy of courting the Puritans, the +leading Dissenters were the first persons to be approached. Two +are specially named, a Mr. Margetts, formerly Judge-Advocate- +General of the Army under General Monk, and John Bunyan. It is no +matter of surprise that Bunyan, who had been so severe a sufferer +under the old penal statutes, should desire their abrogation, and +express his readiness to "steer his friends and followers" to +support candidates who would pledge themselves to vote for their +repeal. But no further would he go. The Bedford Corporation was +"regulated," which means that nearly the whole of its members were +removed and others substituted by royal order. Of these new +members some six or seven were leading persons of Bunyan's +congregation. But, with all his ardent desire for religious +liberty, Bunyan was too keen-witted not to see through James's +policy, and too honest to give it any direct insidious support. +"In vain is the net spread in the sight of any bird." He clearly +saw that it was not for any love of the Dissenters that they were +so suddenly delivered from their persecutions, and placed on a kind +of equality with the Church. The king's object was the +establishment of Popery. To this the Church was the chief +obstacle. That must be undermined and subverted first. That done, +all other religious denominations would follow. All that the +Nonconformists would gain by yielding, was the favour Polyphemus +promised Ulysses, to be devoured last. Zealous as he was for the +"liberty of prophesying," even that might be purchased at too high +a price. The boon offered by the king was "good in itself," but +not "so intended." So, as his biographer describes, when the +regulators came, "he expressed his zeal with some weariness as +perceiving the bad consequences that would ensue, and laboured with +his congregation" to prevent their being imposed on by the fair +promises of those who were at heart the bitterest enemies of the +cause they professed to advocate. The newly-modelled corporation +of Bedford seems like the other corporations through the country, +to have proved as unmanageable as the old. As Macaulay says, "The +sectaries who had declared in favour of the Indulgence had become +generally ashamed of their error, and were desirous to make +atonement." Not knowing the man they had to deal with, the +"regulators" are said to have endeavoured to buy Bunyan's support +by the offer of some place under government. The bribe was +indignantly rejected. Bunyan even refused to see the government +agent who offered it, - "he would, by no means come to him, but +sent his excuse." Behind the treacherous sunshine he saw a black +cloud, ready to break. The Ninevites' remedy he felt was now +called for. So he gathered his congregation together and appointed +a day of fasting and prayer to avert the danger that, under a +specious pretext, again menaced their civil and religious +liberties. A true, sturdy Englishman, Bunyan, with Baxter and +Howe, "refused an indulgence which could only be purchased by the +violent overthrow of the law." + +Bunyan did not live to see the Revolution. Four months after he +had witnessed the delirious joy which hailed the acquittal of the +seven bishops, the Pilgrim's earthly Progress ended, and he was +bidden to cross the dark river which has no bridge. The summons +came to him in the very midst of his religious activity, both as a +preacher and as a writer. His pen had never been more busy than +when he was bidden to lay it down finally. Early in 1688, after a +two years' silence, attributable perhaps to the political troubles +of the times, his "Jerusalem Sinner Saved, or a Help to Despairing +Souls," one of the best known and most powerfully characteristic of +his works, had issued from the press, and had been followed by four +others between March and August, the month of his death. These +books were, "The Work of Jesus Christ as an Advocate;" a poetical +composition entitled "The Building, Nature, and Excellency of the +House of God," a discourse on the constitution and government of +the Christian Church; the "Water of Life," and "Solomon's Temple +Spiritualized." At the time of his death he was occupied in seeing +through the press a sixth book, "The Acceptable Sacrifice," which +was published after his funeral. In addition to these, Bunyan left +behind him no fewer than fourteen works in manuscript, written at +this time, as the fruit of his fertile imagination and untiring +pen. Ten of these were given to the world soon after Bunyan's +death, by one of Bunyan's most devoted followers, Charles Doe, the +combmaker of London Bridge (who naively tells us how one day +between the stairhead and the middle of the stairs, he resolved +that the best work he could do for God was to get Bunyan's books +printed and sell them - adding, "I have sold about 3,000"), and +others, a few years later, including one of the raciest of his +compositions, "The Heavenly Footman," bought by Doe of Bunyan's +eldest son, and, he says, "put into the World in Print Word for +Word as it came from him to Me." + +At the time that death surprised him, Bunyan had gained no small +celebrity in London as a popular preacher, and approached the +nearest to a position of worldly honour. Though we must probably +reject the idea that he ever filled the office of Chaplain to the +Lord Mayor of London, Sir John Shorter, the fact that he is styled +"his Lordship's teacher" proves that there was some relation more +than that of simple friendship between the chief magistrate and the +Bedford minister. But the society of the great was never congenial +to him. If they were godly as well as great, he would not shrink +from intercourse, with those of a rank above his own, but his heart +was with his own humble folk at Bedford. Worldly advancement he +rejected for his family as well as for himself. A London merchant, +it is said, offered to take his son Joseph into his house of +business without the customary premium. But the offer was declined +with what we may consider an overstrained independence. "God," he +said, "did not send me to advance my family but to preach the +gospel." "An instance of other-worldliness," writes Dr. Brown, +"perhaps more consistent with the honour of the father than with +the prosperity of the son." + +Bunyan's end was in keeping with his life. He had ever sought to +be a peacemaker and to reconcile differences, and thus had +"hindered many mishaps and saved many families from ruin." His +last effort of the kind caused his death. The father of a young +man in whom he took an interest, had resolved, on some offence, +real or supposed, to disinherit his son. The young man sought +Bunyan's mediation. Anxious to heal the breach, Bunyan mounted his +horse and took the long journey to the father's house at Reading - +the scene, as we have noticed, of his occasional ministrations - +where he pleaded the offender's cause so effectually as to obtain a +promise of forgiveness. Bunyan returned homewards through London, +where he was appointed to preach at Mr. Gamman's meeting-house near +Whitechapel. His forty miles' ride to London was through heavy +driving rain. He was weary and drenched to the skin when he +reached the house of his "very loving friend," John Strudwick, +grocer and chandler, at the sign of the Star, Holborn Bridge, at +the foot of Snow Hill, and deacon of the Nonconformist meeting in +Red Cross Street. A few months before Bunyan had suffered from the +sweating sickness. The exposure caused a return of the malady, and +though well enough to fulfil his pulpit engagement on Sunday, the +19th of August, on the following Tuesday dangerous symptoms +declared themselves, and in ten days the disease proved fatal. He +died within two months of completing his sixtieth year, on the 31st +of August, 1688, just a month before the publication of the +Declaration of the Prince of Orange opened a new era of civil and +religious liberty, and between two and three months before the +Prince's landing in Torbay. He was buried in Mr. Strudwick's +newly-purchased vault, in what Southey has termed the Campo Santo +of Nonconformists, the burial-ground in Finsbury, taking its name +of Bunhill or Bonehill Field, from a vast mass of human remains +removed to it from the charnel house of St. Paul's Cathedral in +1549. At a later period it served as a place of interment for +those who died in the Great Plague of 1665. The day after Bunyan's +funeral, his powerful friend, Sir John Shorter, the Lord Mayor, had +a fatal fall from his horse in Smithfield, and "followed him across +the river." + +By his first wife, whose Christian name is nowhere recorded, Bunyan +had four children - two sons and two daughters; and by his second +wife, the heroic Elizabeth, one son and one daughter. All of these +survived him except his eldest daughter Mary, his tenderly-loved +blind child, who died before him. His wife only survived him for a +brief period, "following her faithful pilgrim from this world to +the other whither he was gone before her" either in 1691 or 1692. +Forgetful of the "deed of gift," or ignorant of its bearing, +Bunyan's widow took out letters of administration of her late +husband's estate, which appears from the Register Book to have +amounted to no more than, 42 pounds 19s. On this, and the proceeds +of his books, she supported herself till she rejoined him. + +Bunyan's character and person are thus described by Charles Doe: +"He appeared in countenance to be of a stern and rough temper. But +in his conversation he was mild and affable, not given to loquacity +or much discourse in company, unless some urgent occasion required +it. Observing never to boast of himself or his parts, but rather +to seem low in his own eyes and submit himself to the judgment of +others. Abhorring lying and swearing, being just, in all that lay +in his power, to his word. Not seeming to revenge injuries; loving +to reconcile differences and make friendship with all. He had a +sharp, quick eye, with an excellent discerning of persons, being of +good judgment and quick wit. He was tall of stature, strong-boned, +though not corpulent; somewhat of a ruddy face, with sparkling +eyes, wearing his hair on his upper lip after the old British +fashion. His hair reddish, but in his later days time had +sprinkled it with grey. His nose well set, but not declining or +bending. His mouth moderately large, his forehead something high, +and his habit always plain and modest. Not puffed up in +prosperity, nor shaken in adversity, always holding the golden +mean." + +We may add the portrait drawn by one who had been his companion and +fellow-sufferer for many years, John Nelson: "His countenance was +grave and sedate, and did so to the life discover the inward frame +of his heart, that it was convincing to the beholders and did +strike something of awe into them that had nothing of the fear of +God." + +The same friend speaks thus of Bunyan's preaching: "As a minister +of Christ he was laborious in his work of preaching, diligent in +his preparation for it, and faithful in dispensing the Word, not +sparing reproof whether in the pulpit or no, yet ready to succour +the tempted; a son of consolation to the broken-hearted, yet a son +of thunder to secure and dead sinners. His memory was tenacious, +it being customary with him to commit his sermons to writing after +he had preached them. A rich anointing of the Spirit was upon him, +yet this great saint was always in his own eyes the chiefest of +sinners and the least of saints." + +An anecdote is told which, Southey says, "authenticates itself," +that one day when he had preached "with peculiar warmth and +enlargement," one of his hearers remarked "what a sweet sermon he +had delivered." "Ay," was Bunyan's reply, "you have no need to +tell me that, for the devil whispered it to me before I was well +out of the pulpit." As an evidence of the estimation in which +Bunyan was held by the highly-educated, it is recorded that Charles +the Second expressed his surprise to Dr. Owen that "a learned man +such as he could sit and listen to an illiterate tinker." "May it +please your Majesty," Owen replied. "I would gladly give up all my +learning if I could preach like that tinker." + +Although much of Bunyan's literary activity was devoted to +controversy, he had none of the narrowness or bitter spirit of a +controversialist. It is true that his zeal for what he deemed to +be truth led him into vehemence of language in dealing with those +whom he regarded as its perverters. But this intensity of speech +was coupled with the utmost charity of spirit towards those who +differed from him. Few ever had less of the sectarian temper which +lays greater stress on the infinitely small points on which all +true Christians differ than on the infinitely great truths on which +they are agreed. Bunyan inherited from his spiritual father, John +Gifford, a truly catholic spirit. External differences he regarded +as insignificant where he found real Christian faith and love. "I +would be," he writes, "as I hope I am, a Christian. But for those +factious titles of Anabaptist, Independent, Presbyterian, and the +like, I conclude that they come neither from Jerusalem nor from +Antioch, but from Hell or from Babylon." "He was," writes one of +his early biographers, "a true lover of all that love our Lord +Jesus, and did often bewail the different and distinguishing +appellations that are among the godly, saying he did believe a time +would come when they should be all buried." The only persons he +scrupled to hold communion with were those whose lives were openly +immoral. "Divisions about non-essentials," he said, "were to +churches what wars were to countries. Those who talked most about +religion cared least for it; and controversies about doubtful +things and things of little moment, ate up all zeal for things +which were practical and indisputable." His last sermon breathed +the same catholic spirit, free from the trammels of narrow +sectarianism. "If you are the children of God live together +lovingly. If the world quarrel with you it is no matter; but it is +sad if you quarrel together. If this be among you it is a sign of +ill-breeding. Dost thou see a soul that has the image of God in +him? Love him, love him. Say, 'This man and I must go to heaven +one day.' Serve one another. Do good for one another. If any +wrong you pray to God to right you, and love the brotherhood." The +closing words of this his final testimony are such as deserve to be +written in letters of gold as the sum of all true Christian +teaching: "Be ye holy in all manner of conversation: Consider +that the holy God is your Father, and let this oblige you to live +like the children of God, that you may look your Father in the face +with comfort another day." "There is," writes Dean Stanley, "no +compromise in his words, no faltering in his convictions; but his +love and admiration are reserved on the whole for that which all +good men love, and his detestation on the whole is reserved for +that which all good men detest." By the catholic spirit which +breathes through his writings, especially through "The Pilgrim's +Progress," the tinker of Elstow "has become the teacher not of any +particular sect, but of the Universal Church." + + + +CHAPTER IX. + + + +We have, in this concluding chapter, to take a review of Bunyan's +merits as a writer, with especial reference to the works on which +his fame mainly rests, and, above all, to that which has given him +his chief title to be included in a series of Great Writers, "The +Pilgrim's Progress." Bunyan, as we have seen, was a very copious +author. His works, as collected by the late industrious Mr. Offor, +fill three bulky quarto volumes, each of nearly eight hundred +double-columned pages in small type. And this copiousness of +production is combined with a general excellence in the matter +produced. While few of his books approach the high standard of +"The Pilgrim's Progress" or "Holy War," none, it may be truly said, +sink very far below that standard. It may indeed be affirmed that +it was impossible for Bunyan to write badly. His genius was a +native genius. As soon as he began to write at all, he wrote well. +Without any training, is he says, in the school of Aristotle or +Plato, or any study of the great masters of literature, at one +bound he leapt to a high level of thought and composition. His +earliest book, "Some Gospel Truths Opened," "thrown off," writes +Dr. Brown, "at a heat," displays the same ease of style and +directness of speech and absence of stilted phraseology which he +maintained to the end. The great charm which pervades all Bunyan's +writings is their naturalness. You never feel that he is writing +for effect, still less to perform an uncongenial piece of task- +work. He writes because he had something to say which was worth +saying, a message to deliver on which the highest interests of +others were at stake, which demanded nothing more than a +straightforward earnestness and plainness of speech, such as coming +from the heart might best reach the hearts of others. He wrote as +he spoke, because a necessity was laid upon him which he dared not +evade. As he says in a passage quoted in a former chapter, he +might have stepped into a much higher style, and have employed more +literary ornament. But to attempt this would be, to one of his +intense earnestness, to degrade his calling. He dared not do it. +Like the great Apostle, "his speech and preaching was not with +enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit +and in power." God had not played with him, and he dared not play +with others. His errand was much too serious, and their need and +danger too urgent to waste time in tricking out his words with +human skill. And it is just this which, with all their rudeness, +their occasional bad grammar, and homely colloquialisms, gives to +Bunyan's writings a power of riveting the attention and stirring +the affections which few writers have attained to. The pent-up +fire glows in every line, and kindles the hearts of his readers. +"Beautiful images, vivid expressions, forcible arguments all aglow +with passion, tender pleadings, solemn warnings, make those who +read him all eye, all ear, all soul." This native vigour is +attributable, in no small degree, to the manner in which for the +most part Bunyan's works came into being. He did not set himself +to compose theological treatises upon stated subjects, but after he +had preached with satisfaction to himself and acceptance with his +audience, he usually wrote out the substance of his discourse from +memory, with the enlargements and additions it might seem to +require. And thus his religious works have all the glow and +fervour of the unwritten utterances of a practised orator, united +with the orderliness and precision of a theologian, and are no less +admirable for the excellence of their arrangement than for their +evangelical spirit and scriptural doctrine. Originally meant to be +heard, they lose somewhat by being read. But few can read them +without being delighted with the opulence of his imagination and +impressed with the solemn earnestness of his convictions. Like the +subject of the portrait described by him in the House of the +Interpreter, he stands "like one who pleads with men, the law of +truth written upon his lips, the world behind his back, and a crown +of gold above his head." + +These characteristics, which distinguish Bunyan as a writer from +most of his Puritan contemporaries, are most conspicuous in the +works by which he is chiefly known, "The Pilgrim's Progress," the +"Holy War," the "Grace Abounding," and we may add, though from the +repulsiveness of the subject the book is now scarcely read at all, +the "Life and Death of Mr. Badman." + +One great charm of these works, especially of "The Pilgrim's +Progress," lies in the pure Saxon English in which they are +written, which render them models of the English speech, plain but +never vulgar, homely but never coarse, and still less unclean, full +of imagery but never obscure, always intelligible, always forcible, +going straight to the point in the fewest and simplest words; +"powerful and picturesque," writes Hallam, "from concise +simplicity." Bunyan's style is recommended by Lord Macaulay as an +invaluable study to every person who wishes to gain a wide command +over his mother tongue. Its vocabulary is the vocabulary of the +common people. "There is not," he truly says, "in 'The Pilgrim's +Progress' a single expression, if we except a few technical terms +of theology, that would puzzle the rudest peasant." We may, look +through whole pages, and not find a word of more than two +syllables. Nor is the source of this pellucid clearness and +imaginative power far to seek. Bunyan was essentially a man of one +book, and that book the very best, not only for its spiritual +teaching but for the purity of its style, the English Bible. "In +no book," writes Mr. J. R. Green, "do we see more clearly than in +'The Pilgrim's Progress' the new imaginative force which had been +given to the common life of Englishmen by their study of the Bible. +Bunyan's English is the simplest and homeliest English that has +ever been used by any great English writer, but it is the English +of the Bible. His images are the images of prophet and evangelist. +So completely had the Bible become Bunyan's life that one feels its +phrases as the natural expression of his thoughts. He had lived in +the Bible till its words became his own." + +All who have undertaken to take an estimate of Bunyan's literary +genius call special attention to the richness of his imaginative +power. Few writers indeed have possessed this power in so high a +degree. In nothing, perhaps, is its vividness more displayed than +in the reality of its impersonations. The DRAMATIS PERSONS are not +shadowy abstractions, moving far above us in a mystical world, or +lay figures ticketed with certain names, but solid men and women of +our own flesh and blood, living in our own everyday world, and of +like passions with ourselves. Many of them we know familiarly; +there is hardly one we should be surprised to meet any day. This +life-like power of characterization belongs in the highest degree +to "The Pilgrim's Progress." It is hardly inferior in "The Holy +War," though with some exceptions the people of "Mansoul" have +failed to engrave themselves on the popular memory as the +characters of the earlier allegory have done. The secret of this +graphic power, which gives "The Pilgrim's Progress" its universal +popularity, is that Bunyan describes men and women of his own day, +such as he had known and seen them. They are not fancy pictures, +but literal portraits. Though the features may be exaggerated, and +the colours laid on with an unsparing brush, the outlines of his +bold personifications are truthfully drawn from his own experience. +He had had to do with every one of them. He could have given a +personal name to most of them, and we could do the same to many. +We are not unacquainted with Mr Byends of the town of Fair Speech, +who "always has the luck to jump in his judgment with the way of +the times, and to get thereby," who is zealous for Religion "when +he goes in his silver slippers," and "loves to walk with him in the +streets when the sun shines and the people applaud him." All his +kindred and surroundings are only too familiar to us - his wife, +that very virtuous woman my Lady Feigning's daughter, my Lord Fair- +speech, my Lord Time-server, Mr. Facingbothways, Mr. Anything, and +the Parson of the Parish, his mother's own brother by the father's +side, Mr. Twotongues. Nor is his schoolmaster, one Mr. Gripeman, +of the market town of Lovegain, in the county of Coveting, a +stranger to us. Obstinate, with his dogged determination and +stubborn common-sense, and Pliable with his shallow +impressionableness, are among our acquaintances. We have, before +now, come across "the brisk lad Ignorance from the town of +Conceit," and have made acquaintance with Mercy's would-be suitor, +Mr. Brisk, "a man of some breeding and that pretended to religion, +but who stuck very close to the world." The man Temporary who +lived in a town two miles off from Honesty, and next door to Mr. +Turnback; Formalist and Hypocrisy, who were "from the land of +Vainglory, and were going for praise to Mount Sion"; Simple, Sloth, +and Presumption, "fast asleep by the roadside with fetters on their +heels," and their companions, Shortwind, Noheart, Lingerafterlust, +and Sleepyhead, we know them all. "The young woman whose name was +Dull" taxes our patience every day. Where is the town which does +not contain Mrs. Timorous and her coterie of gossips, Mrs. Bats- +eyes, Mrs. Inconsiderate, Mrs. Lightmind, and Mrs. Knownothing, +"all as merry as the maids," with that pretty fellow Mr. Lechery at +the house of Madam Wanton, that "admirably well-bred gentlewoman"? +Where shall we find more lifelike portraits than those of Madam +Bubble, a "tall, comely dame, somewhat of a swarthy complexion, +speaking very smoothly with a smile at the end of each sentence, +wearing a great purse by her side, with her hand often in it, +fingering her money as if that was her chief delight;" of poor +Feeblemind of the town of Uncertain, with his "whitely look, the +cast in his eye, and his trembling speech;" of Littlefaith, as +"white as a clout," neither able to fight nor fly when the thieves +from Dead Man's Lane were on him; of Ready-to-halt, at first coming +along on his crutches, and then when Giant Despair had been slain +and Doubting Castle demolished, taking Despondency's daughter +Muchafraid by the hand and dancing with her in the road? "True, he +could not dance without one crutch in his hand, but I promise you +he footed it well. Also the girl was to be commanded, for she +answered the musick handsomely." In Bunyan's pictures there is +never a superfluous detail. Every stroke tells, and helps to the +completeness of the portraiture. + +The same reality characterizes the descriptive part of "The +Pilgrim's Progress." As his characters are such as he must meet +with every day in his native town, so also the scenery and +surroundings of his allegory are part of his own every-day life, +and reproduce what he had been brought up amidst in his native +county, or had noticed in his tinker's wanderings. "Born and +bred," writes Kingsley, "in the monotonous Midland, he had no +natural images beyond the pastures and brooks, the town and country +houses, he saw about him." The Slough of Despond, with its +treacherous quagmire in the midst of the plain, into which a +wayfarer might heedlessly fall, with its stepping-stones half +drowned in mire; Byepathmeadow, promising so fair, with its stile +and footpath on the other side of the fence; the pleasant river +fringed with meadows, green all the year long and overshadowed with +trees; the thicket all overgrown with briars and thorns, where one +tumbled over a bush, another stuck fast in the dirt, some lost +their shoes in the mire, and others were fastened from behind with +the brambles; the high wall by the roadside over which the fruit +trees shot their boughs and tempted the boys with their unripe +plums; the arbour with its settle tempting the footsore traveller +to drowsiness; the refreshing spring at the bottom of Hill +Difficulty; all are evidently drawn from his own experience. +Bunyan, in his long tramps, had seen them all. He had known what +it was to be in danger of falling into a pit and being dashed to +pieces with Vain Confidence, of being drowned in the flooded +meadows with Christian and Hopeful; of sinking in deep water when +swimming over a river, going down and rising up half dead, and +needing all his companion's strength and skill to keep his head +above the stream. Vanity Fair is evidently drawn from the life. +The great yearly fair of Stourbridge, close to Cambridge, which +Bunyan had probably often visited in his tinker days, with its +streets of booths filled with "wares of all kinds from all +countries," its "shows, jugglings, cheats games, plays, fools, +apes, knaves, and rogues, and that of every kind," its "great one +of the fair," its court of justice and power of judgment, furnished +him with the materials for his picture. Scenes like these he draws +with sharp defined outlines. When he had to describe what he only +knew by hearsay, his pictures are shadowy and cold. Never having +been very far from home, he had had no experience of the higher +types of beauty and grandeur in nature, and his pen moves in +fetters when he attempts to describe them. When his pilgrims come +to the Hill Difficulty and the Delectable Mountains, the difference +is at once seen. All his nobler imagery is drawn from Scripture. +As Hallam has remarked, "There is scarcely a circumstance or +metaphor in the Old Testament which does not find a place bodily +and literally in 'The Pilgrim's Progress,' and this has made his +imagination appear more creative than it really is." + +It would but weary the reader to follow the details of a narrative +which is so universally known. Who needs to be told that in the +pilgrimage here described is represented in allegorical dress the +course of a human soul convinced of sin, struggling onwards to +salvation through the trials and temptations that beset its path to +its eternal home? The book is so completely wrought into the mind +and memory, that most of us can at once recall the incidents which +chequer the pilgrim's way, and realize their meaning; the Slough of +Despond, in which the man convinced of his guilt and fleeing from +the wrath to come, in his agonizing self-consciousness is in danger +of being swallowed up in despair; the Wicket Gate, by which he +enters on the strait and narrow way of holiness; the Interpreter's +House, with his visions and acted parables; the Wayside Cross, at +the sight of which the burden of guilt falls from the pilgrim's +back, and he is clothed with change of raiment; the Hill +Difficulty, which stands right in his way, and which he must +surmount, not circumvent; the lions which he has to pass, not +knowing that they are chained; the Palace Beautiful, where he is +admitted to the communion of the faithful, and sits down to meat +with them; the Valley of Humiliation, the scene of his desperate +but victorious encounter with Apollyon; the Valley of the Shadow of +Death, with its evil sights and doleful sounds, where one of the +wicked ones whispers into his ear thoughts of blasphemy which he +cannot distinguish from the suggestions of his own mind; the cave +at the valley's mouth, in which, Giant Pagan having been dead this +many a day, his brother, Giant Pope, now sits alone, grinning at +pilgrims as they pass by, and biting his nails because he cannot +get at them; Vanity Fair, the picture of the world, as St. John +describes it, hating the light that puts to shame its own self- +chosen darkness, and putting it out if it can, where the Pilgrim's +fellow, Faithful, seals his testimony with his death, and the +Pilgrim himself barely escapes; the "delicate plain" called Ease, +and the little hill, Lucre, where Demas stood "gentlemanlike," to +invite the passersby to come and dig in his silver mine; Byepath +Meadow, into which the Pilgrim and his newly-found companion stray, +and are made prisoners by Giant Despair and shut up in the dungeons +of Doubting Castle, and break out of prison by the help of the Key +of Promise; the Delectable Mountains in Immanuel's Land, with their +friendly shepherds and the cheering prospect of the far-off +heavenly city; the Enchanted Land, with its temptations to +spiritual drowsiness at the very end of the journey; the Land of +Beulah, the ante-chamber of the city to which they were bound; and, +last stage of all, the deep dark river, without a bridge, which had +to be crossed before the city was entered; the entrance into its +heavenly gates, the pilgrim's joyous reception with all the bells +in the city ringing again for joy; the Dreamer's glimpse of its +glories through the opened portals - is not every stage of the +journey, every scene of the pilgrimage, indelibly printed on our +memories, for our warning, our instruction, our encouragement in +the race we, as much as they, have each one to run? Have we not +all, again and again, shared the Dreamer's feelings - "After that +they shut up the Gates; which, when I had seen, I wished myself +among them," and prayed, God helping us, that our "dangerous +journey" - ever the most dangerous when we see its dangers the +least - might end in our "safe arrival at the desired country"? + +"The Pilgrim's Progress" exhibits Bunyan in the character by which +he would have most desired to be remembered, as one of the most +influential of Christian preachers. Hallam, however, claims for +him another distinction which would have greatly startled and +probably shocked him, as the father of our English novelists. As +an allegorist Bunyan had many predecessors, not a few of whom, +dating from early times, had taken the natural allegory of the +pilgrimage of human life as the basis of their works. But as a +novelist he had no one to show him the way. Bunyan was the first +to break ground in a field which has since then been so +overabundantly worked that the soil has almost lost its +productiveness; while few novels written purely with the object of +entertainment have ever proved so universally entertaining. +Intensely religious as it is in purpose, "The Pilgrim's Progress" +may be safely styled the first English novel. "The claim to be the +father of English romance," writes Dr. Allon, "which has been +sometimes preferred for Defoe, really pertains to Bunyan. Defoe +may claim the parentage of a species, but Bunyan is the creator of +the genus." As the parent of fictitious biography it is that +Bunyan has charmed the world. On its vivid interest as a story, +its universal interest and lasting vitality rest. "Other +allegorises," writes Lord Macaulay, "have shown great ingenuity, +but no other allegorist has ever been able to touch the heart, and +to make its abstractions objects of terror, of pity, and of love." +Whatever its deficiencies, literary and religious, may be; if we +find incongruities in the narrative, and are not insensible to some +grave theological deficiencies; if we are unable without +qualification to accept Coleridge's dictum that it is "incomparably +the best 'Summa Theologiae Evangelicae' ever produced by a writer +not miraculously inspired;" even if, with Hallam, we consider its +"excellencies great indeed, but not of the highest order," and deem +it "a little over-praised," the fact of its universal popularity +with readers of all classes and of all orders of intellect remains, +and gives this book a unique distinction. "I have," says Dr. +Arnold, when reading it after a long interval, "always been struck +by its piety. I am now struck equally or even more by its profound +wisdom. It seems to be a complete reflexion of Scripture." And to +turn to a critic of very different character, Dean Swift: "I have +been better entertained and more improved," writes that cynical +pessimist, "by a few pages of this book than by a long discourse on +the will and intellect." The favourite of our childhood, as "the +most perfect and complex of fairy tales, so human and +intelligible," read, as Hallam says, "at an age when the spiritual +meaning is either little perceived or little regarded," the +"Pilgrim's Progress" becomes the chosen companion of our later +years, perused with ever fresh appreciation of its teaching, and +enjoyment of its native genius; "the interpreter of life to all who +are perplexed with its problems, and the practical guide and solace +of all who need counsel and sympathy." + +The secret of this universal acceptableness of "The Pilgrim's +Progress" lies in the breadth of its religious sympathies. Rigid +Puritan as Bunyan was, no book is more completely free from +sectarian narrowness. Its reach is as wide as Christianity itself, +and it takes hold of every human heart because it is so intensely +human. No apology is needed for presenting Mr. Froude's eloquent +panegyric: "The Pilgrim, though in Puritan dress, is a genuine +man. His experience is so truly human experience that Christians +of every persuasion can identify themselves with him; and even +those who regard Christianity itself as but a natural outgrowth of +the conscience and intellect, and yet desire to live nobly and make +the best of themselves, can recognize familiar footprints in every +step of Christian's journey. Thus 'The Pilgrim's Progress' is a +book which when once read can never be forgotten. We too, every +one of us, are pilgrims on the same road; and images and +illustrations come back to us from so faithful an itinerary, as we +encounter similar trials, and learn for ourselves the accuracy with +which Bunyan has described them. Time cannot impair its interest, +or intellectual progress make it cease to be true to experience." +Dr. Brown's appreciative words may be added: "With deepest pathos +it enters into the stern battle so real to all of us, into those +heart-experiences which make up, for all, the discipline of life. +It is this especially which has given to it the mighty hold which +it has always had upon the toiling poor, and made it the one book +above all books well-thumbed and torn to tatters among them. And +it is this which makes it one of the first books translated by the +missionary who seeks to give true thoughts of God and life to +heathen men." + +The Second Part of "The Pilgrim's Progress" partakes of the +character of almost all continuations. It is, in Mr. Froude's +words, "only a feeble reverberation of the first part, which has +given it a popularity it would have hardly attained by its own +merits. Christiana and her children are tolerated for the +pilgrim's sake to whom they belong." Bunyan seems not to have been +insensible of this himself, when in his metrical preface he thus +introduces his new work: + + +"Go now my little book to every place +Where my first Pilgrim has but shown his face. +Call at their door; if any say 'Who's there?' +Then answer thus, 'Christiana is here.' +If they bid thee come in, then enter thou +With all thy boys. And then, as thou know'st how, +Tell who they are, also from whence they came; +Perhaps they'll know them by their looks or name." + + +But although the Second Part must be pronounced inferior, on the +whole, to the first, it is a work of striking individuality and +graphic power, such as Bunyan alone could have written. Everywhere +we find strokes of his peculiar genius, and though in a smaller +measure than the first, it has added not a few portraits to +Bunyan's spiritual picture gallery we should be sorry to miss, and +supplied us with racy sayings which stick to the memory. The sweet +maid Mercy affords a lovely picture of gentle feminine piety, well +contrasted with the more vigorous but still thoroughly womanly +character of Christiana. Great-Heart is too much of an +abstraction: a preacher in the uncongenial disguise of a knightly +champion of distressed females and the slayer of giants. But the +other new characters have generally a vivid personality. Who can +forget Old Honesty, the dull good man with no mental gifts but of +dogged sincerity, who though coming from the Town of Stupidity, +four degrees beyond the City of Destruction, was "known for a cock +of the right kind," because he said the truth and stuck to it; or +his companion, Mr. Fearing, that most troublesome of pilgrims, +stumbling at every straw, lying roaring at the Slough of Despond +above a month together, standing shaking and shrinking at the +Wicket Gate, but making no stick at the Lions, and at last getting +over the river not much above wetshod; or Mr. Valiant for Truth, +the native of Darkland, standing with his sword drawn and his face +all bloody from his three hours' fight with Wildhead, +Inconsiderate, and Pragmatick; Mr. Standfast, blushing to be found +on his knees in the Enchanted Ground, one who loved to hear his +Lord spoken of, and coveted to set his foot wherever he saw the +print of his shoe; Mr. Feeblemind, the sickly, melancholy pilgrim, +at whose door death did usually knock once a day, betaking himself +to a pilgrim's life because he was never well at home, resolved to +run when he could, and go when he could not run, and creep when he +could not go, an enemy to laughter and to gay attire, bringing up +the rear of the company with Mr. Readytohalt hobbling along on his +crutches; Giant Despair's prisoners, Mr. Despondency, whom he had +all but starved to death - and Mistress Much-afraid his daughter, +who went through the river singing, though none could understand +what she said? Each of these characters has a distinct +individuality which lifts them from shadowy abstractions into +living men and women. But with all its excellencies, and they are +many, the general inferiority of the history of Christiana and her +children's pilgrimage to that of her husband's must be +acknowledged. The story is less skilfully constructed; the +interest is sometimes allowed to flag; the dialogues that interrupt +the narrative are in places dry and wearisome - too much of sermons +in disguise. There is also a want of keeping between the two parts +of the allegory. The Wicket Gate of the First Part has become a +considerable building with a summer parlour in the Second; the +shepherds' tents on the Delectable Mountains have risen into a +palace, with a dining-room, and a looking-glass, and a store of +jewels; while Vanity Fair has lost its former bad character, and +has become a respectable country town, where Christiana and her +family, seeming altogether to forget their pilgrimage, settled down +comfortably, enjoy the society of the good people of the place, and +the sons marry and have children. These same children also cause +the reader no little perplexity, when he finds them in the course +of the supposed journey transformed from sweet babes who are +terrified with the Mastiffs barking at the Wicket Gate, who catch +at the boughs for the unripe plums and cry at having to climb the +hill; whose faces are stroked by the Interpreter; who are +catechised and called "good boys" by Prudence; who sup on bread +crumbled into basins of milk, and are put to bed by Mercy - into +strong young men, able to go out and fight with a giant, and lend a +hand to the pulling down of Doubting Castle, and becoming husbands +and fathers. We cannot but feel the want of VRAISEMBLANCE which +brings the whole company of pilgrims to the banks of the dark river +at one time, and sends them over in succession, following one +another rapidly through the Golden Gate of the City. The four boys +with their wives and children, it is true, stay behind awhile, but +there is an evident incongruity in their doing so when the allegory +has brought them all to what stands for the close of their earthly +pilgrimage. Bunyan's mistake was in gratifying his inventive +genius and making his band of pilgrims so large. He could get them +together and make them travel in company without any sacrifice of +dramatic truth, which, however, he was forced to disregard when the +time came for their dismissal. The exquisite pathos of the +description of the passage of the river by Christian and Hopeful +blinds us to what may be almost termed the impossibility of two +persons passing through the final struggle together, and dying at +the same moment, but this charm is wanting in the prosaic picture +of the company of fellow-travellers coming down to the water's +edge, and waiting till the postman blows his horn and bids them +cross. Much as the Second Part contains of what is admirable, and +what no one but Bunyan could have written, we feel after reading it +that, in Mr. Froude's words, the rough simplicity is gone, and has +been replaced by a tone of sentiment which is almost mawkish. +"Giants, dragons, and angelic champions carry us into a spurious +fairyland where the knight-errant is a preacher in disguise. Fair +ladies and love-matches, however decorously chastened, suit ill +with the sternness of the mortal conflict between the soul and +sin." With the acknowledged shortcomings of the Second Part of +"The Pilgrim's Progress," we may be well content that Bunyan never +carried out the idea hinted at in the closing words of his +allegory: "Shall it be my lot to go that way again, I may give +those that desire it an account of what I am here silent about; in +the meantime I bid my reader - Adieu." + +Bunyan's second great allegorical work, "The Holy War," need not +detain us long. Being an attempt, and in the nature of things an +unsuccessful attempt, to clothe what writers on divinity call "the +plan of salvation" in a figurative dress, the narrative, with all +its vividness of description in parts, its clearly drawn characters +with their picturesque nomenclature, and the stirring vicissitudes +of the drama, is necessarily wanting in the personal interest which +attaches to an individual man, like Christian, and those who are +linked with or follow his career. In fact, the tremendous +realities of the spiritual history of the human race are entirely +unfit for allegorical treatment as a whole. Sin, its origin, its +consequences, its remedy, and the apparent failure of that remedy +though administered by Almighty hands, must remain a mystery for +all time. The attempts made by Bunyan, and by one of much higher +intellectual power and greater poetic gifts than Bunyan - John +Milton - to bring that mystery within the grasp of the finite +intellect, only render it more perplexing. The proverbial line +tells us that - + + +"Fools rush in where angels fear to tread." + + +Bunyan and Milton were as far as possible from being "fools"; but +when both these great writers, on the one hand, carry us up into +the Council Chamber of Heaven and introduce us to the Persons of +the ever-blessed Trinity, debating, consulting, planning, and +resolving, like a sovereign and his ministers when a revolted +province has to be brought back to its allegiance; and, on the +other hand, take us down to the infernal regions, and makes us +privy to the plots and counterplots of the rebel leaders and +hearers of their speeches, we cannot but feel that, in spite of the +magnificent diction and poetic imagination of the one, and the +homely picturesque genius of the other, the grand themes treated of +are degraded if not vulgarized, without our being in any way helped +to unravel their essential mysteries. In point of individual +personal interest, "The Holy War" contrasts badly with "The +Pilgrim's Progress." The narrative moves in a more shadowy region. +We may admire the workmanship; but the same undefined sense of +unreality pursues us through Milton's noble epic, the outcome of a +divinely-fired genius, and Bunyan's humble narrative, drawing its +scenes and circumstances, and to some extent its DRAMATIS PERSONAE, +from the writer's own surroundings in the town and corporation of +Bedford, and his brief but stirring experience as a soldier in the +great Parliamentary War. The catastrophe also is eminently +unsatisfactory. When Christian and Hopeful enter the Golden Gates +we feel that the story has come to its proper end, which we have +been looking for all along. But the conclusion of "The Holy War" +is too much like the closing chapter of "Rasselas" - "a conclusion +in which nothing is concluded." After all the endless vicissitudes +of the conflict, and the final and glorious victory of Emmanuel and +his forces, and the execution of the ringleaders of the mutiny, the +issue still remains doubtful. The town of Mansoul is left open to +fresh attacks. Diabolus is still at large. Carnal Sense breaks +prison and continues to lurk in the town. Unbelief, that "nimble +Jack," slips away, and can never be laid hold of. These, +therefore, and some few others of the more subtle of the +Diabolonians, continue to make their home in Mansoul, and will do +so until Mansoul ceases to dwell in the kingdom of Universe. It is +true they turn chicken-hearted after the other leaders of their +party have been taken and executed, and keep themselves quiet and +close, lurking in dens and holes lest they should be snapped up by +Emmanuel's men. If Unbelief or any of his crew venture to show +themselves in the streets, the whole town is up in arms against +them; the very children raise a hue and cry against them and seek +to stone them. But all in vain. Mansoul, it is true, enjoys some +good degree of peace and quiet. Her Prince takes up his residence +in her borders. Her captains and soldiers do their duties. She +minds her trade with the heavenly land afar off; also she is busy +in her manufacture. But with the remnants of the Diabolonians +still within her walls, ready to show their heads on the least +relaxation of strict watchfulness, keeping up constant +communication with Diabolus and the other lords of the pit, and +prepared to open the gates to them when opportunity offers, this +peace can not be lasting. The old battle will have to be fought +over again, only to end in the same undecisive result. And so it +must be to the end. If untrue to art, Bunyan is true to fact. +Whether we regard Mansoul as the soul of a single individual or as +the whole human race, no final victory can be looked for so long as +it abides in "the country of Universe." The flesh will lust +against the spirit, the regenerated man will be in danger of being +brought into captivity to the law of sin and death unless he keeps +up his watchfulness and maintains the struggle to the end. + +And it is here, that, for purposes of art, not for purposes of +truth, the real failing of "The Holy War" lies. The drama of +Mansoul is incomplete, and whether individually or collectively, +must remain incomplete till man puts on a new nature, and the +victory, once for all gained on Calvary, is consummated, in the +fulness of time, at the restitution of all things. There is no +uncertainty what the end will be. Evil must be put down, and good +must triumph at last. But the end is not yet, and it seems as far +off as ever. The army of Doubters, under their several captains, +Election Doubters, Vocation Doubters, Salvation Doubters, Grace +Doubters, with their general the great Lord Incredulity at their +head, reinforced by many fresh regiments under novel standards, +unknown and unthought of in Bunyan's days, taking the place of +those whose power is past, is ever making new attacks upon poor +Mansoul, and terrifying feeble souls with their threatenings. +Whichever way we look there is much to puzzle, much to grieve over, +much that to our present limited view is entirely inexplicable. +But the mind that accepts the loving will and wisdom of God as the +law of the Universe, can rest in the calm assurance that all, +however mysteriously, is fulfilling His eternal designs, and that +though He seems to permit "His work to be spoilt, His power defied, +and even His victories when won made useless," it is but seeming, - +that the triumph of evil is but temporary, and that these apparent +failures and contradictions, are slowly but surely working out and +helping forward + + +"The one unseen divine event +To which the whole creation moves." + + +"The mysteries and contradictions which the Christian revelation +leaves unsolved are made tolerable by Hope." To adopt Bunyan's +figurative language in the closing paragraph of his allegory, the +day is certainly coming when the famous town of Mansoul shall be +taken down and transported "every stick and stone" to Emmanuel's +land, and there set up for the Father's habitation in such strength +and glory as it never saw before. No Diabolonian shall be able to +creep into its streets, burrow in its walls, or be seen in its +borders. No evil tidings shall trouble its inhabitants, nor sound +of Diabolian drum be heard there. Sorrow and grief shall be ended, +and life, always sweet, always new, shall last longer than they +could even desire it, even all the days of eternity. Meanwhile let +those who have such a glorious hope set before them keep clean and +white the liveries their Lord has given them, and wash often in the +open fountain. Let them believe in His love, live upon His word; +watch, fight, and pray, and hold fast till He come. + +One more work of Bunyan's still remains to be briefly noticed, as +bearing the characteristic stamp of his genius, "The Life and Death +of Mr. Badman." The original idea of this book was to furnish a +contrast to "The Pilgrim's Progress." As in that work he had +described the course of a man setting out on his course +heavenwards, struggling onwards through temptation, trials, and +difficulties, and entering at last through the golden gates into +the city of God, so in this later work his purpose was to depict +the career of a man whose face from the first was turned in the +opposite direction, going on from bad to worse, ever becoming more +and more irretrievably evil, fitter and fitter for the bottomless +pit; his life full of sin and his death without repentance; reaping +the fruit of his sins in hopeless sinfulness. That this was the +original purpose of the work, Bunyan tells us in his preface. It +came into his mind, he says, as in the former book he had written +concerning the progress of the Pilgrim from this world to glory, so +in this second book to write of the life and death of the ungodly, +and of their travel from this world to hell. The new work, +however, as in almost every respect it differs from the earlier +one, so it is decidedly inferior to it. It is totally unlike "The +Pilgrim's Progress" both in form and execution. The one is an +allegory, the other a tale, describing without imagery or metaphor, +in the plainest language, the career of a "vulgar, middle-class, +unprincipled scoundrel." While "The Pilgrim's Progress" pursues +the narrative form throughout, only interrupted by dialogues +between the leading characters, "Mr. Badman's career" is presented +to the world in a dialogue between a certain Mr. Wiseman and Mr. +Attentive. Mr. Wiseman tells the story, and Mr. Attentive supplies +appropriate reflections on it. The narrative is needlessly +burdened with a succession of short sermons, in the form of +didactic discourses on lying, stealing, impurity, and the other +vices of which the hero of the story was guilty, and which brought +him to his miserable end. The plainness of speech with which some +of these evil doings are enlarged upon, and Mr. Badman's indulgence +in them described, makes portions of the book very disagreeable, +and indeed hardly profitable reading. With omissions, however, the +book well deserves perusal, as a picture such as only Bunyan or his +rival in lifelike portraiture, Defoe, could have drawn of vulgar +English life in the latter part of the seventeenth century, in a +commonplace country town such as Bedford. It is not at all a +pleasant picture. The life described, when not gross, is sordid +and foul, is mean and commonplace. But as a description of English +middle-class life at the epoch of the Restoration and Revolution, +it is invaluable for those who wish to put themselves in touch with +that period. The anecdotes introduced to illustrate Bunyan's +positions of God's judgment upon swearers and sinners, convicting +him of a credulity and a harshness of feeling one is sorry to think +him capable of, are very interesting for the side-lights they throw +upon the times and the people who lived in them. It would take too +long to give a sketch of the story, even if a summary could give +any real estimate of its picturesque and vivid power. It is +certainly a remarkable, if an offensive book. As with "Robinson +Crusoe" and Defoe's other tales, we can hardly believe that we have +not a real history before us. We feel that there is no reason why +the events recorded should not have happened. There are no +surprises; no unlooked-for catastrophes; no providential +interpositions to punish the sinner or rescue the good man. +Badman's pious wife is made to pay the penalty of allowing herself +to be deceived by a tall, good-looking, hypocritical scoundrel. He +himself pursues his evil way to the end, and "dies like a lamb, or +as men call it, like a Chrisom child sweetly and without fear," but +the selfsame Mr. Badman still, not only in name, but in condition; +sinning onto the last, and dying with a heart that cannot repent. + +Mr. Froude's summing up of this book is so masterly that we make no +apology for presenting it to our readers. "Bunyan conceals +nothing, assumes nothing, and exaggerates nothing. He makes his +bad man sharp and shrewd. He allows sharpness and shrewdness to +bring him the reward which such qualities in fact command. Badman +is successful; is powerful; he enjoys all the pleasures which money +can bring; his bad wife helps him to ruin, but otherwise he is not +unhappy, and he dies in peace. Bunyan has made him a brute, +because such men do become brutes. It is the real punishment of +brutal and selfish habits. There the figure stands - a picture of +a man in the rank of English life with which Bunyan was most +familiar; travelling along the primrose path to the everlasting +bonfire, as the way to Emmanuel's Land was through the Slough of +Despond and the Valley of the Shadow of Death. Pleasures are to be +found among the primroses, such pleasures as a brute can be +gratified by. Yet the reader feels that even if there was no +bonfire, he would still prefer to be with Christian." + + + +Footnotes + + +(1) A small enclosure behind a cottage. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Etext of The Life of John Bunyan by Venables + diff --git a/old/lfbyn10.zip b/old/lfbyn10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..5071681 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/lfbyn10.zip |