LIFE 
 
 OF 
 
 JOHN BUNYAN 
 
 BY 
 
 EDMUND VENABLES, M.A. 
 
 PRECENTOR AND CANON RESIDENTIARY OK LINCOLN CATHEDRAL 
 
 LONDON 
 WALTER SCOTT, 24 WARWICK LANE 
 
 NEW YORK : THOMAS WHITTAKER 
 
 TORONTO I W. J. GAGE & CO. 
 
 1888 
 
 (All rights reserved?) 
 
94 1 
 
 U i 
 
NOTE. 
 
 A SERIES of biographies of "Great Writers" would 
 necessarily be incomplete which failed to include the 
 writer of what, next to the Bible, is probably the most ex- 
 tensively read book in the English language. If by a 
 "Great Writer" we understand one who combines the, 
 power of expressing thoughts of universal acceptability 
 in a style of the most perfect Clearness, with a high \ 
 degree of imaginative genius, and a vivid descriptive 
 faculty ; whose works are equally attractive to readers 
 of all ages and every variety of mental culture, which are 
 among the first to be taken up in the nursery and among 
 the last to be laid down when life is closing in on us, 
 which have filled the memory with pictures and peopled 
 it with characters of the most unforgetable reality, 
 which have been probably translated into more lan- 
 guages, and attained popularity in more lands, than 
 any books ever written then the claim of the author of 
 " The Pilgrim's Progress," " The Holy War," and " Grace 
 Abounding" to a place, and that a very high one, in 
 the catalogue of "Great Writers," is undeniable. 
 
 After what has been written by such masters of the 
 
6 NOTE. 
 
 biographical art as Southey, Macaulay, and Mr. Froude, 
 and still more recently by Dr. Brown, by whom every 
 available source of information regarding Bunyan has 
 been ransacked, and whose painstaking accuracy is only 
 surpassed by his modest reticence as to his own re- 
 searches and the admirable skill with which the results of 
 those researches have been framed in a lifelike picture of 
 the times in which Bunyan lived, any originality in a 
 biography of the immortal Dreamer was impossible. 
 Nothing more has been attempted in the present work 
 than to arrange the available materials in a clear and 
 intelligible form ; where it has been possible allowing 
 Bunyan to tell his own story in his own unapproachable 
 English. Some apology might seem to be needed for 
 the large extracts from former authors to be found in 
 the present work. The writer may remark that his 
 object has been to offer to his readers as true a portrait 
 of Bunyan, and as faithful an estimate of his works, as 
 was possible, and that when this could be done most 
 effectually by quotations from the works of others whose 
 authority was recognized in the world of letters, he has, 
 without scruple, adopted this as the best method of 
 attaining his object rather than by any feeble attempt 
 at originality. His indebtedness to those who have 
 gone before him, especially to Mr. Froude and Dr. 
 Brown is evident throughout, and deserves to be, as it 
 is, most gratefully acknowledged. He has also to thank 
 Mr. Thorpe for generously putting at his disposal the 
 recently-discovered warrant for Bunyan's apprehension, 
 and his communication to the Society of Antiquarians, in 
 elucidation of that most interesting document. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Bunyan born at Elstow in Bedfordshire in the latter part of the 
 year 1628 ; that year a momentous year ; the boy's parent- 
 age and ancestry ; Elstow, and its church ; the parents 
 poor but worthy people ; Bunyan's education ; to what 
 extent his self-accusations must be accepted literally ; his 
 sense of sin, and spiritual terrors ; his religious feelings 
 deepened by providential escapes ; he serves in the army ; 
 probably on the Parliament side ; resumes work as a 
 tinker ; his father did not die till the early part of 1676 . n 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Bunyan marries his first wife ; a godly woman ; her two religious 
 
 books ; she effects a religious change in him ; he becomes $L^ Jl 
 an assiduous church-goer ; Sunday sports in the village ; 
 Bunyan convinced of their unlawfulness ; conflict in his 
 mind ; his self-satisfaction shaken by the conversation of 
 three or four godly women ; despair ; comforted by a 
 dream or vision ; is introduced to Mr. Gifford ; further 
 inward struggles ; is tempted to deny Christ ; complies ; 
 suffers grievous spiritual torments ; is at last .delivered . 28 
 
8 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Bunyan becomes a member of Mr. Gifford's congregation ; his 
 spiritual torments had nearly ruined his health; his two 
 daughters born, one in 1650, and one in 1654 ; leaves 
 Elstow, and settles in Bedford ; his first wife dies ; begins 
 to preach ; at first modestly ; then with growing fame ; is 
 still subject to his old spiritual fears; converts a " Cam- 
 bridge scholar ;" great opposition roused against him; is 
 threatened with an indictment for his preaching in March, 
 1658 ; he disputes openly with the Quakers, and publishes 
 against them his first book ; its character ; Burrough pub- 
 lishes a reply ; Bunyan rejoins ; publishes his third book 
 in 1658 ; and his fourth in May, 1659 . . . -55 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 Bunyan's probable feelings at the Restoration ; Charles II. 's 
 
 " Declaration from Breda ; " reaction against Puritanism ; ^^X 
 a warrant issued for Bunyan's apprehension in November, 
 1660 ; he refuses to seek safety by flight ; is taken before 
 Mr. Wingate ; refuses to give up preaching ; is taken to 
 Bedford gaol ......... 76 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Place of Bunyan's imprisonment ; to what extent such imprison- 
 ment severe ; his friends try to get him bailed out ; early 
 in January, 1661, he is tried at the quarter sessions ; the 
 chairman, Sir John Keeling ; Bunyan undoubtedly guilty 
 as the law stood ; he refuses to amend ; the clerk of the 
 peace sent to reason with him ; but fails ; the Coronation 
 in April, 1661, affords a prospect of release ; his wife goes 
 to London to appeal to the House of Lords ; the matter 
 brought before the judges at the next assizes in August ; 
 his wife three times presents her husband's appeal for a 
 hearing to the judges, Twisden and Sir Matthew Hale ; 
 the latter explains that they can do nothing for her ; at the 
 next assizes, in January, 1662, Bunyan makes further vain 
 efforts to obtain a hearing; is not released till the 1 7th of 
 May, 1672 88 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. PAGE 
 
 Character of Bunyan's imprisonment ; at first has some liberty ; 
 soon this is withdrawn ; melancholy feelings and forebodings 
 in prison ; in order to support his wife and family he makes 
 "long-tagged laces;" he preaches in prison ; studies his 
 limited library, the Bible and Foxe's " Book of Martyrs ; " 
 prison life becomes more endurable ; he is released for a 
 short time in 1666 ; his pen less prolific during second term 
 of his imprisonment ; and does not recover its copiousness 
 till his final release ; treated with less severity ; the Quakers 
 mainly instrumental in obtaining relaxation of the penal 
 laws ; Bunyan reaps the advantage of the Declaration of 
 Indulgence ; he is licensed to preach on the 9th of May, 
 1672 ; four months afterwards is formally pardoned . . ico 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Bunyan had written much during the earlier half of his imprison- 
 ment ; his character and works as a poet; quality of his 
 verse ; his prose works, " Grace Abounding," " Praying in 
 the Spirit," and " Christian Behaviour;" special import- 
 ance of the "Grace Abounding;" "Defence of the 
 Doctrine of Justification by Faith " . . . . .112 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Bunyan pardoned under Great Seal, Sept. 13, 1672 ; compara- 
 tively little known of remaining years of his life ; those 
 years full of work ; he does not abandon his calling as a 
 " brazier " ; his celebrity as a preacher ; he refuses to leave 
 Bedford for London ; minor troubles with his congregation ; 
 renewed imprisonment in 1675 ; released owing to good 
 offices of Owen, formerly Cromwell's chaplain ; during this 
 imprisonment writes "The Pilgrim's Progress " ; First Part 
 published in 1678 ; Second Part in 1685 ; between the two, 
 the " Life and Death of Mr. Badman," and " The Holy 
 War " ; threatened persecution in 1685 5 Bunyan not to be 
 cajoled by James II. 's government ; his last days and last 
 works ; rejects all worldly advancement ; gets wet through 
 
10 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 when on a mission of kindness ; is stricken with mortal 
 illness ; dies on August 31, 1688 ; buried in Bunhill Field ; 
 his wife ; his personal appearance ; his preaching ; his 
 character . . . . , . . . . 136 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Bunyan's character as a writer ; his naturalness ; earnestness ; 
 style ; imaginative power ; reality of his characters ; all 
 drawn from the life ; " The Pilgrim's Progress " ; may be 
 regarded as a novel ; Bunyan really the first English 
 novelist ; secret of the book's universal acceptance ; the 
 " Second Part " inferior to the First ; " The Holy War " ; 
 an attempt to realize the impossible ; necessarily inconclu- 
 sive ; " The Life and Death of Mr. Badman " ; not really 
 an allegory at all, but a tale ; to be taken as a picture of 
 vulgar English life in Bunyan's days . . . .166 
 
 INDEX 193 
 
LIFE 
 
 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 
 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 Stafford) 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 boUi his 
 
12 LIFE OP 
 
 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 pre- 
 sented, 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 
 
BUNYAN. 13 
 
 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 Bedford- 
 shire 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 con- 
 temporary biographer, Charles Doe. He was not, how- 
 ever, a mere tramp or vagrant, as travelling tinkers were 
 and usually are still, much less a disreputable sot, a coun- 
 terpart of Shakespeare's Christopher Sly, but a man with 
 a recognized calling, having a settled home and an acknow- 
 ledged position in the village community of El stow. The 
 family was of long standing there, but had for some genera- 
 tions been going down in the world. Bunyan's grandfather, 
 Thomas Bunyan, as we learn from his still extant will, car- 
 ried 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, per- 
 sistent 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. 
 
14 LIFE OF 
 
 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-esta- 
 blished 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 six- 
 teenth 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 J 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 
 hread 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 bom in the 
 1 A small enclosure behind a cottage. 
 
BUN VAN. 15 
 
 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 con- 
 soled 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 in- 
 decent 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 
 
16 LIFE OF 
 
 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 con- 
 tain 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 the old " Moot Hall," a 
 quaint brick and timber building, with a projecting 
 upper storey, a good example of the domestic archi- 
 tecture of the fifteenth century, ojig^naljy, perhaps, the 
 
BUNYAN. 17 
 
 Guesten-Hall of the adjacent nunnery, and afterwards 
 the Court House of the manor when lay-lords had suc- 
 ceeded 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 sur- 
 roundings 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/ 7 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 p/ thousands of visitors attracted 
 
18 LIFE OF 
 
 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 con- 
 tained." 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 hob- 
 nailed boots of generations of ringers," remains undis- 
 turbed. 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 not- 
 withstanding." 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 repara- 
 tions have robbed it of all interest. 
 
 From this description of the surroundings among 
 
BUNYAN. 19 
 
 which Bunyan passed the earliest and most impression- 
 able 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 neigh- 
 bours. 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 chil- 
 dren should be properly educated. "Notwithstanding 
 the meanness and inconsiderableness of my parents," 
 writes Bunyan, " it pleased God to put it into their hearts 
 
20 LIFE OF 
 
 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 Bed- 
 ford. 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 com- 
 pany 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 
 
BUN VAN. 21 
 
 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 pro- 
 nounce 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 sup- 
 pose 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 pro- 
 
22 LIFE OF 
 
 gress 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 
 
BUN VAN. f-i j 
 
 ;: '.. ' ' ' 
 
 haunted with religious fears. He was scared witfy " fear- 
 ful dreams," and "dreadful visions," and haunted in his 
 sleep with " apprehensions of devils and wicked spirits n 
 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 dis- 
 carding 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." 
 
24 LIFE OF 
 
 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 mis- 
 takenly supposed to be an adder's sting. 
 
 These providential deliverances bring us to that inci- 
 dent 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 
 
BUNYAN. 25 
 
 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 bio- 
 graphers. Lord Macaulay, whose conclusion is ably, and, 
 we think, convincingly supported by Dr. Brown, decides 
 
26 LIFE OF 
 
 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 Parlia" 
 mentary 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 cer- 
 tainty 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. 27 
 
 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. 
 loth. 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 character- 
 istic 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 Chris- 
 tian 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 had 
 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 
 
LIFE OF BUNYAN. 29 
 
 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 in- 
 fluence 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 re- 
 prove 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 intelli- 
 gently. His wife's gentle influence prevailed on him to 
 begin " sometimes to read " her father's legacy " with her. 5 ' 
 This must have been entirely new reading for Bunyan, and 
 certainly at first not much to his taste. What his favpurite 
 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 some- 
 what pleasing " to him, and they " begot " within him 
 " some desires to religion," producing a degree of out- 
 ward 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 
 
30 LIFE OF 
 
 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 prohibi- 
 tion 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, con- 
 sistent 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, Ser- 
 vice, 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 
 
BVNYAN. 31 
 
 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 ulti- 
 mately 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 in- 
 dustriously, 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 iden- 
 tification 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 
 Jiis Sunday's dinner speedily drove away his self-condemn- 
 
82 LIFE OF 
 
 ing 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 goto 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 mor- 
 bidly 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 play- 
 ing the madman after his wonted manner, the woman of 
 the house, though a very loose and ungodly wretch," re- 
 buked 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 
 
BUNYAN. 33 
 
 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 conversa- 
 tion 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, begin- 
 ning 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 
 
 3 
 
84 LIFE OF 
 
 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. Danc- 
 ing, 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 it- 
 self for severe trials yet to come. 
 
 Meanwhile Bunyan's neighbours regarded with amaze- 
 ment 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 his 
 
BUN VAN. 35 
 
 vanity, and he laid himself out for them. He was then but 
 a " poor painted hypocrite," he says, " proud of his godli- 
 ness, 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 in- 
 ward 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 righteous- 
 ness, and had perished therein had not God in mercy 
 showed me more of my state by nature." 
 
 This revolution was nearer than he imagined. Bun- 
 yan'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 confu- 
 sion, subsequently became rector of St. John's Church, in 
 
36 LIFE OF 
 
 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 1 648, and condemned to the 
 gallows. By his sister's help he eluded his keepers' vigi- 
 lance, 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. GirTord exer- 
 cised 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 momen- 
 tous 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 
 blesssed land to which he was a complete stranger. " They 
 spoke of their own wretchedness of heart, of their un- 
 belief, 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.' 
 
BUNYAN. 37 
 
 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 com- 
 pany 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 medi- 
 tation." The Epistles of St. Paul, which before he 
 
33 LIFE OF 
 
 " 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 misinter- 
 preted 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 
 
BUNYAN. 89 
 
 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 corne 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 (l 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. 
 
40 LIFE OF 
 
 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 exceed- 
 ing 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 
 
BUN VAN. 41 
 
 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 feel- 
 ings 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 em- 
 braced 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 auto- 
 biography, without a counterpart except in " The Con- 
 fessions 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 
 
42 LIFE Ob 
 
 " 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." 
 
BUN VAN. 43 
 
 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 lan- 
 guage texts torn from their context the harassing 
 doubts as to the truth of Christianity, the depths ol 
 despair and the elevations of joy, which he has pour- 
 trayed 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 unpardon- 
 able 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 con- 
 sulted 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 
 
44 LIFE OF 
 
 not shed one ; no, nor sometimes scarce desire to shed 
 one." And yet he was all the while bewailing this hard- 
 ness 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 Scrip- 
 tures 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 illu- 
 sions 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 im- 
 
BUN YAM. 45 
 
 pression 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.' 7 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 travel- 
 ling 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 
 
46 LIFE OF 
 
 peace." " But, oh ! now how was my soul led on from 
 truth to truth by God ; now had I evidence of my sal- 
 vation from heaven, with many golden seals thereon all 
 hanging 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.' 7 
 
 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, me- 
 thought 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 extra- 
 ordinary 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, inter- 
 mittent delusion. " It lay upon me for the space of a 
 
BUN Y AN. 47 
 
 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." Wher- 
 ever 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 
 
48 LIFE OF 
 
 " 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 had 
 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 com- 
 fort now j 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 tor 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 encourage- 
 ment." 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 
 
BUNYAN. 49 
 
 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 
 
 4 
 
50 LIFE OF 
 
 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.' 3 
 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 
 
BUNYAN. 51 
 
 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 com- 
 manded 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 neighbour- 
 ing town, weaned 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 to- 
 gether 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 
 
52 LIFE 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 ever- 
 lasting 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,' 7 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 
 
BUN VAN. 63 
 
 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 threaten- 
 ing 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 
 
54 LIFE OF BUNYAN. 
 
 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 Righteous- 
 ness, 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 con- 
 gregation, 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 
 
56 LIFE OF 
 
 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 com- 
 municants. 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 
 
BUN VAN. 57 
 
 to the Hebrews tl came bolting in upon him," and sealed 
 his sense of acceptance with an assurance he never after- 
 wards entirely lost. " Then with joy I told my wife, c 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 bom; 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 con- 
 gregation. About this time also he must have lost the 
 wife to whom he owed so much. Bunyan does not men- 
 tion 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 
 
D8 LIFE OF 
 
 we may probably place the beginning of Banyan's minis- 
 terial life. Bunyan was now in his twenty-seventh year, 
 in the prime of his manly vigour, with a vivid imagina- 
 tion, 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. 7 ' 
 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 weak- 
 ness 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 ac- 
 company 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 in- 
 
BUNYAN. 59 
 
 creasingly 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 congrega- 
 tion 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 
 
60 LIFE OP 
 
 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 commenda- 
 tion 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 
 
BUNYAN. 61 
 
 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." " c 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, how- 
 ever, 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 con- 
 fidence 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 con- 
 tented 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." 
 
62 LIFE OF 
 
 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 sancti- 
 fi cation of his hearers. " If I were fruitless, it mattered 
 not who commended 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 execu- 
 tion 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 con- 
 course 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 timq 
 
BUNYAN. 63 
 
 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 country side 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 
 
64 LIFE OF 
 
 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 ac- 
 cusations 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, 
 
BUNYAN. 65 
 
 nay, the rather because they were so baseless, the gross^ 
 ness 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 treat- 
 ment to which Quakers were subjected, to say nothing of 
 the intolerance shown to Episcopalians and Roman 
 Catholics. In Bunyan's own county of Bedford, Quaker- 
 esses 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 
 
 5 
 
66 LIFE OF 
 
 might be carried. The withering lines are familar to us, 
 in which Milton denounces the " New Forcers of Con- 
 science/'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 Bed- 
 ford. 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 mysjtical 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 dis- 
 putations 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 
 
BUN Y AN, 67 
 
 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 Bun- 
 yan, 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 
 
68 LIFE OF 
 
 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 bom 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 be- 
 lieved 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 de- 
 ceiving others to their eternal ruin. To the refutation 
 of such fundamental errors, substituting a mystical for an 
 historical faith, Banyan's little treatise is addressed ; and it 
 may be truly said the work is done effectually. To adopt 
 
BUNYAN. 69 
 
 Coleridge's expression concerning Bunyan's greater and 
 world-famous work, it is an admirable " Sitmma Theologies 
 Evangehccz" 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, fear- 
 less, 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 
 f 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 
 
70 LIFE OF 
 
 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 r&7, / 
 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 Scrip- 
 ture, 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 covetous- 
 ness make merchandize of souls." Bunyan calmly re- 
 plies, "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 
 
BUNYAN. 71 
 
 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, arid 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 pourtraying 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 popu- 
 
72 LIFE OF 
 
 larity 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 penny- 
 worth 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 vani- 
 ties 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 
 
BUN VAN. 73 
 
 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 righteous- 
 ness in Christ? that is mine. Is there perfection in 
 that righteousness ? that is mine. Did He bleed for 
 
74 LIFE OF 
 
 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 
 
BUNYAN. 75 
 
 fcfr 
 
 fear which he passed through, which are more fully de- 
 scribed 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 wel- 
 come 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 ground- 
 less, 
 
LIFE OF BUNYAN. 77 
 
 But if such dreams of religious liberty were enter- 
 tained 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 pro- 
 mise 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 condemna- 
 tion 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 sancti- 
 moniousness which frowned upon innocent relaxa- 
 tion, 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, in 
 
78 LIFE OP 
 
 volved 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 Commonwealths- 
 man, all were at their feet. . . . Their whole policy 
 appeared to be dictated by a passionate spirit of re- 
 action. ... 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 to- 
 gether, and the new Parliament was resolved that both 
 should triumph together." 
 
 The feeling thus eloquently expressed goes far to ex- 
 plain 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 
 
BUNYAN. 79 
 
 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 suspi- 
 cious by the constant sense of danger, was led as much 
 by fear as by resentment to severities which are explained 
 by the necessities of self-defence," and which the nervous 
 apprehensions of the nation not only condoned, but in- 
 cited. 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 mana- 
 cled 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 
 
80 LIFE OF 
 
 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 meet- 
 ing 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 ex- 
 hibits towards the Book of Common Prayer. To him it 
 was an accursed thing, the badge and token of a per- 
 secuting 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. 
 
BUN VAN. 81 
 
 within little more than a month of the issue of the magis- 
 trate'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 con- 
 science 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 Har. 
 lington 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 
 
 6 
 
82 LIFE OF 
 
 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 wo aid 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 discourage- 
 ment 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 
 
BUN VAN. 83 
 
 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 exer- 
 cise. 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, under- 
 taking 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. Win- 
 gate's. A few inquiries showed the magistrate that he 
 had entirely mistaken the character of the Samsell meet- 
 ing 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, 
 
84 LIFE OF 
 
 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. Win- 
 gate 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 break- 
 ing 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,' 7 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 
 
BUNYAN. 85 
 
 making long prayers to devour widows houses, and liken- 
 ing 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 Bed- 
 ford, 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 
 
83 LIFE OF 
 
 was only to promise that he would not call people to- 
 gether, 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 com- 
 manded 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 notbutusethe best of his skill and wisdom tocounsel 
 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 Bed- 
 
BUNYAN. 87 
 
 ford gaol. It was dark, as we have seen, when this pro- 
 tracted 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. 
 
 ALONG-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 affect- 
 ing." 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 
 
LIFE OF BUN VAN. 89 
 
 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 confine- 
 ment 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 uncomfort- 
 able 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 
 
00 LIFE OF 
 
 clays 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 magis- 
 trate 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 evi- 
 dently 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 glad- 
 ness. " Verily I did meet my God sweetly again, com- 
 forting 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.' " 
 
BUN VAN. 91 
 
 Seven weeks after his committal, early in January, 
 1 66 1, 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 meet- 
 ings and conventions, to the great disturbance and dis- 
 traction 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 uncom- 
 promising, 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 to day 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 over- 
 bearing and contemptuous ; we may smile at Keeling's 
 
92 LIFE OF 
 
 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 con- 
 vincingly : but his legal offence was clear. He con- 
 fessed 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 meet- 
 ings 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 "trans- 
 ported," and if " he came back again without special 
 
BUNVAN. 93 
 
 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 expira- 
 tion 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, how- 
 ever, 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 
 
94 LIFE OF 
 
 gatherings to assemble unchecked. Bunyan, whose loyalty 
 was unquestioned, must acknowledge the prudence of 
 suppressing meetings which, however good their osten- 
 sible aim, might issue in nothing less than the ruin of 
 the kingdom and commonwealth. Bunyan had con- 
 fessed 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 per- 
 suaded, 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 : " In- 
 deed, sir, I hope he will be ruled.' 7 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 
 
BUN VAN. 95 
 
 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 procla- 
 mation, 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 pardon- 
 able 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 ac- 
 quainted with the circumstances of Bunyan's case. They 
 
96 LIFE OF 
 
 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 sym- 
 pathetic 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 pre- 
 sent 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 
 
BUN Y AN. 97 
 
 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 hus- 
 band." 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, 
 
 7 
 
98 LIFE OF 
 
 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 
 
BUNYAN. 99 
 
 chief enemies. "Thus," writes Bunyan, "was I hin- 
 dered 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 VL 
 
 THE exaggeration of the severity of Bunyan's impri- 
 sonment 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 jus- 
 tices 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 cap- 
 
LIFE OP BUNYAN. 101 
 
 tivity, 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 con- 
 gregation. 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 con- 
 nivance 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," 
 
102 LIFE OF 
 
 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 separa- 
 tion from his wife and children, especially his ten- 
 derly 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 be- 
 cause 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 
 
BUNYAN. 103 
 
 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 appre- 
 hensive 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 ex- 
 pectation. " 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 
 
104 LIFE OF 
 
 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 necessi- 
 ties." " 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 Bed- 
 ford 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 sympa- 
 thetic 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 
 
BUNYAN. 
 
 words of strength and comfort that were needed. In the 
 midst of the hurry which so many "new-comers occa- 
 sioned," 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 reli- 
 gious 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.' " 
 
106 LIFE OF 
 
 " 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 " limse 
 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 Evan- 
 gelical 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 conversa- 
 tion; 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 
 
BUNYAN. 107 
 
 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 Indul- 
 gence" 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 depressingefTect 
 of protracted confinement, during this second six years 
 Bunyan's pen was far less prolific than during the former 
 
108 LIFE OF 
 
 period. Only two of his books are dated in these years. 
 The last of these, " A Defence of the Doctrine of Justifi- 
 cation 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' imprison- 
 ment 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 com- 
 mencement 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 
 
BUNYAN. 109 
 
 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 quin- 
 tessence of arbitrary malice," April n, 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 
 seventy greatly lessened. Charles II. was already medi- 
 tating 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. Offer'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 perse- 
 cuting 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 
 
110 LIFE OF 
 
 t( 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 con- 
 venient 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 pre- 
 rogative he issued a Declaration of Indulgence which 
 suspended all penal laws against "whatever sort of 
 Nonconformists or Recusants." The latter were evi- 
 dently 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 
 
BUNYAN. Ill 
 
 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 Btmyan "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 " cer- 
 tainly 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 pro- 
 ducts of Bunyan's pen during this period. The composi- 
 tions in verse belonging to this epoch, of which there 
 
LIFE OF BUNYAN. 113 
 
 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 sel- 
 dom 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 
 
 8 
 
114 LIFE OF 
 
 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 H 
 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 
 
BUNYAN. 115 
 
 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, 
 
 4 You heretic, deceiver, come, 
 
 To prison you must go, 
 You preach abroad, and keep not home, 
 
 You are the Church's foe.' 
 
116 LIFE OF 
 
 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 cer- 
 tainly 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. 
 
BUNYAN. 117 
 
 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 excel- 
 lence. 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 
 
118 LIFE OF 
 
 near to be accidental." " Perhaps be 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 com- 
 positions giving the history of these works by which 
 they are prefaced and the latter work is closed. No 
 
BUNYAN. 119 
 
 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 him- 
 self: 
 
 " 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 hovv, 
 Tell who they arc, 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 
 
120 LIFE OF 
 
 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. 
 
 lOHN BUNYAN." 
 
 How full of life and vigour his sketch of the beleaguei- 
 ment 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 j 
 I saw Diabolus in possession, 
 And Mansoul also under his oppression. 
 
BUN Y AN. 121 
 
 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 iny 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 
 
122 LIFE OF 
 
 beyond their merit. The following specimen, taken 
 haphazard, will show how thoroughly Bimyan or the 
 rhymester, whoever he may be, has overcome what Mr. 
 Fronde regards as an almost insuperable difficulty, and 
 has managed to " spoil completely the faultless prose of 
 the English translation " : 
 
 "Ruth replied, 
 
 Intrcat 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 pre- 
 sent in Bunyan's rudest rhymes, still less of the " dash 
 of genius " and the " sparkle of soul " which occasion- 
 ally 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 ques- 
 tion. The internal evidence confirms the external. The 
 book is thoroughly in Bunyan's vein, and in its homely 
 
BUNYAN. 123 
 
 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 T - 
 the burning of a fire, the drinking of a chicken, fTfobin 
 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 clamp 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 : 
 
121 LIFE OF 
 
 ' * 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.' 1 
 
 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." 
 
BUNYAN. 125 
 
 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 descrip- 
 tion 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, clear- 
 ness 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 agoniz- 
 ing 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 
 
126 LIFE OF 
 
 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. AU 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 endeavour- 
 ing 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 edifi- 
 cation," directs also that everything should be done 
 " decently and in order.' 7 
 
 By far the most important of these prison works "The 
 Pilgrim's Progress,' 1 belonging, as will be seen, to a later 
 period is the " Grace Abounding," in which with inimi- 
 table earnestness and simplicity Bunyan gives the story 
 
BUNYAN. 127 
 
 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 
 pourtrayed 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 
 
128 LIFE OF jl 
 
 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 plain- 
 est, 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 narra- 
 tive 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 perish- 
 ing 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 
 
BUNYAN. 129 
 
 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 paren- 
 tage and boyhood, it carries us down to his marriage and 
 
 9 
 
130 LIFE OF 
 
 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 Bed- 
 ford gaol. The work concludes with a report of the con- 
 versation 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 cir- 
 cumstances 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 intro- 
 spection, 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 
 
BUNYAN. 131 
 
 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 eager- 
 ness 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, " de- 
 tached 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 depen- 
 dency." 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 pro- 
 fit 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 
 
132 LIFE OF 
 
 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 teach- 
 ing, 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 
 
BUNYAN. 133 
 
 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 mis- 
 understood 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 lati- 
 
134 LIFE OF 
 
 tudinarian 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 fair- 
 ness, 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. 
 
BUN VAN. 135 
 
 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 ivip't off ; or, 
 a manifest discovery of the Gross Ignorance, Erroneous- 
 ness, 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 gene- 
 rally 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 i3th. But we find from the church books that 
 he had been appointed pastor of the congregation to 
 which he belonged as early as the 2ist of January of 
 that year, and on the gth 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 com- 
 monly called Congregational." His release would there- 
 fore 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 hitti 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 re- 
 covered. 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, 
 
LIFE OF BUNYAN. 
 
 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 
 teen the scene of his earlier ministry, preaching when- 
 ever 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 
 
138 LIFE 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 Buckingham- 
 shire, 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 extend- 
 ing 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 Immanuers Land growing 
 nearer and clearer as the days went on." 
 
BUNYAN. 139 
 
 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 main- 
 tain. 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 neces- 
 saries 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 busi- 
 ness, 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 subse- 
 quent 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 
 
140 LIFE OF 
 
 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 diminu- 
 tive dormer window under the high-pitched tiled roof. 
 Behind stood an outbuilding which served as his work- 
 shop. 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. 141 
 
 Bunyan's celebrity as a preacher, great before he was 
 shut up in gaol, was naturally enhanced by the circum- 
 stance 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 Lon- 
 don, 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 Wil- 
 kinson's " Londina Illustrata." Doe's account, however, 
 probably points to another building, as the Zoar Street 
 
142 LIFE OF 
 
 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 Unspeak- 
 ableness 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 mer- 
 chants, and other Nonconformists of position and degree. 
 At earlier times, when the penal laws against Noncon- 
 formists 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 solici- 
 tations 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 
 
BUNYAN. 143 
 
 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, how- 
 ever 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 
 
144 LIFE OF 
 
 before the Church and convicted of being " an abomin- 
 able liar and slanderer," " extraordinary guilty" against 
 "our beloved Brother Bunyan himself." And though 
 Sister Hawthorn satisfied the Church by " humble ac- 
 knowledgment 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 inde- 
 pendent 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. Cuth- 
 bert'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 con- 
 fident that Giant Pope had lost his power for harm, and 
 
BUN VAN. 145 
 
 thenceforward could only bite his nails at the passing 
 pilgrims." 
 
 Bunyan's peace was not, however, altogether undis- 
 turbed. 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 there- 
 abouts. 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, sup- 
 plies 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 1 5th 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 sus- 
 pension of the laws of the realm by the "inherent power" 
 of the sovereign, without the advice or sanction of Parlia- 
 
146 LIFE OF 
 
 ment. 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 spend- 
 thrift 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 em- 
 ployed 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 appre- 
 hension, 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 
 
BUN VAN. 147 
 
 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 pro- 
 vince 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, allow- 
 ance, 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 abso- 
 lutely 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 
 nth. 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 remem- 
 bered, 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 
 
148 LIFE OF 
 
 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 
 J Napier 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 
 W Beecher come more carefully to observe his Highenes lawes 
 and Statutes and to continue in theire loyall and 
 G Blundell due obedience to his Majtie) Yett one John Buri- 
 nyon of youre said Towne Tynker hath divers times 
 within one month last past in contempt of his 
 Maj tie's good Lawes preached or teached at a Con- 
 Hum: Monoux venticle Meeting or Assembly under color or ptence 
 of exercise of Religion in other manner than accord- 
 ing to the Liturgie or practiss of the Church of 
 Will ffranklin 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 
 John Ventris further to doo and receave as to Lawe and Justice 
 shall appertaine and hereof you are not to faile, 
 Given under our handes and scales 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 DaF juxta &c 1674 
 
 Will Spencer 
 
 Will Gery St Jo Chernocke Wm Daniels 
 T Browne W fibster 
 
 Gaius Squire " 
 
 There would be little delay in the execution of the warrant. 
 Bunyan was a marked man and an old offender, who, on 
 
BUN VAN. 149 
 
 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 Banyan'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 bio- 
 graphers, Dr. Brown, see in this second brief imprison- 
 ment 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 interven- 
 tion 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 
 
150 LIFE OF 
 
 warrant for Bunyan's apprehension -bears date March 4, 
 1675. ^ n tne X 4 tn f tne 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 undis- 
 turbed all through the Commonwealth, and who was yet 
 among the first with effusive loyalty to welcome the restora- 
 tion 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 non- 
 conformity 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 com- 
 plaisance 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 
 
BUNYAN. 151 
 
 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 addi- 
 tional 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 com- 
 position 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 
 
152 LIFE OF 
 
 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 brisk- 
 ness 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 unneces- 
 sarily 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 im- 
 portant additions in 1679. The Second Part, after 
 
BUNYAN. 153 
 
 an interval of seven years, followed early in 1685. 
 Between the two parts appeared two of his most cele- 
 brated works the " Life and Death of Mr. Badman," 
 published in 1680, originally intended to supply a con- 
 trast 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 tradi- 
 tion that when he visited Reading to preach, he dis- 
 guised 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 
 
154 LIFE OF 
 
 time when he and his hearers had to conceal their meet- 
 ings 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 pos- 
 sessed 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 Govern- 
 ment 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 
 
BUNYAN. 155 
 
 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 sus- . 
 
156 LIFE OF 
 
 pended 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 abody 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 pre- 
 ferred 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-com- 
 mittees 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 Cor- 
 
BUN VAN. HI 
 
 poration was " regulated," which means that nearly the 
 whole of its members were removed and others substi- 
 tuted by royal order. Of these new members some six 
 or seven were leading persons of Bunyan's congrega- 
 tion. But, with all his ardent desire for religious liberty, 
 Bunyan was too keen-witted not to see through James's 
 insidious policy, and too honest to give it any direct 
 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 pro- 
 fessed 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 
 
158 LIFE OF 
 
 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 Pil- 
 grim's earthly Progress ended, and he was bidden to 
 cross the dark river which has no bridge. The sum- 
 mons 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 
 
BUN Y AN. 159 
 
 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 Build- 
 ing, 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 posi- 
 tion 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 
 
160 LIFE OF 
 
 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 differ- 
 ences, 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 Lon- 
 don, where he was appointed to preach at Mr. Gamman's 
 meeting-house near Whitechapel. His forty miles' ride 
 
-Cl 
 
 BUNYAN. llVfan. 
 
 to London was through heavy driving rain. **^' ^i c 
 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 iQth 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 six- 
 tieth year, on the 3ist 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-pur. 
 chased 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 
 
 ii 
 
1G2 LIFE OF 
 
 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, Banyan'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 42 193. On this, and the proceeds ot 
 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 dis- 
 course 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 pros- 
 perity, nor shaken in adversity, always holding the golden 
 mean." 
 
BUN VAN. 103 
 
 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 some- 
 thing 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 faith- 
 ful 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, " authen- 
 ticates 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 estima- 
 tion 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 
 
164 LIFE OF 
 
 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 in- 
 significant 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 com- 
 munion 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 contro- 
 versies about doubtful things and things of little moment 
 
BUNYAN. 165 
 
 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. 7 
 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 wrkings, especially through 
 " The Pilgrim's Progress," the\nker 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 Banyan'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. Offer, 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 stan- 
 dard. 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, as 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," 
 
LIFE OF BUN VAN. 167 
 
 "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 justi 
 this which, with all their rudeness, their occasional bad 
 grammar, and homely colloquialisms, gives to Bunyan's/ 
 writings a power of rivetting 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 
 
108 LIFE OF 
 
 warnings, make those who read him all eye, all car, 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 dis- / 
 course 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 imagina- 
 tion 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 repulsive- 
 ness of the subject the book is now scarcely read at all, 
 the " Life and Death of Mr. Badrnan." 
 
 One great charm of these works, especially of " The 
 Pilgrim's Progress," lies in the pure Saxon English in 
 
BUN VAN. 1G9 
 
 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 ; " power- 
 ful 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 
 
170 LIFE OF 
 
 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 im- 
 personations. 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 popu- 
 larity, 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 maybe 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 w x ith 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 Religi( n 
 "when he goes in his silver slippers," and "loves to walk 
 
BUN VAN. 171 
 
 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, drxd- Pliable with his shallow 
 impressionablene^s, are among our acquaintances. We 
 have, before now, come across " the brisk lad Ignorance 
 from the town of Conceit," and have made acquaint- 
 ance 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 Presump- 
 tion, " 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 " ? 
 
172 LIFE OF 
 
 Where shall we find more lifelike portraits than those of 
 Madam Bubble, a " tall, comely dame, somewhat of a 
 
 is war thy 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 commended, 
 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 
 
BUN VAN. 173 
 
 fall, with its stepping-stones half drowned in mire ; Bye- 
 pathmeadow, promising so fair, with its stile and foot- 
 path on the other side of the fence ; the pleasant river 
 fringed with meadows, green all the year long and over- 
 shadowed 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 Vaii} 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 Cam- 
 bridge, 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 
 
174 LIFE OF 
 
 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 Testa- 
 ment which does not find a place bodily and literally in 
 1 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 holi- 
 ness; 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 
 
BUN VAN. 175 
 
 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 haying been dead this many a day, his 
 brother, Giant Pope, now sits alone, grinning at pil- 
 grims 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 tes- 
 timony 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 temp- 
 tations 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 
 
176 LIFE OF 
 
 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 pro- 
 bably 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 enter- 
 taining. Intensely religious as it is in purpose, 
 
BUNYAN. 177 
 
 "The Pilgrim's Progress" may be safely styled the 
 firsjL-JSnglisii 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 allegorists," 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 reli- 
 lious, may be ; if we find incongruities in the nar- 
 rative, 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 
 
 12 
 
178 LIFE OF 
 
 a long discourse on the will and intellect." The 
 favourite of our childhood, as tl 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 teach- 
 ing, 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 isjj 
 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 t9 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 
 
BUN VAN. 179 
 
 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 apprecia- 
 tive 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 owri 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 in- 
 troduces 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 
 
180 LIFE OF 
 
 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 rajy 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 com- 
 panion, 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, 
 
BUN VAN. 181 
 
 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 pil- 
 grimage, settled down comfortably, enjoy the society of 
 the good people of the place, and the sons marry and 
 
182 LIFE OF 
 
 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 Mastiff's 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 dis- 
 regard 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 
 
BUN VAN. 183 
 
 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 dis- 
 guise. Fair ladies and love-matches, however decorously 
 chastened, suit ill with the sternness of the mortal con- 
 flict 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 
 
184 LIFE OP 
 
 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 pro- 
 vince 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 un- 
 reality pursues us through Milton's noble epic, the out- 
 come of a divinely-fired genius, and Bunyan's humble 
 narrative, drawing its scenes and circumstances, and to 
 
BUNYAN. 185 
 
 some extent its dramatis person^ 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 Man- 
 soul 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 
 
186 LIFE OF 
 
 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 rem- 
 nants of the Diabolonians still within her walls, ready to 
 show their heads on the least relaxation of strict watch- 
 fulness, 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 un- 
 decisive result. And so it must be to the end. If untrue 
 to art, Bunyan is true to fact. Whether we regard Man- 
 soul 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 main- 
 tains 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 ful- 
 ness 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, 
 
BUN VAN. 187 
 
 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 Diabo- 
 lonian 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 
 
188 LIFE OF 
 
 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. Mean- 
 while 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 pur- 
 pose 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 
 
BUN VAN. 189 
 
 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. Wise- 
 man 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 common- 
 place. But as a description of English middle-class life 
 at the epoch of the Restoration and Revolution, it is in- 
 valuable 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 
 
190 LIFE 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 sur- 
 prises ; no unlooked-for catastrophes ; no providential 
 interpositions to punish the sinner or rescue the good 
 man. Bad man's pious wife is made to pay the penalty 
 of allowing herself to be deceived by a tall, good-looking, 
 hypocritical scoundrel. Jle 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 self- 
 same Mr. Badman still, not only in name, but in con- 
 dition ; sinning on to 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 exag- 
 gerates nothing. He makes his bad man sharp and shrewd. 
 He al\ows 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 
 
BUN VAN. 191 
 
 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." 
 
 THE END. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 A. 
 
 Allon, Dr., quoted, 177 
 Arnold, Dr., quoted 177 
 
 B. 
 
 Bagford, Mr., his description of 
 
 Bunyan's study, 140 
 Barlow, Bishop of Lincoln, 149- 
 
 151 
 
 Baxter, Richard, 31, 33 
 Bedford, Bunyan refuses to leave, 
 
 142, 144 
 
 Bedford gaol, 88-89, *49 
 Bentley, Margaret, Bunyan's 
 
 mother, 15, 25 
 Blackley, Anne, 66 
 Brown, Dr., his life of Bunyan 
 
 referred to, 25, 29, 57, 63, 65, 
 
 67, 70, 101, 122, 132, 144, 149, 
 
 151, 152, 167, 179 
 Bunyan, Elizabeth, Bunyan's 
 
 daughter, 57 
 Bunyan, Elizabeth, Bunyan's 
 
 second wife, 57 ; her efforts to 
 
 obtain his release, 95-98, 130, 
 
 154, 161, 162 
 
 Bunyan family, 13-16 
 
 Bunyan, John, born at Elstow, 
 ii ; family and parentage, 13- 
 16 and 19 ; education, 20 ; to 
 what extent really a reprobate, 
 20-22 ; his terrors, 22-23 I a 
 soldier, 24-27 ; marries his first 
 wife, 28 ; his religious troubles, 
 3 r ~33> 34-54 I unites himself to 
 a little Christian brotherhood at 
 Bedford, 55 ; beginning of his 
 ministry, 58-63 ; he is greatly 
 traduced, 64 ; becomes an 
 author, 66 ; his opinion of the 
 " Book of Common Prayer," 
 80 and 126 ; warrant issued for 
 his apprehension, 81 ; he deter- 
 mines not to escape, 81-83 I * s 
 brought before Mr. Wingate, 
 and committed to gaol, 83-87 ; 
 indicted at Quarter Sessions, 
 January, 1661, 91 ; refuses to 
 leave off preaching, 93 ; re- 
 mains in Bedford Gaol till 
 1672, 99 ; his condition as a 
 prisoner, 100-102 ; supports his 
 
 13 
 
194 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 family by making ' ' long t igged 
 laces," 104; life in prison not 
 altogether unhappy, 106 ; re- 
 leased in 1672, 109 ; is licensed 
 to preach, no ; character as a 
 poet, 112-125 ; labours after 
 his release from prison, 136- 
 140 ; his fame as a preacher, 
 141-142 ; again imprisoned in 
 1675, 145 ; released, 151 ; is not 
 to be cajoled by James II.'s 
 government, 157, 158 ; his last 
 days and death, 160, 161 ; Doe's 
 description of him, 162 ; John 
 Nelson's description, 163 ; 
 general character of his works, 
 166-168 
 
 Bunyan, Mary, Bunyan's blind 
 daughter, 57, 102, 162 
 
 Bunyan, Mrs., Bunyan's first wife, 
 28, 29, 57, 161 
 
 Bunyan, Thomas, Bunyan's 
 father, 13, 19, 25 
 
 Burrows, Edward, his controversy 
 with Bunyan, 69-71 
 
 Burton, John, 57, 67 
 
 C. 
 
 " Christian Behaviour," 125 
 Cobb, Mr., sent to reason with 
 
 Bunyan, 93-95 ; 98 
 Coleridge, 20, 21, 69, 131, 177 
 " Confession of Faith," 132-133 
 44 Country Rhymes for Children," 
 
 122 
 
 Crompton, Mr., a young magis- 
 trate of Elstow, 90 
 
 D. 
 
 '* Defence of the Doctrine of Jus- 
 tification by Faith," 68, 132- 
 135 
 
 Defoe, 177, 189 
 
 Dell, Dr. William, Master of 
 Caius College, Cambridge, 63 
 
 " Divine Emblems," 122 
 
 "Doctrine of Law and Grace Un- 
 folded, The," 73-75 
 
 Doe, Charles, Bunyan's earliest 
 biographer, 55, 106, 141, 142, 
 144, 145, 159, 162 
 
 E. 
 
 " Ebal and Gerizim," 113 
 Elstow, Bunyan's birthplace, n, 
 13, 16-18, 28, 30, 57 
 
 F. 
 
 " Few Sighs from Hell, or the 
 Groans of a Damned Soul, A, " 
 
 71-73 
 
 Foster, William, a lawyer of Bed- 
 ford, 85, 86 ; 146-147 
 
 11 Four Last Things," 113, 114 
 
 Fowler, Ed ward, afterwards Bishop 
 of Gloucester, his controversy 
 with Bunyan, 133-135 
 
 Fronde, Mr., his life of Bunyan 
 referred to, 21, 25, 26, 38, 46, 
 58, 77, 88, 92, 98, 100, 103, 
 106, 113, 118, 121, 138, 144, 
 153. 178, 179. 183, 190 
 
 G. 
 
 Gifford, John, rector of St. John's 
 
 Church, Bedford, 35-36, 41, 
 
 55. 56, 57. 164 
 14 Grace Abounding to the Chief 
 
 of Sinners," 41, 64, 75, 125, 
 
 127-132 
 Green, J. R., quoted, 78, no, 112, 
 
 169 
 
INDEX. 
 
 195 
 
 H. 
 
 Hale, Sir Matthew, 96-98 
 Hallam, quoted, 169, 174, 176, 
 
 178 
 Hall, Christopher, Vicar of Elstow, 
 
 30, 31 
 
 "Holy City, The," 125 
 " Holy War, The," 108, 112, 118, 
 
 120, 153, 170 ; detailed criticism 
 
 of, 183-188 
 
 K. 
 
 Keeling, Sir John, 91, 92, 93 
 
 1 ' Life and Death of Mr. Badman," 
 
 105, 108, 153, detailed criticism 
 
 of, 188-191 
 Lindall, Dr., Vicar of Harling- 
 
 ton, 84 
 Luther's "Commentary on the 
 
 Galatians," 46 
 
 M. 
 Macaulay, Lord, 25, 26, 104, 109, 
 
 iS3. 154. 157. 169, 177 
 Milton, 66, 184 
 
 N. 
 
 Nelson, John, his description of 
 Bunyan, 163 
 
 O. 
 
 Oifor, Mr., 26, 109, 166 
 
 Owen, Cromwell's chaplain, his 
 efforts to obtain Bunyan 's re- 
 lease, 149-151 ; 163, 164 
 
 P. 
 
 " Pilgrim's Progress, The, v 108, 
 
 112, 117, 118, 119, 145 ; when 
 written, 151-152 ; detailed criti- 
 cism of, 168-183 
 "Plain Man's Pathway to Heaven, 
 
 The," by Arthur Dent, 28 
 " Practice of Piety, The," by Dr. 
 
 Lewis Bayley, 29 
 " Praying in the Spirit," 125 
 " Prison Meditations," 113, 114 
 " Profitable Meditations," 113 
 
 Q. 
 
 Quakers, Bunyan's controversy 
 with the, 66-71 
 
 R. 
 
 " Resurrection of the Dead and 
 Eternal Judgment," 125 
 
 S. 
 
 Shorter, Sir John, 159, 161 
 Smith, Alexander, quoted, 124 
 "Some Gospel Truths Opened," 
 
 &c., 67-69 
 
 Southey, 21, 59, 65, 79, 116, 163 
 Stanley, Dean, quoted, 165 
 Stoughton, Dr., quoted, 146 
 Swift, his opinion of " The Pil- 
 grim's Progress," 177 
 
 T. 
 Twisden, Judge, 96, 97 
 
 V. 
 
 "Vindication of Gospel Truths 
 Opened, A," 70-71 
 
 W. 
 
 Wingate, Francis, issues warrant 
 for Bunyan's apprehension, 81 ; 
 Bunyan brought before him, 
 83-87 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN P. ANDERSON 
 
 (British Museum). 
 
 I. WORKS. 
 II. Two OR MORE WORKS. 
 
 III. SINGLE WORKS. 
 
 IV. SELECTIONS. 
 
 V. SUPPOSITITIOUS WORKS. 
 
 VI. APPENDIX 
 
 Biography, Criticism, etc. 
 Versions, etc., of the Pil- 
 grim's Progress. 
 Magazine Articles. 
 VII. CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF 
 WORKS. 
 
 I. WORKS. 
 
 The Works of that eminent Ser- 
 vant of Christ, Mr. John Bun- 
 yan. Together with a large 
 alphabetical table containing 
 the contents of the whole [by 
 C. Doe. With a prefatory 
 epistle by Ebenezer Chandler 
 and John Wilson]. Vol. i. 
 London, 1692, fol. 
 
 With portrait. No more pub- 
 lished. The pagination and register 
 are very irregular, but the volume 
 is complete. 
 
 Second edition, with the fol- 
 lowing additions : a preface by 
 S. Wilson. Some account of 
 the life and death of the 
 
 author, etc. 2 vols. London, 
 1736, 37, fol. 
 
 Third edition. With copper- 
 plates. To which are now 
 added, the Divine Emblems, 
 and several other pieces. With 
 a preface by G. Whitefield. 
 2 vols. London, 1767, 68, fol. 
 
 Sixth edition. Edinburgh. 
 
 1771, fol. 
 
 Another edition. (Notes 
 
 [to] the Pilgrim's Progress by 
 Messrs. Mason, Scott, and 
 Burder.) 3 vols. New Haven, 
 1831, 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. With an 
 
 introduction to each treatise, 
 
ii 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 notes and a sketch of his life, 
 times, and contemporaries. 
 Edited by G. Offor [and R. 
 Philip]. 3 vols. Glasgow 
 [printed], Edinburgh and Lon- 
 don, 1853, 8vo. 
 
 The third volume has also a separ- 
 ate title-page, which reads : " The 
 Works, Allegorical, Figurative, and 
 Symbolical, of J. Bunyan," etc. 
 
 Another edition. 3 vols. 
 
 London, Glasgow [printed], 
 1862, 8vo. 
 
 The entire works of John Bun- 
 yan. Edited, with original in- 
 troductions, notes, and a 
 memoir, by H. Stebbing. With 
 engravings, etc. 4 vols. Lon- 
 don, 1859, 8vo. 
 
 II. TWO OR MORE WORKS. 
 
 Bunyan's Grace abounding to the 
 chief of sinners ; Heart's Ease 
 in heart trouble ; the World to 
 come, and the Barren Fig-Tree. 
 London, 1827, 12mo. 
 
 A Selection from the Works of J. 
 B., consisting of thirteen Dis- 
 courses, and his Grace abound- 
 ing to the chief of Sinners. 
 Selected by the Rev. I. Beeman. 
 3 vols. London, 1827, 8vo. 
 
 Doctrinal Discourses. London 
 [1841], 8vo. 
 
 Part of " Ward's Library of Stan- 
 dard Divinity." 
 
 The greatness of the Soul, and the 
 unspeakableness of the loss 
 thereof ; No way to Heaven but 
 by Christ Jesus ; the Strait 
 Gate. By J. B. To which is 
 prefixed an introductory essay 
 on his genius and writings by 
 R. Philip. London, Edinburgh 
 printed, 1845, 8vo. 
 
 One of a series, entitled "Works 
 of the English Puritan Divines." 
 
 The Jerusalem sinner saved ; the 
 Pharisee and the Publican ; the 
 Trinity and a Christian ; the 
 Law and a Christian. To which 
 is appended an Exhortation to 
 peace and unity. With life of 
 Bunyan by J. Hamilton. Lon- 
 don [Edinburgh printed], 1845, 
 8vo. 
 
 One of a series, entitled " Works 
 of the English Puritan Divines." 
 
 Illustrated edition of the Select 
 Works of J. B., with an original 
 sketch of the author's life and 
 times, and notes by the editor 
 of " Sturm's Family Devotions." 
 2 vols. London and New York 
 [1853], 8vo. 
 
 The Pilgrim's Progress ; The 
 Holy War ; and a relation of 
 the author's improvement. 
 With copious notes, original 
 and selected ; and an original 
 memoir of the author, by G. B. 
 Cheever. Illustrated by engrav- 
 ings, etc. Glasgow [1861], 4to. 
 
 Another edition. Edinburgh 
 
 [1864], 8vo. 
 
 Bunyan's Allegorical Works, or 
 the Pilgrim's Progress, and the 
 Holy War ; together with his 
 Grace Abounding, Divine Em- 
 blems, and other poems : edi- 
 ted, with notes and a life of 
 Bunyan, by C. H. H. Wright. 
 With illustrations by H. Cas- 
 telli and G. Bartsch. London, 
 Leipzig [printed, 1864-67], 4to. 
 
 The Pilgrim's Progress and other 
 allegorical works. Illustrated 
 by David and W. B.Scott. With 
 a critical essay on Bunyan and 
 the Pilgrim's Progress, by Lord 
 Macaulay. London, Edinburgh 
 [printed, 1868], 4to. 
 
 Little Books by John Bunyan. 
 [Edited by G. Offor.] 8 vols. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 iii 
 
 London, Glasgow [printed], 
 1873, 74, 16mo. 
 
 The family edition. The Pil- 
 grim's Progress, Holy War, and 
 Grace Abounding. With an 
 introductory essay on the life, 
 writings, and genius of the 
 author, by W. Landels, and a 
 series of pilgrim characters 
 taken from the life, by E. 
 Deanes. London [1873-76], 4to. 
 
 The Pilgrim's Progress. (A true 
 relation of the Holy War. With 
 a life of Bunyan by W. Brock, 
 etc.) With notes by R. Maguire. 
 Illustrated by H. C. Selous and 
 P. Priolo. 2 parts. London 
 [1874-76], 4to. 
 
 Another edition. London 
 
 [1878-81], 4to. 
 
 Bunyan. The Pilgrim's Progress, 
 Grace Abounding, and A rela- 
 tion of his imprisonment. 
 Edited, with biographical intro- 
 duction and notes, by E. Ve- 
 nables. (Clarendon Press Series.) 
 Cambridge, 1879, 8vo. 
 
 III. SINGLE WORKS. 
 
 The Acceptable Sacrifice ; or, the 
 excellency of a broken heart : 
 shewing the nature, signs, and 
 proper effects of a contrite 
 spirit. Being the last works of 
 J. B. With a preface prefixed 
 thereunto by an eminent 
 Minister of the Gospel in Lon- 
 don (G. Cokayn). London, 
 1689, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. London, 
 
 1691, 12rao. 
 
 Third edition. London, 1698, 
 
 12mo. 
 
 Fourth edition. London, 
 
 1702, 12mo. 
 
 The Acceptable Sacrifice. Fifth 
 edition. London, 1718, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. London, 
 
 Weymouth [printed, 1848 ?], 
 32mo. 
 
 The Advocateship of Jesus Christ, 
 clearly explained, and largely 
 improved, etc. London, 1688, 
 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. The Work 
 
 of Jesus Christ as an Advocate, 
 clearly explained, and largely 
 improved, etc. London, 1688, 
 . 12mo. 
 
 This is a re-issue of the preceding, 
 with a new title-page. The Epistle 
 to the Reader and Table of Con- 
 tents are set out in larger type. 
 
 Another edition. London 
 
 [1720 ?], 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. London, 
 
 1725, 12rno. 
 
 Another edition. Faver- 
 
 sham, reprinted [1810 ?], 12mo. 
 Reprinted from an edition of 1727. 
 
 The Barren Fig-Tree; or, the 
 doom and downfall of the Fruit- 
 less Professor, shewing that the 
 day of Grace may be past with 
 him long before his life is ended ; 
 the signs also by which such 
 miserable mortals may be 
 known. London, 1682, 12mo. 
 
 No copy known of this the first 
 edition. 
 
 Another edition. The Barren 
 
 Fig-tree ; or, the doom and 
 downfall of the fruitless pro- 
 fessor. To which is added his 
 Exhortation to Peace and Unity 
 among all that fear God. 2 
 parts. London, 1688, 12mo. 
 
 Third edition. London, 1692, 
 
 12mo. 
 
 Sixth edition. London, 1709, 
 
 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. London, 
 
 1728, 8vo. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 The Barren Fig Tree. Another 
 edition. London, 1762, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. London, 
 
 1784, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. Leeds, 
 
 1793, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. London, 
 
 1797, 16mo. 
 
 Another edition. London 
 
 [1810 ?], 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. To which 
 
 is added the River of Water of 
 Life. Edinburgh, 1848, 32rno. 
 
 Another edition, (History 
 
 and Repository of Pulpit Elo- 
 quence, by H. C. Fish. Vol. i.) 
 New York, 1857, 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. (The great 
 
 Sermons of the great Preachers, 
 etc.) London, 1858, 8vo. 
 
 The Barren Fig-tree. 
 
 Abridged from J. B. London 
 [1825 ?], 12mo. 
 
 A caution to stir up to watch 
 against sin. [A poem.] Lon- 
 don [1684], s. sh., fol. 
 The first stanza is not by Bunyan. 
 
 A Book for Boys and Girls ; or, 
 Country Rhymes for Children, 
 in Verse, on 74 things. Lon- 
 don, 1686, 12mo. 
 No copy known of this edition. 
 
 A book for boys and girls ; 
 
 or, temporal things spiritual- 
 ized. London, 1701, 8vo. 
 
 Divine Emblems ; or, tem- 
 poral things spiritualized, fitted 
 for the use of boys and girls. 
 The ninth edition, with large 
 additions. London, 1724, 12rno. 
 
 Tenth edition. With a re- 
 commendatory preface [by J. 
 D.]. London, 1757, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. London, 
 
 1793, 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. London, 
 
 1802, 12mo. 
 
 A Book for Boys and Girls. 
 Another edition. To which is 
 added, A caution to stir up to 
 watch against sin. Coventry, 
 1806, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. London 
 
 [1825 ?], 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. With pre- 
 face by A. Smith. [With 
 woodcuts.] London, Edin- 
 burgh [printed, 1864], 12mo. 
 
 A Case of Conscience Resolved 
 viz., Whether where a Church 
 of Christ is situate, it is the 
 duty of the Women of that Con- 
 gregation ordinarily, and by 
 appointment to separate them- 
 selves from their brethren, and 
 so to assemble together to per- 
 form some parts of Divine Wor- 
 ship, as Prayer, etc., without 
 their Men. London, 1683, 4to. 
 
 Christian Behaviour ; being the 
 fruits of true Christianity : 
 shewing the ground from whence 
 they flow in their Godlike Order 
 in the Duties of Relations. 
 London [1663], 12mo. 
 
 Only one copy known of this the 
 first edition. 
 
 Christian Behaviour ; being 
 
 the fruits of true Christianity. 
 Teaching how to walk so as to 
 please God. With a word of 
 direction to all Backsliders. 
 The third edition. London 
 [1690?], 12mo. 
 
 Come and Welcome to Jesus 
 Christ ; or, a discourse upon the 
 sixth of John, 37 vers., etc. 
 London, 1678, 8vo. 
 
 Second edition. With addi- 
 tions. London, 1684, 12mo. 
 
 Sixth edition. London, 1691, 
 
 12mo. 
 
 Eleventh edition, London, 
 
 1715, 12mo. 
 

 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 Come and Welcome to Jesus 
 Christ. Twelfth edition. Lon- 
 don, 1719, 12mo. 
 
 Tenth edition. London, 1750, 
 
 12mo. 
 
 Eleventh edition. London, 
 
 1756, 12mo. 
 
 Twelfth edition. London, 
 
 1762, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. (Come and 
 
 Welcome to Jesus Christ.} Lon- 
 don, 1774, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. Glasgow, 
 
 1778, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. To which 
 
 is added, The one thing need- 
 ful ; or, Serious Meditations [in 
 verse] upon Death, Judgment, 
 Heaven, and Hell. Berwick, 
 1790, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. To which 
 
 is added, The one thing need- 
 ful. London, 1798, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. To which 
 
 is added, The one thing need- 
 ful, etc. London, 1805, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. To which 
 
 is added, The one thing is need- 
 ful, etc. London, 1811, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. London 
 
 [1820 ?], 18mo. 
 
 Another edition. London, 
 
 1835, 16mo. 
 
 Another edition. (Eeligious 
 
 Tract Society. The first 'series 
 tracts, etc., No. 338.) London 
 [1840 ?], 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. London, 
 
 Birmingham [1855 ?], 32mo. 
 
 Another edition. Edinburgh 
 
 [1855], 16mo. 
 
 Another edition. ( The Chris- 
 tian's Fireside Library, vol. 
 xvi.) Edinburgh [1857], 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. Edinburgh 
 
 [1873], 16mo. 
 
 Come and Welcome to Jesus 
 Christ. [An abridged edition.] ' 
 London [1850?], 16mo. 
 
 Absolute and Condi- 
 tional Promises. [An extract 
 from " Come and Welcome to 
 Jesus Christ."] [London, 1881], 
 s. sh., 8vo. 
 
 A Confession of Faith and Reason 
 of my Practice ; or, with who, 
 and who not, I can hold Church 
 Fellowship, or the Communion 
 of Saints, etc. London, 1672, 
 12mo. 
 
 Mr. Brown says no copy of the 
 first edition is known. 
 
 A defence of the doctrine of Justi- 
 fication by Faith in Jesus Christ : 
 or Mr. Fowler's pretended 
 Design of Christianity proved to 
 be nothing more then to trample 
 under foot the blood of the Son 
 of God. [London], 1672, 4to. 
 
 Differences in judgment about 
 Water-baptism no bar to com- 
 munion or to communicate with 
 saints. In answer to a book 
 published by Mr. T. P. and Mr. 
 W. K[iffin], entituled: Some 
 serious reflections on that part 
 of Mr. Bunyan's Confession of 
 Faith touching Church Com- 
 munion with unbaptized be- 
 lievers. Here is also Mr. Jesse's 
 judgment in the case, etc. Lon- 
 don, 1673, 8vo. 
 
 A discourse upon the Pharisee and 
 
 the Publican. London, 1685, 
 
 12mo. 
 Third edition. London, 
 
 1704, 12mo. 
 Fifth edition. London [1704?], 
 
 12mo. 
 Twelfth edition, corrected. 
 
 (His [i.e., Bunyan's] last sermon. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 His dying sayings.) London 
 [1720 ?], 12mo. 
 
 Twelfth edition. To which 
 
 is added his last sermon, etc. 
 London [1730], 12mo. 
 
 A duplicate of the preceding, with 
 a new title-page and a frontispiece. 
 
 Eighteenth edition, corrected. 
 
 To which is added his last ser- 
 mon and his dying sayings. 
 London, 1804, 12mo. 
 
 A Discourse of the Building, 
 Nature, Excellency, and Gov- 
 ernment of the House of God, 
 with Counsel and Directions to 
 the Inhabitants thereof. Lon- 
 don, 1688, 12mo. 
 
 Mr. Browns states that the only 
 known copy of the first edition was 
 destroyed by fire with the rest of Mr. 
 Offer's collection. 
 
 The Doctrine of the Law and 
 Grace unfolded ; or, a discourse 
 touching the law and grace, etc. 
 London, 1659, 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. London, 
 
 1685, 8vo. 
 
 Third edition amended. 
 
 London, 1708, 12mo. 
 
 Fourth edition, etc. London, 
 
 1736, 12mo. 
 
 Sixth edition. London, 1760, 
 
 12mo. 
 
 Sixth edition, corrected. 
 
 London, 1781, 12mo. 
 
 New edition. London, 1788, 
 
 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. Sixth 
 
 edition corrected, etc. Lon- 
 don, Berwick [printed], 1802, 
 12mo. 
 
 Eighth edition, etc. Lon- 
 don, Berwick [printed], 1805, 
 12mo. 
 
 A Few Sighs from Hell ; or, the 
 Groans of a Damned Soul, etc. 
 London, 1658, 12mo. 
 
 Sighs from Hell ; or, the 
 Groans of a Damned Soul. 
 Eleventh edition. London, 
 1702, 12mo. 
 Twelfth edition. London, 
 
 Glasgow 
 London, 
 
 1707, 12mo. 
 Thirteenth edition. London, 
 
 1715, 12mo. 
 
 Tenth edition. London, 1759, 
 
 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. 
 
 [1770 ?], 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. 
 
 1774, 12mo. 
 
 New edition. Leeds, 1795, 
 
 12 mo. 
 
 New edition. London, 1797, 
 
 12mo. 
 
 Nineteenth edition. London, 
 
 1818, 12mo. 
 
 Grace Abounding to the chief 
 of sinners : or, a brief and 
 faithful relation of the exceed- 
 ing mercy of God in Christ to 
 his poor servant, John Bunyan. 
 Whereunto is added a brief re- 
 lation of his call to the work of 
 the ministry, etc. London, 
 1666, 8vo. 
 
 Sixth edition London, 1688, 
 
 8vo. 
 
 Seventh edition, corrected. 
 
 London, 1692, 12mo. 
 
 Eighth edition, etc. Lon- 
 don [1693 ?], 12mo. 
 
 Twelfth edition. Corrected 
 
 and much enlarged by the 
 author. With his character. 
 London, 1701, 12mo. 
 
 The copy in the British Museum 
 is interleaved and inlaid, and has a 
 portrait of Bunyan, and facsimile of 
 the title-page of the edition of Lon- 
 don, 1666, prefixed. Some of the 
 MS. notes, which are by G. Offor, 
 are mutilated. 
 
 Ninth edition, etc. London, 
 
 1716, 12mo. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 vii 
 
 Grace Abounding. Another edi- 
 tion. London [1750 ?], 12mo. 
 
 Tenth edition, etc. London, 
 
 1759, 12mo. 
 
 Eleventh edition, etc. Lon- 
 don, 1761, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. To which 
 
 is added his Dying Sayings. 
 London, 1771, 12mo. 
 
 Thirteenth edition, etc. Lon- 
 don, 1778, 12oio. 
 
 New edition. Leeds, 1798, 
 
 12mo. 
 
 Seventeenth edition, etc. 
 
 London [1800 ?], 12rao. 
 
 Fiftieth edition. London, 
 
 1804, 12mo. 
 
 Fifty-first edition, etc. Lon- 
 don, 1804, 12mo. 
 
 Fifty - second edition, etc. 
 
 London, 1812, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. London, 
 
 1814, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. The life of 
 
 Mr. John Bunyan. Compiled 
 from Mr. Banyan's " Grace 
 Abounding to the chief of 
 sinners." The account of his 
 trial and imprisonment, and ex- 
 tracts from the records of the 
 Congregation at Bedford. By 
 J. Ivimey. Second edition. 
 London, 1825, 12mo. 
 
 The complete text of " Grace 
 abounding to the chief of sinners," 
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 Another edition. Aberdeen 
 
 [1830 ?], 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. The life of 
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 published under the title of 
 " Grace abounding to the chief 
 of sinners." With the addition 
 of some particulars of his exam- 
 ination before his committal to 
 prison, and a continuation to the 
 
 time he joined good Christian 
 in glory. London, 1845, 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. Glasgow, 
 
 1863, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition, with addi- 
 tions. John Bunyan, an auto- 
 biography. With illustrations 
 by ... E. ET. Downard, en- 
 graved by E. Whymper. Lon- 
 don [1873], 4to. 
 
 Another edition. (CasseWs 
 
 National Library, vol. xxxix.) 
 London, 1886, 8vo. 
 
 Complete in Christ. [An 
 
 extract from (t Grace Abounding 
 to the Chief of Sinners."] Bir- 
 mingham [1855 ?], s. sh., 8vo. 
 
 The greatness of the soul and 
 the unspeakableness of the loss 
 thereof, etc. [Sermon on Mark 
 viii. 37.] London, 1683, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. London, 
 
 1691, 12mo. 
 
 Second edition. London, 
 
 1730, 16mo. 
 
 The Heavenly Foot-Man ; or, a 
 description of the Man that gets 
 to Heaven. To which is added, 
 The Life and Death of John 
 Bunyan ; with a catalogue of 
 all Mr. Bunyan's writings [by 
 C. Doe]. London, 1698, 8vo. 
 
 Fourth edition. London, 
 
 1708, 16mo. 
 
 Another edition. London, 
 
 1774, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. To which 
 
 is added, the life and death of 
 John Bunyan, and also his 
 last sermon [on John i. 13], 
 London, 1777, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. London 
 
 [1790 ?], 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. London 
 
 [1800 ?], 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. (The Cot- 
 
 tage Library of Christian Know 
 
Vlll 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 ledge, etc., vol. i.) London 
 [1806 ?], 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. The 
 
 Heavenly Footman. By John 
 Bunyan. To which is added 
 his life and death ; also his last 
 sermon. New York, 1808, 
 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. London 
 
 [1810 ?], 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. Halifax, 
 
 1838, 16mo. 
 
 A race for eternal life : 
 
 Being an extract from [or 
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 Heavenly Footman. Written 
 by the author of the " Pilgrim's 
 Progress." [Edited] By the 
 Rev. Mr. Fletcher. London, 
 1782, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. Lon- 
 don, 1783, 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. Lon- 
 don, 1787, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition ( The 
 
 works of the Rev. J. Fletcher, 
 vol. i.). London, 1803, etc., 
 12mo. 
 
 The Holy City; or, the New 
 Jerusalem : wherein its goodly 
 light, walls . . . and the man- 
 ner of their standing, are ex- 
 pounded, etc. London, 1665, 
 8vo. 
 
 Re-issued in 1669 with a new title- 
 page. 
 
 A Holy Life, the beauty of Christi- 
 anity; or, an exhortation to 
 Christians to be holy. London, 
 1684, 12mo. 
 
 The Holy War made by Shaddai 
 upon Diabolus for the regaining 
 of the metropolis of the world. 
 Or, the losing and taking again 
 of the town of Mansoul. Lon- 
 don, 1682, 8vo. 
 
 The Holy War. Second edition. 
 London, 1684, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. London, 
 
 1707, 12ino. 
 
 Another edition, Edinburgh, 
 
 1718, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. London, 
 
 1738, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. London, 
 
 1752, 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. Glasgow, 
 
 1752, 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. London, 
 
 1759, 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. Glasgow, 
 
 1763, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. Paisley, 
 
 1777, 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. Glasgow, 
 
 1777, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. Illustrated 
 
 with notes, by W. Mason. Lon- 
 don, 1782, 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. London, 
 
 1782, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. London, 
 
 1785, 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. An entire 
 
 new edition, illustrated with 
 notes. Embellished with copper- 
 plates. (The Heavenly Foot- 
 man, etc. An authentic 
 Account of the life and death of 
 Mr. J. B., etc.) 3 pts. Bir- 
 mingham, 1789, 8vo. 
 
 New edition. London, 1792, 
 
 12mo. 
 
 New edition, to which are 
 
 subjoined notes by S. Adams. 
 Loiidon, 1795, 8vo. 
 New edition, with a new set 
 of cuts. London [IS'iO ?], 12mo. 
 New edition. With explana- 
 tory and practical notes by G. 
 Burder. London, 1803, 12mo. 
 New edition, etc. London, 
 1805, 12mo. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 The Holy War. Another edition. 
 To which is added, a sketch of 
 the life of the author, with re- 
 marks on the Holy War. A 
 new and correct edition. "Wit- 
 ham, 1805, 8vo. 
 
 New edition. A true relation 
 
 of the Holy War, etc. Bungay, 
 1806, 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. London, 
 
 1808, 12mo. 
 
 New edition, with notes and 
 
 engravings, etc. London, 1810, 
 8vo. 
 
 New edition . The Holy War, 
 
 etc. London, 1810, 12mo. 
 
 New edition. Gainsborough, 
 
 1812, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. Derby, 
 
 1815, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. ( Wesley r , /. 
 
 A Christian Library, vol. xix.) 
 London, 1819, etc., 8vo. 
 
 New edition, with notes by 
 
 G. Burder. London, 1821, 8vo. 
 
 New edition, with notes by 
 
 G. Burder, etc. London, 1824, 
 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. With an- 
 notations by R. Maguire and a 
 life of Bunyan by W. Brock. 
 Illustrated by H. C. Selous and 
 D. H. Friston. London [1863], 
 4to. 
 
 Another edition. London, 
 
 1864, 16mo. 
 
 Another edition. London, 
 
 Edinburgh [printed], 1865, 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. With illus- 
 trations printed in colours. 
 London [1870], 16mo. 
 One of " Warne's National Books." 
 
 Another edition. London, 
 
 Guildford [printed, 1878], 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. London, 
 
 Guildford [printed, 1880], 8vo. 
 
 The Holy War. Another edition. 
 Edited, with notes, by J. Brown. 
 London, 1887, 8vo. 
 
 The history of the Holy 
 War. Abridged and adapted 
 for juvenile instruction by a 
 Lady. London, 1817, 12ino. 
 
 The Sunday Scholars' 
 
 Service of Sacred Song (Book 
 "A A"), companion to "The 
 Pilgrim's Progress," illustrative 
 of Bunyan's Holy War, com- 
 piled and arranged, with adapted 
 connective "readings, by H. C. 
 Freeman. London [1872], 8vo. 
 
 Trials of certain Dia- 
 
 bolonians in the Town of Man- 
 soul. [An extract from the 
 "Holy War."] (The Cottage 
 Library of Christian Knowledge, 
 etc., vol. iv.) London [1806 ?], 
 8vo. 
 
 Versified by E. J. With 
 
 an introductory essay by 0. F. 
 Owen. London, 1859, 4to. 
 
 Instruction for the ignorant : being 
 a Salve to cure that great want 
 of Knowledge which so mucli 
 reigns both in Young and Old, 
 
 Erepared and presented to them 
 i a plain and easy dialogue 
 fitted to the capacity of the 
 weakest. London, 1675, 8vo. 
 
 Mr. Brown states that the only 
 known copy of the first edition is in 
 the Bodleian Library. 
 
 Another edition. The doc- 
 trines of the Christian Faith ex- 
 plained in a plain and easy dia- 
 logue. Sixth edition. London, 
 1728, 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. Bunyan's 
 
 Catechism. Instruction for the 
 Ignorant : being a salve to cure 
 that great want of knowledge 
 which so much reigns both in 
 young and old ; prepared in a 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 plain dialogue, etc. London, 
 1846, 12mo. 
 
 I will pray with the Spirit, and I 
 will pray with the Understand- 
 ing also. Or, a discourse touch- 
 ing prayer, from 1 Cor. xiv. 15. 
 Third edition. London [1685 ?], 
 12mo. 
 
 There are no known copies of the 
 first or second editions. 
 
 Another edition. London, 
 
 1836, 24mo. 
 
 The Jerusalem Sinner saved ; or, 
 good news for the vilest of 
 men. Second edition. In which 
 is added, an answer to those 
 grand objections that lie in the 
 way of them that would believe, 
 etc. London, 1689, 12mo. 
 
 In Doe's list the date of the first 
 edition is given as 1688, but there is 
 no copy known. 
 
 Third edition, etc. London, 
 
 1697, 12mo. 
 
 Third edition, etc. London, 
 
 1700, 12mo. 
 
 Ninth edition, adorn'd with 
 
 cuts. London, 1715, 12mo. 
 
 Tenth edition, adorn'd with 
 
 cuts. London, 1728, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. Lewes, 
 
 1805, 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. The Ear- 
 nest Inquirer ; or, the Jerusalem 
 Sinner saved. New edition, re- 
 vised and enlarged, with memoir 
 of the author by C. M. Birrell. 
 Liverpool, 1865, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. (The Reli- 
 gious Trad Society Library, etc. ). 
 London, 1886, 16mo. 
 
 Bunyan's glad tidings 
 
 for sinners. (Abridged [from 
 "The Jerusalem Sinner Saved"], 
 etc. ) (Select Series of Christian 
 Tracts, etc.) London [1864], 
 18 mo. 
 
 The Jerusalem Sinner saved. 
 The Freeness of the Gos- 
 pel. [An extract from "The 
 Jerusalem Sinner saved. "] Bir- 
 mingham [1855?], s. sh., 8vo. 
 
 The Life and Death of Mr Bad- 
 man, presented to the world in 
 a familiar dialogue between Mr. 
 Wiseman and Mr. Attentive. 
 London, 1680, 12mo. 
 
 Third edition, with addition 
 
 of cuts. The Life and Death 
 of Mr. Badman, etc. London, 
 1696, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. London 
 
 [1734 ?], 12mo. 
 
 New edition. London, 1808, 
 
 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. With copi- 
 ous notes by W. Mason. Lon- 
 don, 1816, 12mo. 
 
 Considerations upon the 
 
 Bankruptcy of Tradesmen. 
 [Abridged from " The Life and 
 Death of Mr. Badman."] Lon- 
 don, 1818, 12mo. 
 
 Light for them that sit in Dark- 
 ness ; or, a Discourse of Jesus 
 Christ, and that He undertook 
 to accomplish by Himself the 
 Eternal Redemption of Sinners, 
 etc. London, 1675, 8vo. 
 
 Copies of the first edition are in 
 the Bodleian Library, and in the 
 Bunyan Collection at Bedford. 
 
 One thing is needful ; or, Serious 
 Meditations upon the four last 
 things : Death, Judgement, 
 Heaven, and Hell. Unto which 
 is added Ebal and Gerizim ; or, 
 the Blessing and the Curse : 
 With Prison Meditations [in 
 verse]. The fourth edition. 
 London [1700 ?], 12mo. 
 
 According to Mr. Brown, this is 
 the earliest known edition of these 
 works 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 xi 
 
 Peaceable Principles and true; or, 
 a brief answer to Mr. Danver's 
 and Mr. Paul's Books against 
 my Confession of Faith, etc. 
 London, 1674, 12mo. 
 
 No known copy of this the first 
 edition. 
 
 PILGRIM'S PROGRESS. PT. i. 
 
 The Pilgrim's Progress from this 
 world to that which is to come : 
 delivered under the similitude 
 of a Dream. Wherein is dis- 
 covered, the manner of his set- 
 ting out, his dangerous journey ; 
 and safe arrival at the Desired 
 Countrey. London, 1678, 8vo. 
 
 The second edition, with ad- 
 ditions. London, 1678, 12mo. 
 
 Third edition, with additions. 
 
 London, 1679, 12mo. 
 With portrait. 
 
 Fourth edition, with addi- 
 tions. Dondon [London], 1680, 
 12mo. 
 With portrait. 
 
 Fifth edition, with additions. 
 
 London, 1680, 12mo. 
 With portrait. 
 
 Sixth edition, with additions. 
 
 London, 1681, 12mo. 
 
 Seventh edition, with addi- 
 tions. London, 1681, 12mo. 
 
 Fifth edition, with additions. 
 
 London, 1682, 12mo. 
 
 With portrait and twelve copper- 
 cuts. 
 
 Eighth edition, with addi- 
 tions. London, 1682, 12mo. 
 
 With four woodcuts, including 
 portrait. There is another eighth 
 edition of the same date ; the plate 
 on p. 135 (should be 145) distin- 
 guishes the two editions. 
 
 Ninth edition, with addi- 
 tions. London, 1683, 12mo. 
 With portrait, four woodcuts. 
 
 The Pilgrim's Progress. Part 1. 
 Tenth edition, with addi- 
 tions. London, 1685, 12mo. 
 
 Eleventh edition, with addi- 
 tions and the cuts. London, 
 
 1688, 12mo. 
 
 Twelth edition, with addi- 
 tions and the cuts. London, 
 
 1689, 12mo. 
 
 Fifteen cuts, including portrait. 
 Thirteenth edition, with addi- 
 tions and the cuts. London, 
 
 1692, 12mo. 
 
 Thirteenth edition, with addi- 
 tions and the cuts. London, 
 
 1693, 12mo. 
 
 Fourteenth edition, with addi- 
 tions of new cuts. London, 
 1695, 12mo. 
 
 Fifteenth edition, with addi- 
 tions of new cuts. London, 
 1702, 12mo. 
 
 Sixteenth edition, with addi- 
 tions of new cuts. London, 
 1707, 12mo. 
 
 Eighteenth edition, with 
 
 additions of new cuts. London, 
 1714, 12mo. 
 
 Sixth edition, with additions 
 
 of new cuts. Glasgow, 1717, 
 12mo. 
 
 Nineteenth edition, with 
 
 additions of new cuts. London, 
 1718, 12mo. 
 
 Twentieth edition, with addi- 
 tions of new cuts. London, 
 1722, 12mo. 
 
 One and twentieth edition, 
 
 with additions of new cuts. 
 London, 1724, 12mo. 
 
 Two and twentieth edition, 
 
 with additions of new cuts. 
 London, 1727, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. Three and 
 
 twentieth edition, with addi- 
 tions of new cuts; etc. Lon- 
 don, 1731, 12mo. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 The Pilgrim's Progress. Part 1. 
 Four and twentieth edition, with 
 additions of new cuts. London, 
 
 1734, 12mo. 
 
 Seventh edition. Glasgow, 
 
 1735, 12mo. 
 
 Five and twentieth edition, 
 
 with additions of new cuts. 
 London, 1738, 12mo. 
 
 Six and twentieth edition, 
 
 with additions of new cuts. 
 London, 1743, 12mo. 
 
 Seven and twentieth edition, 
 
 etc. London, 1748, 12mo. 
 
 Eight and twentieth edition, 
 
 with additions of new cuts. 
 London, 1752, 12mo. 
 
 Nine and twentieth edition, 
 
 etc. London, 1755, 12mo. 
 
 Nine and twentieth edition, 
 
 with additions of new cuts, 
 etc. London, 1758, 12mo. 
 
 Thirtieth edition, with addi- 
 tions of new cuts. London, 
 1761, 12mo. 
 
 Thirty-first edition, with 
 
 additions of new cuts. Lon- 
 don, 1764, 12mo. 
 
 Thirty-second edition, with 
 
 additions of new cuts. Lon- 
 don, 1767, 12mo. 
 
 Thirty-second edition, etc. 
 
 London, 1771, 12mo. 
 
 Thirty-third edition. Lon- 
 don, 1776, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. With a 
 
 preface and notes by J. New- 
 ton and others. London, 
 1776, 12mo. 
 
 Thirty-fourth edition, with 
 
 cuts. London, 1786, 12mo. 
 
 Fifty-seventh edition. Dub- 
 lin, 1789, 12mo. 
 
 Third edition. London, 
 
 1789, 12ino. 
 
 The Pilgrim's Progress. Part 1. 
 New edition. London, [1810 ?], 
 12mo. 
 The title-page is engraved. 
 
 Another edition. Edited by 
 
 G. Godwin and L. Pocock. 
 With a memoir of the author 
 and a bibliographical notice. 
 Illustrated by engravings in 
 outline, and woodcuts from 
 drawings by H. 0. Selous, 
 London, 1844, obi. fol. 
 
 Another edition. With forty 
 
 illustrations by D. Scott, a life 
 of Bunyan by J. M. Wilson, arid 
 explanatory notes abridged from 
 the Rev. T. Scott. London, 
 Edinburgh [printed] and Dub- 
 lin [1851], 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. (Laurie's 
 
 Shilling Entertaining Library.) 
 London, 1864, 16mo. 
 
 The Pilgrim's Progress as 
 
 originally published. Being a 
 fac-simile reproduction of the 
 first edition. London [1876], 
 8vo. 
 
 The Christian Pilgrim, 
 
 etc. [Abridged from the "Pil- 
 grim's Progress. "] Montpellier, 
 1819, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. Phila- 
 delphia, 1829, 12mo. 
 
 The Pilgrim's Progress. 
 
 Abridged by J. Wesley, etc. 
 The second edition. Newcastle- 
 upon-Tyne, 1744, 8vo. 
 
 Fifth edition. Bristol, 
 
 1766, 12mo. 
 
 The Pilgrim's Progress. 
 
 [A miniature abridgment.] 
 [London, 1854 ?], 64mo. 
 
 Bunyan Handbills. 
 
 [Extracts from the first part of 
 Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, 
 with comments.] 8 Nos. Lon- 
 don [1866], 8vo. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 xiii 
 
 The Pilgrim's Progress. Part 1. 
 Vanity Fair, and the trial 
 and death of Faithful. [An 
 extract from pt. 1 of the 
 ' ' Pilgrim's Progress. "] ( The 
 Cottage Library of Christian 
 Knowledge, etc., vol. iv.) Lon- 
 don [1806 ?], 8vo. 
 
 PILGRIM'S PROGRESS. PT. n. 
 
 The Pilgrim's Progress. The 
 
 second part. London, 1684, 
 
 12mo, 
 Second edition. London, 
 
 1686, 12mo. 
 Another edition. London, 
 
 1687, 12mo. 
 
 Third edition. London, 
 
 1690, 12mo. 
 Sixth edition. London, 
 
 1693, 12mo. 
 Eighth edition. London, 
 
 1702, 12mo. 
 Ninth edition, with addition 
 
 of five cuts. London, 1708, 
 
 12mo. 
 Another edition. Ninth 
 
 edition, etc. London, 1712, 
 
 12mo. 
 
 Twelfth edition, etc. Lon- 
 don, 1723, 12mo. 
 Thirteenth edition, etc. 
 
 London, 1726, 12mo. 
 Fourteenth edition, etc. 
 
 London, 1728, 12mo. 
 Fifteenth edition, etc. 
 
 London, 1732, 12mo. 
 Sixteenth edition. London, 
 
 1739, 12mo. 
 Seventeenth edition, etc. 
 
 [London] 1743, 12mo. 
 Seventeenth edition, etc. 
 
 Boston, N.E., 1744, 12mo. 
 Eighteenth edition, etc. 
 
 [London] 1748, 12mo. 
 
 The Pilgrim's Progress. Part 2. 
 
 Nineteenth edition, etc. 
 
 [London] 1751, 12mo. 
 Twentieth edition, etc. 
 
 [London] 1754, 12mo. 
 Twenty-first edition. [Lon- 
 don.] 1755, 12mo. 
 Another edition. Glasgow, 
 
 1756, 12mo, 
 Twenty-second edition, etc. 
 
 [London] 1758, 12mo. 
 Twenty-third edition, etc. 
 
 London, 1760, 12mo. 
 Twenty-fourth edition, etc. 
 
 London, 1762, 12mo. 
 Twenty-fifth edition, etc. 
 
 London, 1767, 12mo. 
 The twenty-sixth edition. 
 
 London, 1771, 12mo. 
 Twenty-seventh edition, etc. 
 
 London, 1775, 12mo. 
 Twenty-eighth edition, etc. 
 
 London, 1780, 12mo. 
 Another edition. London, 
 
 [1877], 8vo. 
 
 PILGRIM'S PROGRESS. PTS. i., u. 
 
 Editions containing the anonymous 
 continuation of the Pilgrim's 
 Progress known as the third part 
 thereof are marked [Pts. 1-3], 
 
 The Pilgrim's Progress. In two 
 parts. The two and twentieth 
 edition, adorned with twenty- 
 two copper plates, engraven by 
 J. Sturt. London, 1728-27, 8vo. 
 A different edition from that of 
 part 1 published in 1727 in 12mo, 
 also called the twenty-second. 
 
 Three and twentieth edition, 
 
 adorned with curious sculptures, 
 engraven by J. Sturt. London, 
 1741, 8vo. 
 
 Twenty-eight edition. Lon- 
 don, 1751, 8vo. 
 
 14 
 
XIV 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 The Pilgrim's Progress. Twenty- 
 ninth edition, adorned with 
 curious sculptures, engraven 
 by J. Start. London, 1757, 
 8vo. 
 
 Thirtieth edition. [Pts. 1-3.] 
 
 To which is added, the life and 
 death of the author. 4 pts. 
 London, 1758-61, 8vo. 
 
 Thirtieth edition, adorned 
 
 with curious sculptures, en- 
 graven by J. Sturt. 2 pts. 
 London, Edinburgh, 1760-59, 
 8vo. 
 
 Part 1 bears the imprint, London, 
 1760 ; part 2, Edinburgh, 1759. 
 
 Thirty-first edition. Adorned 
 
 with a new set of cuts. Lon- 
 don, 1760, 12mo. 
 
 Thirty-first edition. [Pts. 
 
 1-3.] (The life and death of 
 Mr. John Bunyan.) 4 pts. 
 London, 1762, 12mo. 
 
 The fifty-fourth edition. 
 
 [Pts. 1-3.] London, 1763, 4to. 
 Thirty-first edition [Pts. 1-3], 
 with the addition of a number 
 of cuts. To which is added the 
 life and death of the author. 
 Nottingham [1765 ?], 12mo. 
 
 Thirty-first edition. 2 pts. 
 
 London, 1766, 8vo. 
 
 Fifty-fifth edition. [Pts. 
 
 1-3.] London, 1768, 8vo. 
 
 Fortieth edition. [Pts. 1-3.] 
 
 With 22 copper-plates. Lon- 
 don, 1770, 8vo. 
 
 Fifty-filth edition. [Pts. 1-3.] 
 
 Edinburgh, 1773, 12mo. 
 
 Forty-fifth edition. Glasgow, 
 
 1774-1772, 12mo. 
 
 Fifty-sixth edition [Pts. 1-3.], 
 
 adorned with cuts. Notting- 
 ham, 1774, 8vo. 
 
 New edition, corrected, to 
 
 which is now first added ex- 
 
 planatory notes, etc. 2 pts. 
 London, 1775, 8vo. 
 
 New and neat edition, etc. 
 
 London, 1775, 8vo. 
 
 Thirty-second edition, adorn- 
 ed with curious sculptures, 
 etc. London, 1775, 8vo. 
 
 - Fifty-fifth edition. (The life 
 and death of Mr. John Bunyan.) 
 London, 1776, 8vo. 
 
 Fifty-sixth edition. [Pts. 
 
 1-3.] Edinburgh, 1777, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. To which 
 
 are now added notes by W. 
 Mason, etc. London, 1778, 
 8vo. 
 
 Fifty-eighth edition. [Pts. 
 
 1-3.] London, 1782, 12mo. 
 
 New edition. [Pts. 1-3.] 
 
 London, 1783, 12mo. 
 
 Fifty-ninth edition. [Pts. 
 
 1-3.] London, 1785, 12mo. 
 
 New edition divided into 
 
 chapters : to which are added, 
 explanatory and practical notes. 
 Together with the life of the 
 author : By G. Burder. 2 pts. 
 Coventry, 1786, 12mo. 
 
 Harrison's edition. London, 
 
 1786, 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. [Pts. 1-3.] 
 
 Newcastle, 1787, 8vo. 
 
 New edition. [Pts. 1-3.] 
 
 London, 1787, 8vo. 
 
 New edition. [Pts. 1-3.] Lon- 
 don, 1787, 12mo. 
 
 New edition. [Pts. 1-3.] Lon- 
 don, 1787, 12mo. 
 
 New edition. [Pts. 1-3.] Lon- 
 don, 1787, 8vo. 
 
 Fifty-fifth edition. 2 pts. 
 
 London, 1789, 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. An entire 
 
 new and complete edition, to 
 which are added notes by W. 
 Mason, etc. London [1790 ?], 
 8vo. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 xv 
 
 The Pilgrim's Progress. Another 
 edition, to which is added the 
 life and death of the author. 
 London, 1790, 12mo. 
 
 New edition divided into 
 
 chapters. To which are added 
 explanatory and practical notes ; 
 with the life of the author : By 
 G. Burder, etc. 2 pts. Coven- 
 try, 1791, 12mo. 
 
 Hundred and ninetieth edi- 
 tion. [Pts. 1-3.] Embellished 
 with cuts. 3 pts. London, 
 
 1791, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. [Pts. 1-3.] 
 
 To which is added, the life and 
 death of the author. London, 
 
 1792, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. With notes 
 
 by J. Bradford. London, 1792, 
 8vo. 
 
 Another copy. With notes 
 
 by a Bachelor of Arts of the 
 University of Oxford (J. B.) 
 [i.e., J. Bradford. With en- 
 gravings, some of which are 
 engraved by J. Strutt from 
 pictures by T. Stothard]. L.P. 
 London, 1792, 8vo. 
 
 A duplicate of the preceding, 
 with a different title-page. The 
 illustrations belong to the large 
 paper copy only. 
 
 Fifty-eighth edition. [Pts. 
 
 1-3.] Edinburgh, 1793, 12mo. 
 New edition. [Pts. 1-3.] 
 
 London, 1793, 12mo. 
 Another edition. [Pts. 1-3.] 
 
 New York, 1794, 12mo. 
 New edition. [Pts. 1-3.] 
 
 Glasgow, 1795, 12mo. 
 New edition enlarged. With 
 
 notes by a friend of the Gospel. 
 
 Embellished with a head of the 
 
 author. London, 1795, 8vo. 
 Another edition. To which 
 
 is prefixed the life of the author, 
 
 with a key to the allegory, and 
 
 a critique on its beauties. 
 
 London, 1796, 8vo. 
 Another edition. Cooke's 
 
 edition, with engravings. Lon- 
 don, 1796, 12mo. 
 New edition, embellished 
 
 with two elegant descriptive 
 
 copper-plate engravings. Bath, 
 
 1796, 8vo. 
 Another edition. To which 
 
 are added large explanatory and 
 
 practical notes, with the life of 
 
 the author, by G. Burder. 
 
 Coventry, 1797, 8vo. 
 New edition. [Pts. 1-3.] 
 
 London, 1797, 12rao. 
 Another edition. Mason's 
 
 complete edition, to which are 
 
 added the Life of John Bunyan, 
 
 and copious notes by W. 
 
 Mason, etc. London, 1799, 
 
 8vo. 
 Another edition, to which is 
 
 added the life and death of the 
 
 author. Glasgow, 1801, 8vo. 
 Another edition. With 
 
 original notes by T. Scott. 
 
 London, 1801, 8vo. 
 With a portrait and engraved 
 
 title-pages. 
 New edition. [Pts. 1-3.] 
 
 Gainsborough, 1802, 8vo. 
 
 New edition. [Pts. 1-3.] 
 
 Edinburgh, 18U2, 8vo. 
 New edition, with notes on 
 
 the first part, by the Rev. J. 
 
 Newton and others. On the 
 
 second part, by the Rev. Dr. 
 
 Hawker. 2 pts. London, 1803, 
 
 12mo. 
 Another edition. [Pts. 1-3.] 
 
 New York, 1804, 12mo. 
 Another edition, with 
 
 original notes by T. Scott. 
 
 Boston, 1805, 12ino. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 The Pilgrim's Progress. New 
 edition. [Pts. 1-3.] Gains- 
 borough, 1805, 12mo. 
 
 New edition. Bungay, 1805, 
 
 8vo. 
 
 New and improved edition. 
 
 [Pts. 1-3.] To which are added 
 original notes, etc. [With 
 woodcuts by T. Bewick.] 
 Taunton, 1806, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. (Pts. 1-3.) 
 
 Boston, 1806, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. (A key 
 
 to the Pilgrim's Progress.) 
 Rotherham, 1806, 4to. 
 
 Anoth er edition . With notes 
 
 by J. Newton, Dr. Hawker, 
 and others. London, 1807, 
 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. (Pts. 1-3.) 
 With explanatory notes, by W. 
 Mason and others. (The Life 
 and death of John Bunyan.) 
 A new edition revised, etc. 
 (With a portrait of the author.) 
 Liverpool, 1807, 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. [Pts. 1-3.] 
 
 With explanatory notes by W. 
 Mason and others. A new 
 edition, etc. Liverpool, 1808, 
 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. Phila- 
 delphia, 1808, 12mo. 
 
 New edition. With notes, 
 
 interesting memoirs of the 
 author, character of the Pil- 
 grim's Progress, and a key to 
 the whole work. By various 
 eminent men. Durham, 1808, 
 8vo. 
 
 . Another edition. (The life 
 
 and death of Mr, John Bunyan, 
 etc.) London, 1808, 8vo. 
 
 New edition, illustrated. 
 
 With a life af the author by 
 
 D. McNicoll, London, 1809, 
 12mo. 
 
 There is also an engraved title- 
 page bearing date 1808. 
 New edition, illustrated by 
 the author's own references. 
 Bungay, 1809, 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. [Pts. 1-3.] 
 
 Gainsborough, 1809, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. (Life of 
 
 John Bunyan, etc.) London, 
 1809, 12mo. 
 The title-page is engraved. 
 
 Another edition. [Pts. 1-3.] 
 
 With explanatory notes. To 
 which is added, the life and 
 death of the author. [With 
 plates.] Preston, MDCCLXC. 
 [1809 ?], 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. [Pts. 1-3.] 
 
 Gainsborough, 1810, 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. With 
 
 original notes by T. Scott. 
 The third edition. Bucking- 
 ham, 1811, 12mo. 
 
 New edition. [Pts. 1-3.] 
 
 Leeds, 1811, 8vo. 
 
 Another edition, with the life 
 
 of the author, etc. Embel- 
 lished with elegant engravings. 
 New York, 1811, 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. [Pts. 1-3.] 
 
 With memoirs of the author, 
 character of the Pilgrim's Pro- 
 gress, and a key to the whole 
 work. By various eminent 
 men. Durham, 1811, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. London, 
 
 1811, 12mo. 
 
 New and corrected edition, 
 
 in which the phraseology of the 
 author is improved, etc. [by J. 
 Gilpin]. Wellington, 1811, 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. Illustrated 
 
 with copious notes by W. 
 Mason, etc, London, 1812, 
 12mo. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 xvii 
 
 The Pilgrim's Progress. New 
 
 edition. [Pts. 1-3. J London, 
 
 1812, 8vo. 
 Another edition. [Pts. 1-3.] 
 
 Gainsborough, 1812, 12mo. 
 Another edition. [Pts. 1-3.] 
 
 Gainsborough, 1813, 12mo. 
 Another edition. [Pts. 1-3.] 
 
 Manchester, 1813, 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. [Pts. 1-3.] 
 
 With explanatory notes by W. 
 
 Mason, etc. Liverpool [1813- 
 
 14], 8vo. 
 New edition. [Pts. 1-3.] 
 
 Philadelphia, 1814, 12rao. 
 
 Another edition. [Pts. 1-3.] 
 
 With explanatory notes by W. 
 
 Mason. Embellished with 
 
 superb engravings, etc. Lon- 
 
 1814, 8vo. 
 
 . Another edition. Brattle- 
 borough, Vt., 1815, 12mo. 
 Another edition. Chelsea 
 
 [1815 ?], 12mo. 
 Another edition. To which 
 
 is prefixed the life of the author, 
 
 with a key to the allegory, and a 
 
 critique on its beauties. [With 
 
 illutrations.] Romsey, 1816, 
 
 8vo. 
 
 New Edition. London, 1816, 
 
 8vo. 
 
 Genuine edition, with notes. 
 
 Boston, 1817, 12mo. 
 New edition. Illustrated by 
 
 the author's own references, etc. 
 
 2 pts. Bungay, 1817, 8vo. 
 New edition. London, 1818, 
 
 12mo. 
 Another edition. Illustrated 
 
 with copious notes, by W. 
 
 Mason. To which is prefixed 
 
 the life of the author. London, 
 
 1819, 8vo. 
 New edition. "With plates. 
 
 London, 1819, 12mo. 
 
 The Pilgrim's Progress. Another 
 edition. To which is prefixed, 
 a life of the author. A new 1 
 edition, with engravings from 
 designs by R. Westall. London, 
 1820, 8vo. 
 
 There is also an engraved title- 
 page which bears the date 1827. 
 
 New edition. With histori- 
 cal and other notes ; by J. 
 Ivimey. London, 1821, 8vo. 
 Another edition. [Parts 1-3.] 
 With explanatory notes by W. 
 Mason, etc. Plymouth, 1822, 
 8vo. 
 
 New edition. Embellished 
 
 with elegant engravings de- 
 signed by R. Westall. New 
 York, 1822, 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. Chelsea 
 
 [1823], 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. With a 
 
 preface, life of the author, and 
 explanatory notes [by Thomas 
 Scott]. ( The Works of T. Scott, 
 etc., vol. iii.) London, 1823, 
 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. London, 
 
 1824, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. London, 
 
 1826, 24mo. 
 
 Another edition. London, 
 
 1828, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. [Parts 1-3.] 
 
 New York, 1828, 8vo. 
 Another edition. Hartford, 
 
 1829, 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. London, 
 
 [1830 ?], 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. With a life 
 
 of John Bunyan, by R. Southey. 
 Illustrated with engravings. 
 London, 1830, 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. Philadel- 
 phia, 1830, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. London, 
 
 1832, 12mo. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 The Pilgrim's Progress. Another 
 edition. To which are prefixed 
 a life of the author and a por- 
 trait. With explanatory notes 
 by W. Mason and others, and 
 engravings on wood by G. W. 
 Bonner. London, 1832, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. London, 
 
 1832, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. Philadel- 
 phia, 1833, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. To which 
 
 is prefixed the life of the author, 
 with a key to the allegory and 
 a critique on its beauties. Rom- 
 sey, 1833, 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. With 
 
 eighteen engravings. London, 
 
 1833, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. With a life 
 
 of the author. Edinburgh, 
 
 1833. 16mo. 
 
 Another edition. New York, 
 
 1834, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. Manches- 
 ter, 1834, 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. London, 
 
 1834, 16mo. 
 
 Another edition. With ex- 
 planatory notes by W. Mason. 
 To which is prefixed a life of 
 the author, and postscript by 
 Dr. A. Clarke. London, 1836, 
 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. With co- 
 pious notes by W. Mason, and 
 the life of the author. Halifax, 
 1837, 12ino. 
 
 Another edition. With a life 
 
 of John Bunyan, by Robert 
 Southey. Illustrated by Adams, 
 after designs by Chapman, Har- 
 vey, etc. New York, 1837, 
 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. With a 
 
 memoir of the author, by J. A. 
 
 St. John, and a key to the 
 principal matter, spiritual and 
 otherwise, by H. Wood. A 
 new edition, with scripture 
 passages. London, 1838, 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. With ex- 
 planatory notes by W. Mason, 
 and a life of the author by J. 
 Conder. Second edition. Lon- 
 don and Paris [1838], 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. With ex- 
 planatory notes by W. Mason. 
 To which is prefixed a life of 
 the author and postscript, by 
 Dr. A. Clarke. London, 1839, 
 12mo. 
 
 New edition. With a life of 
 
 the author by Robert Southey. 
 Illustrated with engravings. 
 London, 1839, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. [Pts. 1-3.] 
 
 With explanatory notes [by W. 
 Mason], evangelical reflections 
 and an original life of the 
 author. (Divine Emblems, etc.) 
 London [1840 ?], 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. [Pts. 1-3.] 
 
 To which is added, a life of the 
 author, and explanatory notes, 
 by W. Mason. Embellished 
 with engravings. A new 
 edition, carefully revised. Hali- 
 fax, 1841, 16 mo. 
 
 There is also a second engraved 
 title-page. 
 
 Another edition. With 
 
 original notes by T. Scott. 
 Hartford, 1841, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. Phila- 
 delphia, 1841, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. With a 
 
 memoir of the author's life by 
 T. Scott, and illustrative notes 
 by the editor. London, 1814, 
 fol. 
 
 Another edition, most care- 
 fully collated with the edition 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 xix 
 
 containing the author's last 
 additions and corrections, etc. 
 Illustrated. Philadelphia, 1844, 
 8vo. 
 
 Pictorial Penny Bunyan's 
 
 Pilgrim's Progress. London 
 [1845], 8vo. 
 Part 1 only ; no more published. 
 
 Another edition. Pictorial 
 
 Penny Bunyan's Pilgrim's Pro- 
 gress. London, 1845, 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. London, 
 
 1845, 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. With notes 
 
 and a sketch of the author's 
 life, by S. B. Wickens. New 
 York, 1845, 16mo. 
 
 Another edition. With ex- 
 planatory notes by Mason. 
 London, 1846, 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. With 
 
 original notes by T. Scott. 
 Hartford, 1846, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. With a 
 
 life of John Bunyan by R. 
 Southey. Illustrated with fifty 
 cuts by Adams. New York, 
 1847, 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. Accurately 
 
 printed from the first edition. 
 Edited by G. Offor. (Hanserd 
 Knollys Society). London, 
 1847, 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. London, 
 1849, 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. With notes, 
 
 and a life of the author, by the 
 Rev. T. Scott. London, 1849, 
 16mo. 
 
 Another edition. With 
 
 memoir of the author by G. 
 Cheever, and engravings on 
 wood by G. E. and J. Dalziel, 
 from designs by W. Harvey. 
 London, 1850, 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. With a 
 
 life of the author by T. Scott. 
 
 London and Glasgow [printed], 
 1850, 8vo. 
 
 New edition, carefully 
 
 revised. With explanatory 
 notes by the Rev. W. Mason, 
 etc. London, 1851, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. [Pts. 1-3.] 
 
 With explanatory notes, etc. 
 London, 1852, 16mo. 
 
 New edition, with a memoir 
 
 by J. M. Hare. London, 1853, 
 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. London, 
 
 Edinburgh [printed], 1853, 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. Illumin- 
 ated. London [1852], 4to. 
 
 Another edition. With a 
 
 biographical sketch and last 
 sermon of the author. (Good 
 Books.) London, 1853, 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. London 
 
 [1855 ?], 32mo. 
 
 Another edition. Edinburgh, 
 
 1855, 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. New York, 
 
 Auburn [printed], 1855, 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. (Tauchnitz 
 
 Collection of British Authors, 
 vol. cccxxx.) Leipzig, 1855, 
 16mo. 
 
 New edition, with a memoir 
 
 and notes, principally selected 
 from Bunyan's Works, by G. 
 Offor. London, 1856, 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. Edited by 
 
 G. Offor. 3 vols. Glasgow, 
 
 1856, 8vo. 
 
 New edition, with a memoir, 
 
 by J. M. Hare, etc. (National 
 Illustrated Library Edition. ) 
 London, 1856, 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. London, 
 
 1856, 32mo. 
 
 Another edition. With 
 
 twenty illustrations drawn by 
 G. Thomas, and engraved by 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 W. L. Thomas. London, 
 Edinburgh [printed], 1857, 4to. 
 
 Another edition. Illustrated 
 
 by nearly three hundred en- 
 gravings, and memoir of 
 Bunyan. London [1857], 
 
 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. With 
 
 notes, experimental and prac- 
 tical, by "W. Mason. London 
 [1858], bvo. 
 
 Another edition. With ex- 
 pository lectures by R. Ma- 
 guire. London [1859], 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. With 
 
 sixty-five original illustrations 
 by D. and W. B. Scott ; a life 
 of the author by J. M. Wilson ; 
 and explanatory notes abridged 
 from the Rev. T. Scott. Lon- 
 don, Edinburgh [printed, 1860], 
 4to. 
 
 Another edition. With illus- 
 trations by C. Bennett, and a 
 preface by C. Kingsley. Lon- 
 don, 1860 [1859], 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. With 
 
 twelve illustrations. London, 
 1860, 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. With 
 
 forty illustrations drawn by J. 
 Gilbert. London, Edinburgh 
 [printed], 1860 [1859], 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. Illustrated 
 
 by C. A. Doyle. London 
 [1860], 8vo. 
 
 New edition, with a memoir 
 
 and notes by G. Offor. Illus- 
 trated with one hundred and 
 ten designs by J. D. Watson, 
 engraved on wood by the 
 Brothers Dalziel. London, 
 1861 [1860], 4to. 
 
 Another edition. With a 
 
 memoir of the author [and 
 coloured illustrations]. Lon- 
 don [1861], 8vo. 
 
 The Pilgrim's Progress. Another 
 
 edition. London, 1861, 8vo. 
 Another edition. With ex- 
 planatory notes by W. Mason. 
 To which is prefixed a life of 
 the author, and postscript, by 
 A. Clarke. Together with a key 
 to the whole work, by E. Davies. 
 London, 1861, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. Cambridge, 
 
 1862, 8vo. 
 
 Part of the " Golden Treasury 
 Series." 
 
 New edition, with a memoir. 
 
 With one hundred illustrations, 
 by T. Dalziel. London [1863], 
 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. With notes 
 
 by R. Maguire. Illustrated by 
 H. C. Selous and M. P. Priolo. 
 London [1863, 64], 4to. 
 
 Another edition. London, 
 
 1864, 16mo. 
 
 Another edition. With notes 
 
 experimental and practical, by 
 W. Mason. (Life of John 
 Bunyan.) [With illustrations.] 
 London, Edinburgh [printed], 
 1864, 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. With notes 
 
 by R. Maguire. Illustrated by 
 H. C. Selous and P. Priolo. 
 London [1865], 4to. 
 
 Another edition. With a 
 
 memoir of the author. London, 
 [1865], 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. Unabridged. 
 
 With ninety-six illustrations. 
 London [1865], 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. London 
 
 [1865], 16mo. 
 
 Another edition. London 
 
 [1866], 16mo. 
 
 A new edition. With a 
 
 memoir by John Allen. Illus- 
 trated. London, 1665, 16mo. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 xxi 
 
 The Pilgrim's Progress. Another 
 edition. London [1866], 8vo. 
 
 New edition, with a memoir 
 
 of the author by H. W. 
 Dulcken. With one hundred 
 engravings by T. Dalziel. Lon- 
 don [1866], 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. London 
 
 [1866], 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. With sixty- 
 eight illustrations. Glasgow 
 [1867], 16mo. 
 
 Another edition. (Memoir of 
 
 John Bunyan.) Edinburgh 
 [1868], 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. With a 
 
 memoir of J. B. London [1868], 
 32mo. 
 
 Vol. ii. of "Cassell's Penny 
 Library." 
 
 Another edition. Illustrated 
 
 by the late C. H. Bennett. 
 [With preface by C. Kingsley.] 
 London [1869], 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. With illus- 
 trations printed in colours from 
 designs by Cooper. London, 
 1869, 16mo. 
 
 One of a series, entitled " Warne's 
 National Books." 
 
 Another edition. With an 
 
 introductory notice of the 
 author by W. Landels [and 
 illustrations]. London, Glasgow 
 [printed], 1870, 4to. 
 
 Another edition. Illustrated 
 
 by A. F. Lydou. London, 
 Driffield [printed, 1871], 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. With two 
 
 hundred and eighty-one en- 
 gravings, from designs by W. 
 Harvey. London [1871], 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. With ex- 
 planatory notes by Mason. 
 London, 1871, 8vo. 
 
 The Pilgrim's Progress, New 
 edition. London [1871], 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. London, 
 
 Edinburgh [printed], 1871, 
 16mo. 
 
 New edition, with a memoir, 
 
 principally selected from "Grace 
 Abounding to the chief of 
 sinners," by J. Allen, etc. 
 London, 1872, 8vo. 
 
 -Another edition. Edinburgh, 
 
 [1873], 16mo. 
 
 Another edition. Illustrated, 
 
 etc. London, 1873, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. (A Library 
 
 of famous fiction, etc.) New 
 York, 1873, 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. London 
 
 [1874], 32mo. 
 
 Another edition. With a 
 
 memoir of the author. London 
 [1875 ?], 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. Unabridged. 
 
 With illustrations. London 
 [1875], 8vo. 
 
 New edition, with a memoir 
 
 by J. Allen. With coloured 
 illustrations. London, 1875, 
 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. The Pil- 
 grim's Progress as originally 
 published by John Bunyan. 
 Being a fac-simile reproduction 
 of the first edition [of pt. 1, 
 1678 ; and pt. 2, 1684]. Lon- 
 don, 1875, 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. With notes 
 
 and memoir by J. Inglis. Edin- 
 burgh, London [1877], 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. With illus- 
 trations, etc. London [1878], 
 8vo. 
 
 New edition, with a memoir 
 
 by J. Allen. London [1878], 
 8vo. 
 
xxii 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 The Pilgrim's Progress. Another 
 
 edition. London, [1879], 16mo. 
 New edition, with a memoir. 
 
 With illustrations, etc. London 
 
 [1879], 8vo. 
 New edition, with a memoir. 
 
 With illustrations by J. D. 
 
 Watson. London [1879], 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. London, 
 
 Edinburgh [printed], 1879, 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. With illus- 
 trations by F. Barnard and 
 others, engraved by Dalziel 
 Brothers. (Edition de luxe.) 
 London, 1880, 4to. 
 
 Another edition. London, 
 
 Guildford [printed, 1880], 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. [Illus- 
 trated.] London, Bungay 
 [printed, 1880], 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. The Pil- 
 grim's Progress. With a life of 
 the author and bibliographical 
 notes by Robert Southey. Illus- 
 trated by W. Harvey. London, 
 Guildford [printed], 1881, 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. With 
 
 memoir [signed F.] and biblio- 
 graphical notes. Illustrations 
 by W. Gunston and others . . . 
 The Elstow Edition. London, 
 1881, 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. With twelve 
 
 illustrations by T. Stothard, 
 reproduced in photography. 
 London, 1881, 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. With illus- 
 trations by Sir J. Gilbert. Lon- 
 don [1882], 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. With one 
 
 hundred illustrations by T. 
 Dalziel. Complete edition. Lon- 
 don, 1882, 4to. 
 
 Another edition. London, 
 
 Bungay [printed, 1883], 8vo. 
 
 The Pilgrim's Progress. Another 
 edition. Illustrated by G, 
 Browne. London, 1883, 8vo. 
 
 A new edition, with a memoir 
 
 and notes by G. Offor, etc. 
 (Routledge's Excelsior Series. ) 
 London [1884], 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. [London, 
 
 1884] 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. With bio- 
 graphical sketch. Edinburgh 
 [1884], 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. With notes 
 
 by R. Maguire. Illustrated by 
 H. C. Selous and P. Priolo. 
 London [1884], 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. Edited, with 
 
 introduction and notes, by J. 
 Brown. London, 1887 [1886], 
 8vo. 
 
 Words of Life for Way- 
 side Distribution. [Extracts 
 from J. B.'s Pilgrim's Pro- 
 gress.] London [1884], 12mo. 
 
 The Pilgrim's Progress 
 
 from this world to that which 
 is to come. [A chap book 
 abridgment of Bunyan's Pil- 
 grim's Progress.] Glasgow, 
 1837, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. Pais- 
 ley, 1839, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. Glas- 
 gow [1850], 12mo. 
 
 The u Pilgrim's Progress" has 
 been translated into the follow- 
 ing languages and dialects : 
 
 Aneityumese, 1880 ; Arabic, 1834 ; 
 Modern Ar mini an, 1882 ; Armeno- 
 Turkish, 1831 ; Assamese, 1856 ; 
 Bengali, 1821, 1854, 1877 ; Bohemian, 
 1871 ; Bulgarian, 1866 ; Burmese, 
 1841 ; Canarese, 1861, 1867 ; Chinese 
 (Werili or Classical Style, 1874 ; 
 Mandarin or Court Dialect, 1872; 
 Canton Vernacular, 1870-1 ; Amoy 
 Dialect, 1865,) ; Dakota, 1858 ; 
 Danish, 1862; Dutch, 1682, etc.; 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 xxni 
 
 Dynk, 1879; Efik (Old Calabar), 
 Part 1, 1868, Part 2, 1882; Esthonian, 
 1870; Fanti, 1887; Fijian, 1867; 
 Finnish, - ; French, 1685, etc. ; 
 Gaelic, 1812, 1869; German, 1703, 
 etc. ; Modern Greek, 1824, 1831, 
 1854 ; Greco-Turkish, 1879 ; Gujarati, 
 - ; Hawaiian, 1842 ; Hebrew, 1844, 
 1851 ; Hindi - ; Hungarian, 
 1867 ; Icelandic, 1876 ; Irish, 1837 ; 
 Italian, 1851 ? 1855, 1863 ; Japanese 
 -- ; Kafir, 1868; Khasi, - ; 
 Lettish, - ; Lithuanian, 1878 ; 
 Malagasy, 1838, etc. ; Malay, 1854 ; 
 Malay alim, 1847; .Maori, 1854; 
 Marathi-Balbodh, - ; Mexican, 
 
 1880 ; Norwegian, 1868, 1874; 
 Otyiheroro, 1873 ; Panjabi or SflfeA, 
 1843; Pashtu or Afghani, 1877; 
 Persian, - ; PoZisA, 1728 ; Porta- 
 <7wese, 1782 ; Raratongan, 1846 ; 
 Romaic, 1824, 1831, 1854 ; Russian, 
 
 1881 ; Sechuana, 1848 ; Servian, 
 
 1879 ; 
 
 1877 ; Syau-Karen, 
 
 1863; St'ntft, -- ; Singhalese, 1826, 
 1867 ; Spanish, 1851 ; Swedish, 1743 ; 
 Modern Syriac, 1848; Tahitian, 
 1847 ; Ttemtf, 1793, 1882 ; Telugu, 
 1882 ; 2WW or Ashanti, 1885 ; ZTrdto 
 or Hindostani, 1841, 1847 ; Persian 
 Urdu, - ; Roman Urdu - ; 
 CTriya or Omm, 1873 ; Welsh, 1688, 
 ec. ; Yoruba, - . 
 
 Profitable Meditations, fitted to 
 Man's different condition. In 
 a conference between Christ and 
 a sinner. In nine particulars. 
 [In verse.] London [1661], 4 to. 
 
 - Another edition. Profitable 
 Meditations ; a poem written 
 by John Bunyan whilst con- 
 fined in Bedford Jail. Now first 
 represented from a unique copy 
 discovered by the publisher, and 
 edited, with introduction and 
 notes, by G. Offor. London, 
 1680, 4to. 
 
 Questions about the nature and 
 perpetuity of the seventh-day- 
 sabbath : and proof that the 
 first day of the week is the true 
 Christian Sabbath : London, 
 1685, 12mo. 
 
 A Relation of the Imprisonment 
 of Mr. John Bunyan in Novem- 
 ber, 1660. His Examination 
 before the Justices . . . what 
 passed between the Judges and 
 his wife, when she presented a 
 petition for his deliverance, etc. 
 Written by himself, and never 
 before published. [With com- 
 mendatory verses on Bunyan ; 
 also his Prison Meditations.] 
 London, 1765, 8vo. 
 
 John Bunyan, a Witness 
 
 for the Truth ; being a relation 
 of his imprisonment in Novem- 
 ber, 1660. Written by himself. 
 [An abridged edition.] London, 
 1858, 24mo. 
 
 Reprobation Asserted ; or, the 
 Doctrine of Eternal Election 
 and Reprobation promiscuously 
 handled in eleven chapters, etc. 
 London [1674 ?], 4to. 
 
 Second edition, revised and 
 
 corrected. London, 1696, 4to. 
 
 Rest for a Wearied Soul, being the 
 last legacy of Mr. John Bunyan, 
 etc. Glasgow, 1767, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. Glasgow 
 
 [1785 ?], 12mo. 
 
 The Resurrection of the Dead and 
 eternall judgment: or, the truth 
 of the resurrection of the bodies 
 both of good and bad at the last 
 day, proved by God's Word. 
 London [1665], 8vo. 
 
 Saved by Grace, or a Discourse of 
 the Grace of God, etc. London 
 [1675], 12mo. 
 
 No copy of the first edition known 
 to exist. 
 
 Scriptural Poems. Being several 
 portions of Scripture digested 
 into English verse. Viz. i. The 
 Book of Ruth. ii. The History 
 of Sampson, iii. Christ's Ser- 
 mon on the Mount, iv. The 
 
xxiv 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 Prophecy of Jonah, v. The 
 Life of Joseph, vi. The Epistle 
 of James. London, 1700, 8vo. 
 
 Seasonable Counsel ; or Advice to 
 Sufferers. London, 1684, 12mo. 
 
 Solomon's Temple spiritualiz'd, or 
 Gospel-light fetcht out of the 
 Temple at Jerusalem, to let us 
 more easily into the Glory of 
 the New - Testament - Truths. 
 London, 1688, 12mo. 
 
 Third edition. London, 1698, 
 
 12mo. 
 
 Eighth edition. London, 1707, 
 
 12 mo. 
 
 Eighth edition. Dublin, 1754, 
 
 12mo. 
 
 Ninth edition. Edinburgh, 
 
 1760, 12mo. 
 
 Tenth edition. Glasgow, 
 
 1763, 12mo. 
 
 Eleventh edition. London 
 
 [1770 ?], 12mo. 
 
 New edition. Edinburgh, 
 
 1786, 12mo. 
 
 New edition. Newcastle, 
 
 1789, 8vo. 
 
 New edition. Berwick, 1792, 
 
 12mo. 
 
 New edition. London, Ber- 
 wick [printed], 1804, 12mo. 
 
 New edition. Bungay [1810?], 
 
 12mo. 
 
 New edition. London, 1814, 
 
 12 mo. 
 
 Another edition. Aberdeen 
 
 [1830 ?], 12mo. 
 
 Some Gospel Truths opened, by 
 that unworthy servant of 
 Christ, John Bunyan of Bed- 
 ford, by the Grace of God, 
 preacher of the Gospel of his 
 dear Son. London, 1656, 12ino. 
 Mr. Brown states that there is 
 only one known copy of the first 
 edition of this work. Banyan's first 
 book. 
 
 A Vindication of the Book called 
 Some Gospel-Truths opened 
 according to the Scriptures ; 
 and the opposition made against 
 it by Edward Burrough, etc. 
 London, 1657, 4to. 
 
 The Straight Gate ; or, great diffi- 
 culty of going to Heaven ; 
 plainly proving by the Scrip- 
 tures, that not only the Rude 
 and Profane, but many great 
 Professors will come short of 
 that Kingdom. London, 1676, 
 8vo. 
 
 A copy of this, the first edition, is 
 in the Bodleian Library and Cam- 
 bridge University Library. 
 
 A Treatise of the Fear of God, etc. 
 London, 1679, 12mo. 
 
 -Another edition. The Fear 
 of God. London, 1839, 12mo. 
 
 The Water of Life, or a discourse 
 shewing the richness and glory 
 of the grace and spirit of the 
 Gospel, as set forth in Scripture 
 by this term, the Water of Life. 
 London, 1688, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. London, 
 
 1785, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. Leeds, 1791, 
 
 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. Berwick, 
 
 1795, 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. London, 
 
 1797, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. Boston 
 
 [Mass.], 1807, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. London 
 
 [1830 ?], 12ino. 
 
 Another edition. Halifax, 
 
 1838, 16mo. 
 
 Another edition. With pre- 
 face by C. H. Spurgeon. Lon- 
 don, 1868, 8vo. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 XXV 
 
 IY. SELECTIONS. 
 
 The Bunyan Text Book. A selec- 
 tion of choice passages for every 
 day in the year, from "The 
 Pilgrim's Progress " and other 
 works by the same author. 
 London [1881], 12mo. 
 
 Y. SUPPOSITITIOUS WORKS. 
 
 The Great Assize : or Christ's cer- 
 tain appearance to Judgement : 
 being serious considerations on 
 the Four Last Things, Death, 
 Judgment, Heaven and Hell. 
 By John Buiiyan. [In verse.] 
 (Standfast, R. Dialogue, etc.) 
 Edinburgh, 1735, 12mo. 
 
 Reprinted. Bristol [1760 ?], 
 
 12mo. 
 
 Heart's-Ease in Heart-Trouble. 
 By J. Bunyan [i.e., James Bard- 
 wood.] London, 1728, 12mo. 
 
 Heart's-Ease in Heart- 
 Trouble ; or, a sovereign remedy 
 against all trouble of heart. By 
 John Bunyan [i.e., James Bard- 
 wood.] London, 1762, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. Lewes, 
 
 1804, 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. London, 
 
 1814, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. London, 
 
 [1827?]12mo. 
 
 Another edition. Edinburgh, 
 
 1847, 32mo. 
 
 The Riches of Christ ; or, the 
 glorious treasure of heavenly 
 joys. [A sermon on 2 Cor. 
 viii. 9.] Likewise Exhorta- 
 tions to a true and timely 
 repentance. With a devout 
 Prayer, etc. Edinburgh, 1737, 
 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. To which 
 
 is added, Honeydrops, or 
 Chrystal streams flowing from 
 Christ, etc. Glasgow, 1781, 
 12mo. 
 
 The Visions of John Bunyan, 
 being his last remains, Giving 
 an account of the glories of 
 Heaven, and the terrors of Hell, 
 and of the world to come, etc. 
 London, [1720 ?] 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. Glasgow, 
 
 1762, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. Leeds, 1786, 
 
 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. London, 
 
 1793, 12mo. 
 
 Another edition. Gains- 
 borough, 1803, 12 mo. 
 
 Another edition. London, 
 
 [1810 ?] 12mo. 
 
 VI. APPENDIX, 
 BIOGRAPHY, CRITICISM, ETC. 
 
 Anderson, Rev. William. Self- 
 made Men. London, 1861, 
 8vo. 
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xxvi 
 
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BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
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 Conviction of Worldly Vanity ; 
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 The Progress of the Christian 
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 Third edition. 2 pts. Lon- 
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 The Pilgrim's Progress done into 
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 Third edition. And now 
 
 done into verse by F. Hoffman. 
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 Statesman's Progress ; or, a Pil- 
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 a Dream. By John Bunyan. 
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 A Satire upon Sir Robert Walpole. 
 
 A Key to the Pilgrim's Progress, 
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 The Pilgrim's Progress. Origin- 
 ally written by John Bunyan, 
 and now rendered into blank 
 verse, by J. S. Dodd. Dublin, 
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 The Pilgrim's Progress. Ren- 
 dered into familiar verse, with 
 a close adherence to the original, 
 by Isaac James. Bristol, 1815, 
 12mo. 
 
 Poetic Sketches from Bunyan ; 
 comprising some of the leading 
 incidents in the first part of the 
 Pilgrim's Progress. By J. B. 
 Drayton. With a brief memoir 
 of Bunyan, and notes selected 
 
 and abridged from the Rev. T. 
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 A Free Poetic Version of the First 
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 Another edition. London, 
 
 1832, 8vo. 
 
 Bunyan explained to a child ; 
 being pictures and poems 
 founded upon the Pilgrim's 
 Progress, etc. By Isaac Tay- 
 lor. 2 pts. London, 1824, 25, 
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 Second edition. 2 pts. Lon- 
 don, 1825, 12mo. 
 
 The Infant's Progress from the 
 Valley of Destruction to Ever- 
 lasting Glory. By Mrs. M. M. 
 Sherwood. Wellington, Salop, 
 
 1825, 12mo. 
 
 Poetical Miscellanies. By the late 
 Victory Purdy, etc. Bristol, 
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 John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress ; 
 intended partly as a Key to open 
 that most excellent but mysterious 
 book, pp. 159-252. 
 
 Pilgrims of the Nineteenth Cen- 
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 Pilgrim's Progress, upon the 
 plan projected by Mr. Bunyan ; 
 comprising the history of a visit 
 to the town of Toleration, etc. 
 With engravings and notes. By 
 Joseph Ivimey. London, 1827, 
 12mo. n K 
 
 15 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 Original Hymns, illustrative of 
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 Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, 
 metrically condensed. In six 
 cantos. London, 1834, 8vo. 
 
 Illustrations of the Pilgrim's Pro- 
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 work and descriptions of the 
 plates, by B. Barton ; and a 
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 Illustrations of the Pilgrim's Pro- 
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 Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, con- 
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 The Pilgrim's Progress versified 
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 to heaven : an epic poem [Part 
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 Cottage Lectures ; or, the Pil- 
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 tures on the first part of the 
 Pilgrim's Progress. By C. 
 Overton. London, 1847, 12mo. 
 
 Second edition. London, 
 
 1848, 12mo. 
 
 The Second Part. London, 
 
 1849, 12mo. 
 
 [The Pilgrim's Progress. First 
 phonetic edition. By A. J. 
 Ellis.] London [Bath printed], 
 
 1850, 12mo. 
 
 The Pilgrim's Progress, for the 
 use of children in the English 
 Church. Edited by the Rev. 
 J. M. Neale. Oxford, 1853, 
 8vo. 
 
 The Pilgrim ; or, John Bunyan's 
 Apparition in the bed-room of 
 the Rev. J. M. Neale. A 
 waking dream. London, 1854, 
 12mo. 
 
 The Pilgrim's Progress in Verse ; 
 embracing the History of Chris- 
 tian from his departure from 
 the City of Destruction to his 
 entrance into the Celestial City. 
 By Mrs. Eliza Eberle. Berlin, 
 1854, 15mo. 
 
 Fourth edition. New Haven, 
 
 1856, 12mo. 
 
 A Short Exposition of the Pil- 
 grim's Progress. With a nar- 
 rative of the life of John Bunyan. 
 In six lectures. By W. J. 
 London, 1857, 18mo. 
 
 The ancient poem of G. de Guille- 
 ville, entitled Le Pelerinage de 
 1'Homme, compared with the 
 Pilgrim's Progress of J. Bunyan. 
 Edited from notes collected by 
 N. Hill. With illustrations, 
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 The Story of the Pilgrim's Pro- 
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BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 J. C. ]. Illustrated with sixteen 
 engravings drawn by E. H. 
 Wehnert. London, 1858 [1857], 
 8vo. 
 
 Picture Cards, illustrating the 
 Pilgrim's Progress. London 
 [1859], 12mo. 
 
 Picture Cards. The Pilgrim's 
 Progress [by John Bunyan]. 
 London [1860], 12mo. 
 
 Christiana and her Children. 
 [Twelve illustrations of the 
 second part of the Pilgrim's 
 Progress.] London [1860], 
 12mo. 
 
 John Bunyan's Dream of the Pil- 
 grim's Progress. [A woodcut. 
 With a Key to the same.] Lon- 
 don [1860], s. sh. fol. 
 
 The Pilgrim's Progress. In T. M. 
 Lucas's embossed stenographic 
 characters. 2 vols. (London 
 Society for teaching the Blind to 
 read.) London, 1860, 4to. 
 
 Ireland and the Irish Presby- 
 terians. Bunyan's Pilgrim's 
 Progress. The Sterling and 
 the Spurious. Belfast, 1860, 
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 A key to the Pilgrim's Progress. 
 By Edwin Da vies. London 
 [1861], 12mo. 
 
 Evenings with J. Bunyan ; or, 
 the Dream interpreted. By 
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 8vo. 
 
 Pictorial Pilgrim's Progress. 
 [Coloured illustrations of the 
 principal incidents.] [New 
 York, 1862], s. sh. fol. 
 
 A description of the Man in the 
 Iron Cage, in Bunyan's " Pil- 
 grim's Progress," etc. In two 
 letters. By William Odling. 
 London, 1862, 8vo. 
 
 Pictures from Banyan's Pilgrim's 
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 letterpress.] London [1864], 
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 Illustrations to Bunyan's Pilgrim's 
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 [With selections from the text.] 
 London, Manchester [printed], 
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 Poetical Illustrations of that 
 Immortal Work, the Pilgrim's 
 Progress [of John Bunyan]. By 
 an Old Pilgrim. 2 pts. Lon- 
 don, 1865, 8vo. 
 
 The Pilgrim's Progress. Litho- 
 graphed in Phonetic Shorthand. 
 London [1866], 8vo. 
 
 The Straight Gate : a dialogue. 
 Adapted from Bunyan's " Pil- 
 grim's Progress." (Fifth edi- 
 tion. AkrilVs Sunday School 
 Dialogues.) Lincoln, 1868, 8vo. 
 
 Pictorial Scenes from Pilgrim's 
 Progress. Drawn by C. R. 
 Conder. [With descriptive 
 extracts.] London, 1869, 4to. 
 
 The Pilgrim's Progress in words of 
 one syllable. With coloured 
 illustrations. By M. Godolphin. 
 London, 1869, 8vo. 
 
 Places passed by Pilgrims. By 
 A. L. O. E. [i.e., Miss C. 
 Tucker]. Twelve tales illus- 
 trating the Pilgrim's Progress. 
 London [1869], 16mo. 
 The Young Pilgrim ; a tale 
 illustrative of " The Pilgrim's 
 Progress," etc. By A. L. 0. E. 
 London, 1869, 8vo. 
 
 The Pilgrim Children. [Coloured 
 plates, with verses illustrating a 
 portion of Bunyan's Pilgrim's 
 Progress.] London [1871], 4to. 
 
 The Pilgrim's Progress, in words 
 of one syllable. By S. P. Day. 
 London [1872], 8vo. 
 
 Christiana and her Children. A 
 service of song founded on the 
 second part of the Pilgrim's 
 
xxxii 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 Progress. Poetry by various 
 authors, including the quaint 
 couplets of J. Bunyan, etc. 
 Compiled by R. G. Clements. 
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 The Christian Life ; an exposition 
 of Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. 
 By James Black. 2 vols. Lon- 
 don, 1873-75, 8vo. 
 
 A humble Companion to the 
 Pilgrim's Progress ; being a 
 series of discourses on that 
 great allegory. Originally 
 delivered in Oakes Chapel, 
 Huddersfield, 1870-71. By 
 Samuel Burn. London, 1874, 
 8vo. 
 
 Extract from the Pilgrim's Pro- 
 gress (Christian and Giant Des- 
 pair), translated into Ritchie's 
 System of abbreviated longhand. 
 London [1874], 8vo. 
 
 Who was the Author of the " Pil- 
 grim's Progress ? " [A pamph- 
 let, maintaining Bunyan's 
 authorship of the " Pilgrim's 
 Progress."] By William Win- 
 ters. London, 1874, 8vo. 
 
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 Second series. London, 187H, 
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 Lecture "The Pilgrim's Pro- 
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 Communion Wine and Intem- 
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 Progress aud Intoxicating 
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 Boston [U.S.], 1877, 8vo. 
 
 Personal Experience ; being lec- 
 tures on Bunyan's Pilgrim's 
 Progress. By William Haslam. 
 London [1877], 16mo. 
 
 Plain Lectures on the Pilgrim's 
 Progress. By Robert Nourse. 
 Springfield, 111., 1878, 8vo. 
 
 Another edition. London, 
 
 1879, 8vo. 
 
 Contributions to a Catalogue of 
 the Lenox Library. No. IV. 
 Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, 
 etc. New York, 1879, 4to. 
 
 Scenes from the Pilgrim's Progress, 
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 "Full Salvation," as seen in 
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 By W. Haslam. London [1884], 
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 The People of the Pilgrimage : an 
 expository study of the " Pil- 
 grim's Progress " as a book of 
 character. First series. True 
 Pilgrims. By Rev. J. A. Kerr 
 Bain, M.A. Edinburgh, 1887, 
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 MAGAZINE ARTICLES. 
 
 Bunyan, John. Edinburgh Re- 
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 54, 1831, pp. 450-461. North 
 American Review, by G. B. 
 Cheever, vol. 36, 1833, pp. 449- 
 472. Dublin University Maga- 
 zine, vol. 37, 1851, pp. 435-453 ; 
 same article, Eclectic Magazine, 
 vol. 23, pp. 318-334. Littell's 
 Living Age (from the Examiner), 
 vol. 42, 1854, pp. 20-22. 
 Harper's Magazine (reprinted 
 from the Encyclopaedia Britan- 
 nica), vol, 14, 1857, pp. 776-782; 
 same article, Littell's Living 
 Age, vol. 53, pp. 297-304. 
 National Magazine, vol. 6, 1857, 
 pp. 97, etc., 205, etc. Mac- 
 millan's Magazine, by A. P. 
 Stanley, vol. 30, 1874, pp. 273- 
 279 ; same article, Every Satur- 
 day, vol. 17, p. 158, etc., and 
 in Eclectic Magazine, vol. 30, 
 N.S. 1874, pp. 322-327. Con- 
 temporary Review, by Goldwin 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 xxxiii 
 
 Buuyan, John. 
 
 Smith, vol. 50, 1886, pp. 464- 
 480, 
 
 and Bunhill Fields. Eraser's 
 
 Magazine, vol. 31, 1845, pp. 
 308-319 ; same article, Littell's 
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 and Dante. American Church 
 
 Review, by J. Ferguson, vol. 
 16, p. 337, etc. 
 
 and his Biographers. Christ- 
 ian Review, vol. 4, 1839, pp. 
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 et ses dernier s Critiques. Bib- 
 
 liotheque Universelle, by Marc- 
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 and Plagiarism. Catholic 
 
 World, vol. 6, 1868, pp. 535- 
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 and Puritanism. Nation, by 
 
 A. Y. Dicey, vol. 30, 1880, pp. 
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 and Spenser, the poet and the 
 
 dreamer. Methodist Quarterly 
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 and Vane. Westminster Re- 
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 and vernacular English. 
 
 Lakeside, by N. S. Dodge, vol. 
 10, 1873, p. 103, etc. 
 
 Brown's Life of. Contem- 
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 Smith, Oct. 1886, pp. 464-480. 
 Good Words, by J. Allanson 
 Picton, 1885, pp. 693-700. 
 
 Cheever on, Christian Ob- 
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 509. Methodist Quarterly 
 Review, vol. 31, 1849, pp. 466- 
 470. 
 
 Conversion of. Christian 
 
 Examiner, by J. Brazer, vol. 18, 
 1835, pp. 66-71. 
 
 Genius and Writings of. 
 London Christian Instructor, 
 
 Bunyan, John. 
 
 vol. 1, 1818, pp. 632-635, and 
 vol. 2, pp. 96-99. Eclectic 
 Review, vol. 3, N.S., 1852, pp. 
 263-281 ; same article, Eclectic 
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 and Littell's Living Age, vol. 
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 Home ofy at Elstow. Saturday 
 
 Review, by Canon Yenables ; 
 vol. 52, 1881, pp. 351, 352. 
 
 Ivimey's Reprint of Life of, 
 
 1692. Christian Observer, vol. 
 32, 1832, pp. 805-813. 
 
 Philip's Life and Times of. 
 
 Eclectic Review, vol. 6, N.S., 
 1839, pp. 468-480. Monthly 
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 183-191. Tait's Edinburgh 
 Magazine, vol. 6, N.S., 1839, 
 pp. 273-275. 
 
 Pilgrim's Progress. People's 
 Journal, by C. Whitehead, vol. 
 10, 1850, pp. 281, etc. 
 
 Cheever' s Lectures on 
 
 Pilgrim's Progress. Christian 
 Observer, vol. 46, 1846, pp. 
 501-509. Methodist Quarterly 
 Review, vol. 31, 1849, pp. 
 466-470. 
 
 Editions of the Pilgrim's 
 
 Progress. Biblical Repertory, 
 by S. D. Alexander, vol. 31, 
 1859, pp. 232-257. 
 
 Italian Study of the 
 
 Pilgrim 9 s Progress. Macmillan's 
 Magazine, by R. L. Nettleship, 
 vol. 39, 1878, pp. 23-31. 
 
 Southey's Life of. Quarterly 
 
 Review, by Sir W. Scott, vol. 
 43, 1830, pp. 469-494. Chris- 
 tian Observer, vol. 32, 1832, pp. 
 596-620, 668-689. Eraser's 
 Magazine, vol. 3, 1831, pp. 54- 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 Bunyan, John. 
 
 Traditions of. Macmillan's 
 
 Magazine, vol. 28, 1873, pp. 
 238-242; same article, Littell's 
 Living Age, vol. 118,pp. 245-250. 
 
 Bunyan, John. 
 
 Writings. Christian Review, 
 
 by V. R, Hotchkiss,vol. 19, 1854, 
 pp. 43-258. Eclectic Review, 
 vol. 19, N.S. 1846, pp. 129-147. 
 
 VII. CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF WORKS. 
 
 Some Gospel-Truths Opened 1656 
 A Vindication of Gospel- 
 Truths Opened . 1657 
 Sighs from Hell . 1658 
 The Doctrine of the Law 
 
 and Grace Unfolded 1659 
 
 Profitable Meditations 1661 
 
 I will Pray unto the Spiri 
 and with the Understand 
 ing also . . 1663 
 
 Christian Behaviour . 1663 
 
 A Map showing the Order 
 and Causes of Salvation 
 and Damnation . c. 1664 
 One Thing is Needful ; or, 
 
 Serious Meditations c. 1665 
 Ebal and Gerizim . . 1665 
 Prison Meditations . . 1665 
 The Resurrection of the 
 
 Dead .... 1665 
 The Holy City, or the New 
 
 Jerusalem . . . 1665 
 Grace Abounding to the 
 
 Chief of Sinners . . 1666 
 A Defence of the Doctrine 
 of Justification by Faith 
 in Jesus Christ . . 1672 
 A Confession of Faith . 1672 
 Differences in Judgment 
 about Water Baptism no 
 bar to Communion . 1673 
 Peaceable Principles and 
 True 
 
 Refutation asserted 
 Light for them that sit in 
 Darkness 
 
 1674 
 c. 1674 
 
 1675 
 
 Instruction for the Ignorant 1675 
 Saved by Grace, or a dis- 
 course of the Grace of 
 God .... 1675 
 The Straight Gate . . 1676 
 The Pilgrim's Progress : 
 
 Part the First . .1678 
 Come and Welcome to Jesus 
 
 Christ .... 1678 
 Treatise of the Fear of God 1679 
 Life and Death of 
 
 Mr. Badman . . .1680 
 The Holy War . . . 1682 
 The Barren Fig-Tree . . 1682 
 The Greatness of the Soul 
 and Unspeakableness of 
 the loss thereof . . 1683 
 A Case of Conscience Resol- 
 ved .... 1683 
 A Holy Life the Beauty of 
 
 Christianity . . . 1684 
 Seasonable Counsel . . 1684 
 Caution to Stir up to watch 
 
 against Sin . . . 1684 
 The Pilgrim's Progress : the 
 
 Second Part . . . 1684 
 Questions about the Nature 
 and Perpetuity of the 
 Seventh-day Sabbath . 1685 
 A Book for Boys and Girls ; 
 or, Country Rhymes for 
 Children. (Divine Em- 
 blems, etc.) . . .1686 
 The Jerusalem Sinner 
 saved .... 1688 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 xxxv 
 
 The Advocateship of Jesus 
 Christ .... 
 
 ADiscourse of the Building, 
 Nature, Excellency, and 
 Government of the House 
 of God .... 
 
 The Water of Life . 
 
 Solomon's Temple Spirit- 
 ualized .... 
 
 The Acceptable Sacrifice, 
 on the Excellency of a 
 Broken Heart 
 First Collected Edition 
 The following ten works 
 appeared for the first time in 
 this Edition 
 1. An Exposition on the 
 first ten chapters of 
 Genesis. 
 
 1683 
 
 1688 
 1688 
 
 1688 
 
 1689 
 1692 
 
 2. Justification by Imputed 
 Righteousness. 
 
 3. Paul's Departure and 
 Crown. 
 
 4. Israel's Hope Encour- 
 aged. 
 
 5. The Desires of the 
 Righteous Granted. 
 
 6. The Saint's Privilege 
 and Profit. 
 
 7. Christ a Complete 
 Saviour. 
 
 8. The Saint's Knowledge 
 of Christ's Love. 
 
 9. The House of the Forest 
 of Lebanon. 
 
 10. Of Antichrist and his 
 Ruine. 
 
 The Heavenly Footman . 1698 
 A Relation of the Imprison- 
 mentof Mr. John Banyan 1765 
 
 Printed by WALTER SCOTT, Felling, N&wcistle-o>i-Tyn& 
 
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