sit and listen to an illiterate tinker," of his answering, "Please your Majesty, could I possess that tinker's abilities for preaching, I would most gladly part with all my learning." The story is at least good evidence of Bunyan's popularity as a preacher. He must have been well known and well admired before he was likely to form the subject of conversation between the King and Dr Owen. It might be questioned whether Bunyan's sermons, as we read them, bear out his fame as a preacher. They are, like all other sermons of the time, very long, and frequently very tedious in their extension and subdivisions. They are marked strongly by the Puritan characteristic of advancing from point to point through a wide series of didactic and illustrative remarks, without unfolding any new elements of thought -beating out the whole round of scriptural truth, instead of seizing some definite point of doctrine or of duty answering to the text, and summarily expounding and enforcing it. It must be remembered, however, that many of his sermons, like Baxter's, are obviously not so much what he preached, as expanded treatises, composed after being delivered in a shorter form. And amidst all their length and tediousness, we can sufficiently trace in such compositions as the "Jerusalem Sinner Saved," "Come and Welcome to Jesus Christ," the "Pharisee and the Publican," and "The Greatness of the Soul, and Unspeakableness of the Loss thereof," the elements of the lively and remarkable interest that his preaching excited.* The homely pith, simple feeling, and delineative vividness, *The sermon called "Bunyan's Last Sermon," from John i. 13, may be presumed to be more like the length and general character of his sermons as he preached them. 4 combined with the spiritual solemnity and unction of these addresses, must have been powerfully attractive in delivery. To all who felt and appreciated the awful realities of which Bunyan spoke, the learned and distinguished, as well as the ignorant and poor, it is easy to imagine what impressiveness there would be in his charming simplicity, plain but pictured earnestness, and his deep and fervid spirit of devotion. The liveliness of his fancy, the very commonplaceness of his argument-never vulgar, only homely-the constant life, sense, and expressive ease of his style, even when the turn of his thought is crude or extravagant, are all among the highest qualities of popular pulpit oratory. An intellectual nature like Bunyan's, the direct growth of the popular religion-apt, imaginative, and eloquent, without any scholastic training-frequently finds its highest expression in preaching. This was not Bunyan's case. His allegories express and embalm his characteristic genius far more completely than his sermons; but in these also we can see the working of many of his exquisite gifts. In such labours Bunyan spent the remaining years of his life, which are unmarked by any events of particular importance. He and the Baptist congregation at Bedford had to encounter renewed persecution in 1682, when the Tory and Papal reaction set in against the exclusive and tyrannical spirit with which the Whigs had used their power. His old enemies, the "Justices," were again busy during this period, and the meeting-house for some while was shut up. Bunyan himself, however, does not appear to have been molested. He had sufficiently shown his peaceable and unfactious character, and they could find no excuse for disturbing him. In the midst of this persecution he published his Holy War. The popularity of the Pilgrim's Progress, and the success which it had met, not only beyond his own sect, but beyond the bounds of Puritanism, led him to the conception and composition of this more elaborate allegory. As in many other cases, however, this new effort never attracted the notice nor excited the interest of the first. As a mere literary composition, there are some points of view in which the Holy War might claim even a favourable comparison with the earlier work. The allegorical idea on which it is based is worked out with a more consistent and curious art; there is less rapid and shifting change of scene, and less confusion of purpose, than in the Pilgrim's Progress; yet, as a whole, it is greatly wanting in the poetic charm and the nameless interest and fascination of the latter allegory. It neither seizes upon the imagination nor touches the heart as the story of Christian does. Singularly ingenious, elaborate, and coherent in its illustrations and characters, it is almost as great a marvel, but it is not nearly so felicitous nor exquisite a product of genius. The second part of the Pilgrim's Progress appeared two years later (1684). A second part has seldom been handled with a happier success. The old associations-the familiar scenes the series of imagery-are all preserved; the same simple charm lies on every page; while in such characters as Mercy there is a deeper tenderness -and in others, such as Greatheart and old Honest, there is a broader and more vivid dramatic outline than in any of the figures in the first part. The portraits throughout show, if possible, a freer and easier mastery of hand, although it must yield to the first in the freshness and life of its scenes and incidents. These were not-and, in the nature of the case, could not be-rivalled. He was destined, On the accession of James, in the following year, Bunyan seems to have apprehended the likelihood of renewed trouble. This is inferred from the fact of his having conveyed at this time any little property or goods he had acquired to his wife. however, to finish his days in peace. pastoral labour till the eve of the last work was that of a peacemaker. acter he had always loved, and with no work more appropriate could he have closed his career. A friend of his who lived at Reading had threatened to disinherit his son; he was approaching his end; and the idea of his leaving the world unreconciled to his son weighed upon Bunyan's heart. He undertook a journey to Reading on horseback-was successful in renewing the bonds of amity between father and son-and had reached London on his way back. Here, however, he took ill-worn out with the journey-and rapidly sank. He died in the house of his friend Mr Stradwick, a grocer, and was buried in the Campo Santo, as Southey calls it, of the Dissenters-Bunhill-fields Buryingground. The day of his death is stated in his epitaph, and in the Life appended to his Grace Abounding, to have been the 12th of August 1688; but other authorities gave a later day of the same month. Bunyan died as he had lived-a faithful, simple man, intent upon his duty. His character is so simple in its elements, and has been so fully exhibited in the numerous touches of self-portraiture which we have quoted from his autobiography, that little remains to be added on the subject. Naturally a man of deep and powerful earnestness and firm will-vehement in his impulses, but moderate in his desires-he would in any circumstances have proved a remarkable man. He was, as he believed, before his conversion a notable sinner; he became, after conversion, a notable Christian, like his own Greatheart. Had he never been more than a tinker at Elstow, he must have exercised over his neighbours a social influence proportioned to his strength of will and the determination of his convictions. He was not a man to let his life pass idly by with the current. It is impossible to look at his portrait, and not recognise the lines of power by which it is everywhere marked. It has more of a sturdy soldier aspect than anything else the aspect of a man who would face dangers any day rather than shun them; and this corresponds exactly to his description by his oldest biographer and friend, Charles Doe. "He appeared in countenance," he says, "to be of a stern and rough temper. He had a sharp, quick eye, accomplished, with an excellent discerning of persons. As for his person, he was tall of stature, strong boned, though not corpulent; somewhat of a ruddy face, with sparkling eyes, wearing his hair on the 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, and his mouth moderate large; his forehead something high, and his habit always plain and modest.”—A more manly and robust appearance cannot well be conceived, his eyes only showing in their sparkling depth the fountains of sensibility concealed within the roughened exterior. Here, as before, we are reminded of his likeness to Luther. We see in both the same combination of broad, burly humanity with intense spir |