notice were given, the meeting-house in Southwark, at which he generally preached, would not contain half the people." "I have seen (says an eye witness) by my computation about twelve hundred persons to hear him at a morning lecture, on a working day, in dark winter time." "I also computed about three thousand that came to hear him 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 up stairs to the pulpit." The learned and pious Dr. Owen, that giant of evangelical theology, is reported to have said to Charles II. (who rallied him for "going to hear an illiterate Tinker prate," "Please your Majesty, could I possess that Tinker's abilities for preaching, I would gladly relinquish all my learning." Charles Doe, with affectionate admiration, calls him, "Our great Gospel Preacher,"—"the Champion of our Age."

Yet, Dr. Southey has said, "Had it not been for the encouragement Bunyan received from the Baptists, he might have lived and died a Tinker." Be this as it may, Baptists will know how to prize such a concession-not to their superior wisdom-but to the wisdom of Christ in the free and scriptural Constitution of their churches. And although as a body, they have little cause for gratitude for the manner in which they are treated by Robert Philip in his "Life and Times of Bunyan," they may thank him for a like acknowledgment. "Both the world and the Church (he says) are indebted to the Baptists for the ministry of John Bunyan." (p. 312.) "Any orthodox Congregational or Presbyterian Church of that day would have treated him with equal tenderness. So would pious Episcopalians, had they known him as well as the Baptists did. I much doubt, however, if any other orthodox body would have followed up his welcome into their fellowship, by calling him out to the ministry." (p. 180.) If this be so, that single fact is sufficient

to justify our denominational existence. But we quote it here, for another end. Are not Baptists then specially bound to perpetuate and spread his Practical Works-the embalmed spirit of such a Preacher-wherever they exist? Will they not be responsible, if being dead, Bunyan does not still speak by these admirable productions? productions whose "power and pathos eclipse all learning, and throw every thing into the shade, but the wisdom which winneth souls."

All his books were

For as Bunyan spoke, so he wrote. written, as it were, out of his own heart, and directed to the hearts of his fellow men. And that heart of his, so long and sorely tried, was in alliance with an intellect of wonderful power, and an imagination no less wonderful. And "the laws of his intellectual being blended so with its spiritual aspirations and responsibilities, that his head can never be analyzed apart from his heart." Then too, Bunyan, with all his hearty homeliness, had a healthy, and indeed, exquisite taste. He loved the true, the pure, the graceful, the noble, the beautiful and the sublime. Wit and humor (as in Sir Thomas More) at times gleam forth amidst the gravity, the solemn earnestness, the subduing tenderness of his sentiments and style. His roughness is not rudeness. His occasional coarseness is less from ignorance than choice. He knew when he transgressed the laws of taste; but he acted at such times in obedience to a higher law. His sympathy with the poor and ignorant and erring, was by the grace of God experimental and heartfelt; and he spoke to them, and wrote for them, in the style which they could understand and feel, because he devoutly longed to do them good. His words were "picked and packed," as he says; but it was for the use of the popular mind. There are innumerable passages, however, to prove what he modestly affirms, that he "could have stept into a higher style." That he did not, considering whom he addressed, and for

what end, is his everlasting praise. No man of sense would wish the diction of Bunyan essentially different from what it is-"a well of pure old English undefiled."

As a WRITER, Bunyan is chiefly known by his Pilgrim's Progress and the Holy War. These Allegories have given their Author a place among the English Classics. Though slowly recognized as such in the world of letters, his position is now sure. To say nothing of others, the unanimous verdict of a critical jury composed of such men as Addison, Swift, Lord Kames, Dr. Johnson, Cowper, Coleridge, Scott, Byron, Southey, Montgomery, Mackintosh and Macaulay, men differing so widely in other things, can never be set aside. Nor are American critics, from Dr. Franklin to Dr. Cheever, a whit behind their transatlantic brethren in their appreciation of Bunyan. In original creative genius, the unlettered Tinker of Elstow, the humble Baptist Pastor of Bedford, is ranked with Milton and Shakespeare. His name is enrolled among

the few, the immortal names That were not born to die."

In his own walk of literature, he is pronounced without a rival. He has succeeded where all others have failed. He has left all competition hopeless. If Milton is the prince of poets, Bunyan is the prince of dreamers-and his dreams are truly "of the stuff that life is made of”—and bright with the lustre of a better world.

It is not, however, the design of this Introduction to speak of Bunyan as the Master of Religious Allegory. It is to call attention rather to his other writings-writings less widely known, but in which the same splendid powers, sanctified by Divine Grace, are employed in a more direct, and, therefore, more eloquent manner, to unfold and enforce the Gospel of Christ. And we have spoken of his inimitable Allegories chiefly for the sake of the Practical Works

INTRODUCTION.

which are herewith presented to the public, in a form (to say the least) more readable than in any previous edition. And what inference is more natural or rational than this— that the man whom God so richly endowed to write the Pilgrim's Progress and the Holy War, "in allegory so perfect as to hide itself, like light, while revealing through its colorless and undistorting medium all beside," might be expected to develope the same great principles, and the same superior qualities of mind, in other works to which he applied himself as a faithful minister of Jesus Christ.

These Practical Works will show that Bunyan is master of more arts than Allegory. He is equally master of Analysis, of Argument, of Illustration, of Appeal. Though too fond of typical interpretation, he is often very happy in Exposition. Though too minute and multifarious in his Divisions, he is generally very judicious in their Arrangement. His Observation is keen; his experimental Insight is profound. His anticipation of objections is natural, and his answers just and forcible. His Descriptions are often perfect pictures. His Apostrophes are frequent and animated. His Dialogues, in which he abounds, are as life-like as if taken from men's lips. His Applications are by turns, terrible and tender, searching and consoling. If below Charnock in dignity, he is his equal in depth and discernment. If less systematic and learned than Owen, he is his rival in the knowledge of the heart, and of the devices of Satan, as well in the skilful use of the gospel as a divine relief. If at all inferior in fire and vehemence to Baxter, he is more plain, more picturesque, more evangelical, more startlingly or subduingly eloquent. If less tender than Flavel, he has superior originality, variety and strength. In fact, he unites in a remarkable degree the best qualities of all his celebrated contemporaries, and in some qualities probably excels them. His general style, though never polished, and, at times, descending to coarseness, is generally clear and pure; and

remarkable for its vernacular words and idioms, penetrating the popular ear and heart beyond almost any other writer. Men who have excelled in the pulpit have often failed with the This was pen. the case with Whitfield. But it was not so with Bunyan. Let any man compare the written discourses of these two distinguished men, and while admiring the general harmony of their views and spirit, he must be struck with their difference in mere mental power. In originality, discrimination, point, pungency, imagination, beauty and sublimity, Bunyan is the superior. Only in pathos is he rivalled by Whitfield.

While necessarily differing from Mr. Ryland in some parts of the above estimate of Bunyan, we fully agree with him in the following opinion, expressed more than sixty years ago. "As a popular practical writer, on a great variety of important subjects for the use of the bulk of common Christians, I will dare to affirm that he has few equals in the Christian world. I am persuaded there never has been a writer in the English language whose works have spread so wide, and have been read by so many millions of people, as Mr. Bunyan's." Since then, in what language known to civilized man, have they not in part been translated?

One of the most wonderful things in the history of this wonderful man is, that notwithstanding his want of early education; his conversion from a course of great profaneness; his daily itinerant labors at one period; his imprisonment for twelve years together in Bedford jail, where he was obliged to support himself and family by tagging laces; and the constant demands for his preaching both in city and country after he came out; he was yet one of the most fruitful authors of his time. Not less than sixty pieces of his composition appear in the Catalogue of his friend Charles Doe, published soon after Bunyan's death. Even this is incomplete, for it does not include his Saint's Privilege, Pastoral Letters and Dying Sayings, which raise the num