now." But, after other four-and-twenty hours of pumping, the peril passes by, and another of his "deaths oft" is over. The lad is the future John Newton, of Olney. Bunyan also, in these days of his ungodliness, has many hair's-breadth escapes. Once, "falling into a creek of the sea," he "hardly escapes drowning." Another time he is precipitated from a boat into the Ouse; but "mercy preserves him alive." On a third occasion, being in the field with one of his companions, an adder chances to pass over the highway; and, "having a stick in his hand," he "strikes her over the back;" the animal is "stunned," and he "forces open her mouth with his stick, and plucks her sting out with his fingers." And still another escape he mentions. Now, in his seventeenth year, and having enlisted as a soldier during the civil war, he is "drawn out to go to the siege of Leicester," and is just on the eve of starting, when one of the company desires to go in his room. "He took my place," says he; "and coming to the siege, as he stood sentinel, he was shot in the head with a musket-bullet, and died." But these "judgments mixed with mercy" do not "awaken his soul to righteousness." He "sins still, and grows more and more rebellious against God, and careless of his own salvation." 66 A few years pass over; and he leaves the army, and gets married. Though we came together," he as poor as poor might be, not having so tells us, 66 much household stuff as a dish or spoon betwixt us both, yet this she had for her part-'The Plain Man's Pathway to Heaven,' and 'The Practice of Piety,' which her father had left her when he died." These two volumes are read, and re-read; and another book is read-the "living epistle" of her godly father's life. The result is, "a desire to reform his vicious life, and to fall in very eagerly with the religion of the times." CHAPTER II. "Full of rebellion, I would die, That thou hast aught to do with me. It is thy highest art To captivate strongholds to thee." Superstition-New awakening-"Game at cat"-The voice from hea ven-"Too late"-The reproof-Legal workings-Self-complacencyThe church-bells-Strivings-The three poor saints-Living epistles -"Dwelt alone"-Evangelist. "MAN," it has been said, "with sinuous ease, escapes from lie to lie." Earnest hitherto in worldliness, the tinker is now scarcely less earnest in "credulities of weakness." At church "with the foremost," he is "overrun with a spirit of superstition," adoring with great devotion "the high-place, priest, clerk, vestment, service, and what else;" counting all things holy that are therein contained, and especially the priest and clerk most happy, and, without doubt, greatly blessed, because they are servants, and are principal, in the holy temple, to do His work therein." Cowper has written— "For though the Pope has lost his interest here, Than some grave sinners upon English ground." Bunyan's whole soul is now intent on this work. So strong in a little while does the feeling grow upon him, that, does he but "see a priest though never so sordid and debauched in his life," he will "find his spirit fall under him, reverence him, and knit unto him; yea, for the love he bears unto them, supposing them the ministers of God, he feels as if he could lie down at their feet, and be trampled on by them; their name, their garb, and work, do so intoxicate and bewitch him.” Once more, however, he is awakened to a crushing sense of sin. All this while, he has "kept from considering, that, what religion soever he follows, sin will damn him unless he be 'found in Christ.'" But one day a sermon on Sabbath-breaking startles him; he "falls in his conscience under it," and goes home "with a great burden upon his spirit." The "trouble" threatens to "benumb the sinews of his best delights ;" but, before he was well dined, it begins to wear off, and that evening he is at his old sport on the village green, "solacing himself therewith." The arrow, however, is not gone. He is "in the midst of a game of Cat," and is just about to "strike it a second blow from the hole," when suddenly a voice darts from heaven into his soul saying, "Wilt thou leave thy sins and go to heaven, or have thy sins and go to hell?" At this he is "put to an exceeding maze," the Lord Jesus seeming to "look down upon him from heaven in hot displeasure." His heart sinks within him. It is now "too late for him to look after heaven." Christ will never forgive him; and, concluding he may "as well be damned for many sins as for few," he "rushes desperately to his sport again," fearing lest he should die before he gets his "fill of sin.” One of our poets has described "sin's round," thus: "My words take fire from my inflamed thoughts, 66 Standing one afternoon at a neighbor's shop-window, he begins to curse and swear and play the madman" after such a fashion, that the woman of the house, overhearing him, comes out, and, though herself" a very loose and ungodly wretch," protests that it "makes her tremble to hear him." "You're enough," she adds, "to spoil all the youth of the town, if they come but in your company." At this reproof he is "silenced;" and he hangs down his head, “wishing with all his heart he were a little child again, that his father might teach him to speak without swearing." The swearing is now abandoned, so that "it is a wonder to himself to observe it." And the conversation of "one poor man," who "did talk pleasantly of the Scriptures," leads him to "his Bible," which he "begins to take great pleasure in reading, especially the historical part thereof;"-though, "as for Paul's Epistles and such-like Scriptures," he "cannot away with them-being as yet ignorant, either |