THE FROM THIS WORLD TO THAT WHICH IS TO COME. A NEW EDITION, WITH A MEMOIR, GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS; NEW YORK: 416, BROOME STREET. 1872. 141. k. 4 JOHN BUNYAN, the writer of the Pilgrim's Progress, was born at Elstow, a small village a mile south of Bedford, in 1628. His parents were poor, but sent him to school till he could read and write. As a lad he fell among bad companions with whom he would lie and swear; but his conscience often reproved him, and he was frightened in his sleep with terrible dreams, and in his waking hours he had anticipations of future judgment. Yet he did not altogether forget God; he noted how his life was preserved. At one time he fell into a creek of the sea and hardly escaped drowning. Another time he fell out of a boat into the river at Bedford. At another time, being drawn as a soldier to go to the siege of Leicester, one of the company desired to go in his place, who, as he stood sentinel, was shot in the head with a musket bullet and killed. John Bunyan married early the daughter of a man who was counted godly; the woman and he, when they came together, had not so much as a dish or spoon betwixt them, but she had two books, left her by her father when he died: "The Plain Man's Pathway to Heaven," and "The Practice of Piety." He read these books and attended church, and his wife would often tell him what a godly man her father was, and how he would reprove vice, both in his own house and among his neighbours, and how strictly he lived both in word and deed. John Bunyan was not yet rightly sensible of the evil of sin, or of the value of Christ. One Sunday the clergyman preached on the evil of breaking the Sabbath by worldly labour or sport, and pressed the matter so closely that John Bunyan believed that the clergyman made that sermon on purpose to show him his evil doing. He, however, after his dinner, shook the sermon out of his mind and returned to his sport; and (to use his own words) "the same day as I was in the midst of a game at cat, and having struck it one blow from the hole, just as I was about to strike it the second time, a voice did suddenly dart from heaven into my soul, which said, 'Wilt thou leave thy sins and go to heaven, or have thy sins and go to hell?' At this I was put to an exceeding maze; wherefore, leaving my cat on the ground, and looking up to heaven, saw, as with the eyes of my understanding, Jesus Christ looking down upon me very hotly displeased with me, and severely threatening me with some grievous punishment for my ungodly practices. I felt that I had been a grievous sinner, but I thought that it was now too late for me to look after heaven; as if Christ would not forgive me nor pardon my transgressions. Therefore I resolved to go on in sin, and I returned desperately to my sport again. The good Lord, whose mercy is unsearchable, forgave me my transgressions ! "One day I was standing at a neighbour's shop window cursing and playing the madman; there sat within the woman of the house, who, though she was a very ungodly wretch, protested that she trembled to hear me, and that I, by thus doing, was able to spoil all the youth in the town, if they came into my company. At this reproof I was silenced. I wished with all my heart that I might be a little child again, that my father might learn me to speak without this wicked way of swearing. And from this time forward I left my swearing; and whereas before I knew not how to speak, unless I put an oath before and another behind, to make my words have authority; now I could, without an oath, speak better and with more pleasantness than ever I could before. "Quickly after this I fell in company with a poor man that made profession of religion, who did talk pleasantly of the Scriptures; wherefore, |