among their neighbours. Their talk and discourse went with me; also my heart would tarry with them, for I was greatly affected with their words, both because by them I was convinced that I wanted the true tokens of a truly godly man, and also because by them I was convinced of the happy and blessed condition of him that was such a one."

His mind was thoroughly awakened as to the infinite value of his soul, and the unspeakableness of its loss. The recollection of his former immorality oppressed him at times with all the terrors of despair. He was struggling for salvation, as a drowning man in a perilous ocean struggles for life-" deep calleth unto deep-all thy billows are gone over me." The whirlwind howls around him. Many were the black nights of his fierce mental struggle. Still he persevered; an invisible and unknown comforter saved him from desperation. He felt his inability to atone for his sins, and was not sufficiently humbled to trust simply and entirely to the atonement of Christ. He soon obtained an introduction to Mr. Gifford, a Baptist minister, and in him found a kindred spirit; he also had been in the royal army, and had had narrow escapes; he also had been a profligate, and found mercy. He and his church, after proper inquiries, admitted Bunyan into church-fellowship, being then about twenty-five years of age.

The rural, retired spot where he was baptized, probably, as was then usual, at

midnight, to avoid the rabid persecution which then raged against the Baptists, is still pointed out. This is a small stream from the river near Bedfordbridge.

The troubles of his deeply-wounded spirit still clung to him. His inquiring mind would be satisfied as to the most difficult truths of revelation. The day of grace, and a fear that it had passed, was a source of agony to his wounded spirit. He was confronted with that "grim-faced one, Captain Past-hope, with his terrible red standard-a hot iron and a hard heart-exhibited by Ensign Despair at Eye-Gate." These were swept away by that Scripture," Compel them to come in." He saw that there was room in the bosom of Jesus for his afflicted soul. He then became alarmed lest he had not been effectually called. He felt the poverty of wealth. "Could this call have been gotten for money. Had I a whole world, it had all gone ten thousand times over. I would not lose one promise, or have it struck out of the Bible, if in return I could have as much gold as would reach from London to York, piled up to the heavens." In proportion to his soul's salvation, honour was a worthless phantom, and gold but glittering dust. Election and reprobation-the final perseverance of the saints --but, above all, the inspiration of the Scriptures-were subjects of solemn inquiry. A storm of blasphemous thoughts came upon him-" questions against the being of a God and the authority of the Holy Scriptures. This was the battle with Apollyon-this the momentary loss of his sword, without which he was under the power of the foe. A prayerful examination removes all his doubts; he resumes his weapon, and the enemy flies away.

Soon after these agitations of his spirit, he was seized with a severe illness, threatening consumption, and he entered the Valley of the Shadow of Death. A vivid view of the unutterable anguish of lost souls terrified one who felt himself worthy of the fierce displeasure of God. "The devil is indeed very busy at work during the darkness of a soul. He throws in his fiery darts to amazement, when we are encompassed with the terrors of a dismal night; he injects with a quick and sudden malice a thousand monstrous and abominable thoughts of God, which seem to be the motions of our own minds, and terribly grieve and trouble us."

What made those arrows more penetrating and distressing was, that Satan, with subtle art, tipt them with sentences of Scripture,-" No place for repentance;" "rejected;" "hath never forgiveness," and other passages which, by the malignant ingenuity of the fiend, were formed by his skill as the cutting and barbed points of his shafts.

Prayer was here his only comfort, and sustained him in this storm. He thus describes his feelings :-" Oh, the unthought-of imaginations, frights, fears, and terrors, that are effected by a thorough application of guilt!" "Methought I saw as if the sun that shineth in the heavens did grudge to give light, and as if the very stones in the street and tiles upon the houses did bend themselves against me." Still he prayed, even when in his greatest darkness and distress. To whom could he go? his case was beyond the power of men or angels. In God he found a refuge, and his mental agitation subsided. Then, to use his own figure, Captain Consumption, with all his men of death, were routed, and health triumphed over disease; or, to use the language of an eminent Puritan, "When overwhelmed with the deepest sorrows, and that for many doleful months, he who is Lord of nature healed my body, and he who is the Father of mercies proclaimed liberty to the captive, and gave rest to my weary soul."

The text which operated as a key to all the locks in Doubting Castle and set his burdened spirit at liberty was Heb. ii. 14, 15. His trying experience made the promises more familiar, clear, and invaluable. "Great sins drew out great grace;" and the more terrible and fierce guilt was, the more high and mighty the mercy of God in Christ did appear. While he was in God's school of trial, every groan, every bitter pang, and every gleam of hope, were intended to fit him for his future work as a preacher and writer. He well knew every dirty lane and corner of Mansoul, in which the Diabolonians found shelter. His pastor, John Burton, said of him, "He hath through grace taken these three heavenly degrees, to wit, union with Christ, the anointing of the Spirit, and the experience of the temptations of Satan, which do more fit a man for that mighty work of preach ing the gospel than all the university learning and degrees that can be had.

His remarkable experience, familiarity with the Scriptures, deep sense of the value of the soul, and fluency of speech, led his pastor and the church to insist upon his entering on the work of the ministry. This, he says, "did much dash and abash my spirit." Their importunity overcame his reluctance, and, “in private, with much weakness and infirmity, he discovered his gifts amongst them;" and they pressed him forward to preach in the villages round Bedford. He appears to have carefully considered every subject before introducing it to his hearers, and to have written notes of all his sermons.

III.-MANNER OF PREACHING.-COMMITTED TO PRISON.

"In my preaching of the Word, I took special notice to open and allege that the curse of God by the law doth belong to and lay hold on all men as they come into the world, because of sin. This part of my work I fulfilled with great feeling, for the terrors of the law, and guilt for my transgressions lay heavy on my own conscience. I preached what I smartingly did feel, even that under which my poor soul did groan and tremble to astonishment. Indeed, have been as one sent to them from the dead; I went myself in chains, to preach to them in chains; and carried that fire in my own conscience that I persuaded them to beware of."

During this time, he was visited with severe affliction by the decease of his first wife, leaving him with four young children. It pleased God to give him a second partner, who proved herself to be a most devoted wife and heroic

woman.

Bunyan's talent and fearless determination to uphold divine truth, made him an able disputant. His first controversy was with the Quakers. Burrough, an equally zealous man, entered the list with him. He was called the "Son of Thunder and of Consolation." Burrough slandered his adversary, mistaking him for a hired preacher, and fell under his crushing talent.

The restoration of Charles II. introduced a reign of terror and of suffering to the peaceful church. If Dissenters met for worship, they were liable to be stripped of their property, consigned to a jail, and even to be put to death. Preachers were most severely hunted down. To seek the conversion of a drunkard or a libertine, was a crime, unless under the rules of the church as by law established. The noble buffoon, the Duke of Buckingham was encouraged to make a jest of religion, by addressing a bevy of fine gentlemen and ladies with a ribald exhortation, which he called a sermon; while Bunyan was hurried to

prison for addressing to a small congregation at Samsel the solemn realities of divine truth. Tradition points out the spot in which this eminently pious and useful man was confined.

This ancient prison was built with and in one of the central piers of the bridge over the river Ouse. As the bridge was only about fourteen feet wide, the prison must have been very small. Howard the philanthropist thus describes the Bedford jail:-"The men and women felons associate together; their night rooms are two dungeons; only one court for debtors and felons, and no apartment for the jailor. Imagination can hardly realise the miseries of fifty or sixty pious men and women, taken from a place of worship, and incarcerated in such dungeons with felons, as was the case while Bunyan was a prisoner. How justly did the poor pilgrim call it "a certain DEN!" The eyes of Howard penetrated these dens, and they were razed to their foundations. On removing the floor, a gold ring was discovered, with Bunyan's initials on it. This ring passed into the possession of the Curate of Elstow, now the Dean of Manchester, and is highly of the prison on Bed- prized and worn by him as a memento of the honoured Nonconformist.

BUNYAN'S RING, found under the floor

ford Bridge.

Dragged from the arms of his affectionate wife, who was brought to death's door by painful apprehensions that her husband's life would be sacrificed, bereaved of the company of his children, and of personal communion with the little flocks of Christians to whom he ministered, this holiest, most harmless, and useful of men was sent to a jail, and remained a prisoner for more than twelve years in the prime of his life. It has been supposed, probably with great reason, that

his imprisonment hid him during these times of bitter persecution, and saved his life; yet this is no diminution of the guilt of his persecutors. "Surely the WRATH of man shall praise THEE; the remainder of wrath shalt thou restrain." In this doleful, prison he finds a resting place, and in that DEN, with his soul full of spiritual peace, he tranquilly reposed, waiting the will of his Heavenly Father.

"These walls and bars cannot a prison make,

The freeborn soul enjoys its liberty;

These clods of earth it may incaptivate,

Whilst heavenly minds are conversant on high,
Ranging the fields of bless'd eternity."

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After about seven weeks' imprisonment, he was tried at the assizes, before Justice Keelin, who entered upon an argument in favour of the Book of Common Prayer, asserting that "he knew that it had been in use ever since the apostles' time"!! Bunyan argued that prayer must be the effusion of the heart, and not the reading of the form. The judge at length acknowledged that he was not well versed in Scripture, and demanded the prisoner's plea, whether he confessed the indictment. "Now," Bunyan observes, and not till now, I saw I was indicted, and said, This I confess we have had many meetings together, both to pray to God, and to exhort one another; and that we had the sweet comforting presence of the Lord for our encouragement, blessed be his name therefore! I confessed myself guilty, no otherwise." The plea of guilty being recorded, Keeling resumed his natural ferocity. "Then," said he, "hear your judgment. You must be hed back again to prison, and there lie for three months; and then if you do not submit to go to church to hear divine service, and leave your preaching, you must be banished the realm; and after that, if you shall be found in this realm without special license from the king, you must stretch by the neck for it, I tell you plainly. And so he bid my jailor have me away." The hero answered, "I am at a point with you. If I were out of prison to-day, I would preach the gospel again to-morrow, by the help of God."

Bunyan severely felt the infirmities of nature. Parting with his wife and children he described as the pulling the flesh from the bones. I saw I was as a man who was pulling down his house upon the head of his wife and children." His feelings were peculiarly excited to his poor blind Mary. Oh, the thoughts of the hardships I thought my poor blind one might go under, would break my heart in pieces."

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While in this state of distress, the promise came to his relief, "Leave thy fatherless children, I will preserve them alive; and let thy widows trust in me. One instance will show the peril in which learned and pious men held their lives. John James, the pastor of a Baptist church in Whitechapel, was charged, upon the evidence of one Tipler, a pipe-maker's journeyman, who was not present in the meeting, but swore that he heard him utter treasonable words. Notwithstanding the evidence of respectable witnesses, who were present during the whole service, and proved that no such words were used, Mr. James was convicted, and sentenced to be hung. His distracted wife saw the king, and implored mercy : when the unfeeling monarch replied, "Oh, Mr. James; he a sweet gentle. man." Again, on the following morning, she fell at his feet, beseeching his royal clemency, when he spurned her from him, saying, "John James, that rogue, he

* Written by S. Colledge, a preaching mechanic, a few days before he suffered death, August, 1681.