The first book which Benjamin Franklin owned was "Pilgrim's Progress."
This he read over and over.
Sir Humphry Davy, the great scientist, could repeat a large part of
"Pilgrim's Progress" before he could read it. Nathaniel Hawthorne read
and loved it when he was six years old.
Rufus Choate, the great orator, says E. P. Whipple, "read 'Pilgrim's
Progress' when he was six years old; and he not only got it by heart,
but eloquently expounded it to his companions, dramatically reproducing
the scenes, incidents, and characters of that wonderful allegory, so
that the little people he addressed were made to see in it what he saw."
Dr. Thomas Arnold said, "I cannot trust myself to read the account of
Christian going up to the celestial gate, after his passage through the
river of death.... I hold John Bunyan," he said, "to have been a man of
incomparably greater genius than any of them [our old divines], and to
have given a far truer and more edifying picture of Christianity."
"'Pilgrim's Progress' has been translated into more languages," says
Canon Edmund Venables, in his life of John Bunyan, "than any other book
in the English tongue;" and Southey thinks, "there is no European
language into which it has not been translated."
Who wrote it? A travelling tinker, in prison; "A man," says James
Anthony Froude, "whose writings have for two centuries affected the
spiritual opinions of the English race in every part of the world more
powerfully than any book or books except the Bible."
John Bunyan was born at Elstow, a little village about a mile from
Bedford, England, in 1628. "Few villages," says Canon Venables, "are so
little modernized as Elstow. The old, half-timbered cottages with
overhanging stories, peaked dormers, and gabled porches, tapestried with
roses and honeysuckles, must be much what they were in Bunyan's days."
The parish church is a part of the old Benedictine nunnery, founded here
in 1078 by Judith, niece of William the Conqueror, in honor of the
mother of the Emperor Constantine.
Thomas Bunyan, the father of the renowned author and preacher, was a
tinker, "a mender of pots and kettles." He was married to his first
wife, Anne Pinney, before he was twenty years of age. She died four
years later, apparently without children; and Thomas was soon married
again to Margaret Bentley, who became the mother of John Bunyan.
Poor as the parents were, "of that rank," says Bunyan, "that is meanest
and most despised of all the families in the land ... it pleased God to
put it into their hearts to put me to school, to learn both to read and
write."
There was a school at Bedford at this time, founded in Queen Mary's
reign by the Lord Mayor of London, Sir William Harpur. Thither probably
the lad walked day after day, but he seems to have learned little, and
that little he soon forgot.
At an early age he was obliged to help his father at the forge, where,
he says, he was "brought up in a very mean condition among a company of
poor countrymen."
He soon learned bad habits from the men or boys around him. "From a
child," he says, "I had but few equals (considering my years, which were
then but tender and few) for cursing, swearing, lying, and blaspheming
the holy name of God. Yea, so settled and rooted was I in these things,
that they became as a second nature to me."
In the plain home he must have been taught some religious truths by his
parents, for at ten years of age he was greatly disturbed on account of
his sins. These "did so offend the Lord that even in my childhood he did
scare and affright me with fearful dreams, and did terrify me with
dreadful visions.... These things did so distress my soul, that then in
the midst of my many sports and childish vanities, amidst my vain
companions, I was often cast down and afflicted in my mind therewith;
yet could I not let go my sins."
Books the lad did not read, except the not very edifying life of Sir
Bevis of Southampton, because the poor tinker's home afforded none.
In the midst of his reckless living--he himself protests that he was
never immoral--several remarkable preservations from death had a strong
influence on his mind. Twice he narrowly escaped drowning, once in the
river Ouse at Bedford, and again in "a creek of the sea." At another
time, he says, "Being in the fields with one of my companions, it
chanced that an adder passed over the highway; so I, having a stick in
my hand, struck her over the back, and having stunned her, I forced
open her mouth with my stick, and plucked her sting out with my
fingers; by which act, had not God been merciful to me, I might, by my
desperateness, have brought myself to my end."
When John Bunyan was about seventeen, he was for a time engaged in the
civil wars of the reign of Charles I. Whether he fought for the king or
with the Parliamentary forces will never be known. Dr. John Brown,
minister at Bedford, thinks he was drafted to fight against the Royalist
party.
Here again he was marvellously preserved. "When I was a soldier, I, with
others, was drawn out to go to such a place to besiege it; but when I
was just ready to go, one of the company desired to go in my room; to
which, when I had consented, he took my place; and coming to the siege,
as he stood sentinel, he was shot in the head and died. Here were
judgment and mercy; but neither of them did awaken my soul to
righteousness."
Before Bunyan was twenty, a most important matter came into his life. He
met a poor girl, an orphan, whose name even is not known, and married
her. "I lighted on a wife," he says, "whose father was counted godly.
She also would be often telling me what a godly man her father was, and
how he would reprove and correct vice, both in his house and amongst his
neighbors; what a strict and holy life he lived in his day, both in word
and deed....
"This woman and I came together as poor as poor might be, not having so
much household stuff as a dish or spoon betwixt us both. But she had for
her portion two books, 'The Plain Man's Pathway to Heaven,' and 'The
Practice of Piety,' which her father had left her when he died. In
these two books I sometimes read with her. I found some things pleasing
to me, but all this while I met with no conviction." However, they
created in him "some desire to religion."
"The Practice of Piety," by Dr. Lewis Bayley, Bishop of Bangor in King
James's time, was translated into several languages, and passed through
more than fifty editions during a century. The other book was written by
the Rev. Arthur Dent, the Puritan pastor of Shoebury in Essex.
Young Bunyan changed his outward life after his marriage. He says, "I
fell in with the religion of the times, to go to church twice a day,
very devoutly to say and sing as the others did, yet retaining my wicked
life."
Exceedingly fond of athletic sports, it was the fashion of the day to
enjoy them on Sunday after the sermon. Sometimes the people danced on
the village green, or rang the bells for hours, or played tip-cat or
other sports.
James I. had issued a proclamation that "his good people should not be
disturbed, letted, or discouraged, after the end of the divine service
from any lawful recreations, such as dancing, either of men or women;
archery for men; leaping, vaulting, or any such harmless recreations."
Bunyan's minister, Vicar Hall, was opposed to these forms of Sabbath
breaking, and denounced them from the pulpit in words which the young
married man thought were especially aimed at him. He went home "with a
great burden upon his spirit," but after dinner, "shook the sermon out
of his mind," and went out to play tip-cat on the green.
As Bunyan was in the midst of the game, "having struck the cat one blow
from the hole," he says, "just as I was about to strike it a 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 into an exceeding maze. Wherefore, leaving my
cat on the ground, I looked up to heaven, and was as if I had, with the
eyes of my understanding, seen the Lord Jesus looking down upon me, as
being very hotly displeased with me."
The impression soon wore away, and Bunyan became as reckless as ever. A
month went by, and "one day," he says, "as I was standing at a
neighbor's shop-window, cursing and swearing, and playing the madman,
after my wonted manner, there sat within the woman of the house, and
heard me; who, though she was a very loose, ungodly wretch, yet
protested that I swore and cursed at that most fearful rate, that she
was made to tremble to hear me; and told me further, that I was the
ungodliest fellow for swearing that she ever heard in all her life; and
that I, by thus doing, was enough to spoil all the youth in the whole
town, if they came but in my company."
Bunyan was ashamed and hung his head. "While I stood there," he says, "I
wished with all my heart that I might be a little child again, that my
father might teach me to speak without this wicked way of swearing; for,
thought I, I am so much accustomed to it, that it is in vain for me to
think of reformation; for, I thought, that could never be.... How it
came to pass I know not; but I did from this time forward so leave off
my swearing, that it was a great wonder to myself to observe it. And
whereas, before, I knew not how to speak unless I put an oath before
and another behind, to make the words have authority; now I could speak
better without it, and with more pleasantness than ever I could before."
He began to read the Bible at the suggestion of a friend, and attempted
to keep the commandments. He had a hard struggle in giving up his
amusements. While sure that bell-ringing was a foolish use of time, he
"hankered after it still," and would for some time go and see his old
companions ring. He could not bring himself to give up dancing for a
full year.
His neighbors began to think him very pious, and he was "proud of his
godliness.... I thought," he says, "I pleased God as well as any man in
England."
His self-satisfaction was soon spoiled. "Upon a day," he says, "the good
providence of God called me to Bedford, to work at my calling; and in
one of the streets of that town I came where there were three or four
women sitting at a door in the sun, talking about the things of God. And
being now willing to hear what they said, I drew near, to hear their
discourse--for I was now a brisk talker of myself in the matters of
religion--but I may say, I heard, but understood not; for they were far
above, out of my reach.
"Their talk was about a new birth--the work of God in their hearts; as
also, how they were convinced of their miserable state by nature. They
talked how God had visited their souls with his love in the Lord
Jesus.... Methought, they spoke as if joy did make them speak. They
spoke with such pleasantness of Scripture language, and with such
appearance of grace in all they said, that they were to me, as if I had
found a new world; as if they were people that dwelt alone, and were
not to be reckoned among their neighbors....
"I left, but their talk and discourse went with me; also my heart would
tarry with them, for I was greatly affected by their words....
Therefore, I would often make it my business to be going again and again
into the company of these poor people; for I could not stay away."
The result was "a very great softness and tenderness of heart, and a
desire to meditate on good things."
These poor women could not have realized the wonderful work they were
doing in reforming the life of this travelling vender of pots and
kettles. They were simply using every opportunity for good which came in
their way, and the seed was now destined to bring forth an hundred-fold.
They followed up the interest already awakened in Bunyan's heart. They
were in earnest to serve their Lord. They introduced Bunyan to their
minister, the Rev. John Gifford.
This Free Church was founded in Bedford in 1650, with twelve members.
"Now the principle upon which they thus entered into fellowship one with
another, and upon which they did afterwards receive those that were
added to their body and fellowship, was _faith in Christ and holiness in
life_, without respect to this or that circumstance or opinion in
outward and circumstantial things." The Rev. John Gifford is usually
spoken of as a Baptist, though Dr. Brown finds no proof for or against.
In Gifford's last letter to his church, written just before his death,
he appeals to them not to divide the church on such matters as "baptism,
laying on of hands, anointing with oil, psalms, or any externals."
Bunyan himself, in a work written in 1673, "Differences in Judgment
about Water Baptism no Bar to Communion," implies that he believes in
immersion, but his children were baptized in their infancy.
Mr. Gifford had been a young major in the king's army, was defeated, and
with eleven others condemned to the gallows. On the night before he was
to be executed, his sister visited him in prison. The guards were
asleep, and his fellow-prisoners were drunk. She urged him to escape to
the fields. He did so, and for three days hid himself in a ditch, and
lived on water. Coming to Bedford, he practised as a physician, but
continued his bad habits, drinking and losing heavily through gambling.
In the midst of such a course of life he happened one day to take up a
book written by an eminent scholar and Puritan preacher, the Rev. Robert
Bolton, born at Blackburn, Lancashire, 1572. It was probably the volume
entitled, "The Four Last Things, and Directions for Walking with God,"
published in 1626. Mr. Bolton died in 1631, with these words upon his
lips: "By the wonderful mercies of God, I am as full of comfort as my
heart can hold, and feel nothing in my soul but Christ, with whom I
heartily desire to be."
Mr. Bolton's book was the means of the conversion of Gifford, who, in
turn, led Bunyan into the light, and, consequently, to the writing of
that wonderful book, "The Pilgrim's Progress," in which Gifford is
supposed to be the Evangelist, who points out to Pilgrim the wicket
gate. Who shall measure the power of a good book!
For months, even years, Bunyan passed through the struggles which
Pilgrim found in his difficult journey. He has glowingly depicted these
in his "Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners."
Sometimes he was in the depths of despair, because he felt that his sins
had been too great to be forgiven. Then he feared that he was not one of
the elect, or that he had committed the unpardonable sin against the
Holy Ghost. Then doubts about the Bible and God took possession of him,
till, under the mental strain, his health became affected, and
consumption seemed imminent.
Sometimes a promise from the Bible would bring him the greatest joy. "I
was now so taken with the love and mercy of God," he writes, "that I
thought I could have spoken of it even to the very crows that sat upon
the ploughed lands before me, had they been capable to have understood
me."
In these days of alternate grief and joy, Bunyan came upon an old copy
of Luther's "Commentary on the Galatians;" "so old, that it was ready to
fall piece from piece if I did but turn it over.... I found my
conditions as largely and profoundly handled, in his experience, as if
his book had been written out of my heart. I do prefer this book of
Martin Luther (excepting the Bible) before all the books that ever I
have seen, as most fit for a wounded conscience."
This book was also most effective in the experience of John Wesley. "I
went," Wesley wrote, "very unwillingly, to a society in Aldersgate
Street, where one was reading Luther's Preface to the Epistle to the
Galatians. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the
change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my
heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for
salvation, and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my
sins."
Finally, "the peace of God which passeth understanding" came into
Bunyan's heart. As he was walking in the field, he seemed to hear the
sentence, "Thy righteousness is in heaven;" "and methought I saw," he
says, "with the eyes of my soul, Jesus Christ at God's right hand, there
I say, as my righteousness, so that wherever I was, or whatever I was
doing, God could not say of me, he wants my righteousness, for that was
just before him. Now did my chains fall off my legs indeed. Now went I
home rejoicing for the grace and love of God."
During these years of anxiety, Bunyan worked hard with his hands,
feeling, as did his honest father, that it was one of the first of
duties to be "very careful to maintain his family." He had been
moderately successful at his trade, as a contemporary biographer writes,
that "God had increased his stores so that he lived in great credit
among his neighbors."
In the year 1653, when he was twenty-five,--the year in which Oliver
Cromwell was made Lord Protector of England,--he became a member of Mr.
Gifford's church. He probably removed to Bedford from Elstow, two years
later, and was made a deacon in the church.
About this time his lovely wife, to whom he owed so much, died, leaving
four children, one of them, his idolized blind daughter, Mary, born in
1650. His beloved friend and pastor, Mr. Gifford, died in September of
the same year as his wife.
The members of the church, realizing that the uneducated tinker was
gifted in speech, and believing in his earnestness, asked him "to speak
a word of exhortation unto them."
At first, modest and shrinking as he was, "it did much dash and abash
his spirit," but being entreated, he spoke twice, "but with much
weakness and infirmity."
After this he was asked to go with others and hold meetings in the
country roundabout; and finally, "after solemn prayer, with fasting, he
was set apart to the more ordinary and public preaching of the Word."
"My great desire," he says, "in my fulfilling my ministry, was to get
into the darkest places of the country, even amongst those people that
were furtherest off of profession.... I preached what I felt, what I
smartingly did feel.... Indeed, I 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 conscience, that I persuaded them to be aware of."
Later, he says, after two years "crying out against men's sins," he
changed his manner of preaching; "I did labor much to hold forth Jesus
Christ in all his offices, relations, and benefits unto the world."
On one occasion, having preached with much feeling, one of his friends
took him by the hand, and spoke of the sweet sermon he had delivered.
"Ay," said the self-searching preacher, "you need not remind me of that,
for the devil told me of it before I was out of the pulpit."
Bunyan preached wherever there was an open door,--in a barn, a church,
or on the village green. Crowds came to listen,--some from
curiosity,--and great numbers were converted.
"No such preacher," says Froude, "to the uneducated English masses was
to be found within the four seas."
Among the crowd gathered in a churchyard in Cambridgeshire on a
week-day, was a Cambridge scholar, "none of the soberest," who had come
to hear "the tinker prate," and gave a boy twopence to hold his horse
while he listened. "But God met him there by his ministry, so that he
came out much changed; and would by his good will hear none but the
tinker for a long time after, he himself becoming a very eminent
preacher in that country afterwards."
Another Cambridge University man asked Bunyan, "How dare you preach,
seeing you have not the original, being not a scholar?"
"Have you the original?" asked Bunyan.
"Yes," said the scholar.
"Nay, but have you the very self-same original copies that were written
by the penmen of the Scriptures, prophets and apostles?"
"No," was the reply, "but we have the true copies of these originals."
"How do you know that?" said Bunyan.
"How?" said the scholar, "why, we believe what we have is a true copy of
the original."
"Then," said Bunyan, "so do I believe our English Bible is a true copy
of the original." Then away rode the scholar.
Bunyan met with many obstacles in his preaching. When Dr. William Dell,
the Puritan master of Caius College, Cambridge, asked him to preach in
the parish church on Christmas, the orthodox parishioners were
indignant. Some of the university professors were "angry with the tinker
because he strove to mend souls as well as kettles and pans." Others
declared him a witch, a highwayman, and accused him of nearly every
vice. All these things deeply wounded the earnest man, but he kept
steadily at work.
His first book, about two hundred pages, "Some Gospel Truths Opened
according to the Scriptures," was published in London, in 1656, when
Bunyan was twenty-eight years old. The Rev. John Burton, the pastor who
succeeded Mr. Gifford, wrote the introduction, and commended the young
author as one who had "neither the greatness nor the wisdom of the world
to commend him ... not being chosen out of an earthly but out of a
heavenly university,--the Church of Christ."
This book being replied to by Edward Burrough, a Quaker, defending his
sect, Bunyan wrote a second book, "A Vindication of Gospel Truths
Opened." His third book, published in 1658, a few days before Oliver
Cromwell's death, was an exposition of the parable of the rich man and
Lazarus. The volume went through nine editions in the author's lifetime.
His fourth book, published in 1659, was entitled "The Doctrine of Law
and Grace Unfolded."
All were written in simple language, with the earnestness of one, who,
as he said, grieved more over the backsliding of one of his converts
"than if one of my own children were going to the grave."
With the restoration of Charles II. the rule of Puritanism was over.
Dissenters' chapels were shut up. The worshippers were commanded to
attend the Established Church. Bunyan had preached for five years; and
he could not give up his work, even now that his pulpit was closed by
law. He continued to preach in barns and private houses.
On Nov. 12, 1600, he went to the little hamlet of Lower Samsell, near
Harlington, to preach. Some one communicated this fact to a magistrate,
and a warrant was issued for his arrest. This was told him, and he had
time to escape; but he said if he were to flee, "the weak and newly
converted brethren would be afraid to stand." He would never play the
coward.
He opened the meeting with prayer, and began to speak from the words,
"Dost thou believe on the Son of God?"
When the officers arrived, he was ordered to cease speaking. He replied
"that he was about his Master's business, and must rather obey his
Lord's voice than that of man." However, knowing that resistance was
useless, as he was arrested in the king's name, he was led away to
prison "with God's comfort," he says, "in my poor soul." He would not
promise to discontinue preaching, saying rather, "If I were out of
prison to-day, I would preach the gospel again to-morrow." He was
sentenced to remain in prison for three months; if at the end of that
time he refused to give up preaching, he would be sent away from his
country, and if he came back without license, he would be hanged. Those
were times of dreadful intolerance, and yet in this age we have not
ceased to be intolerant of those whose beliefs are not like our own!
Bunyan had recently married a second time, and his wife was dangerously
ill. He was a man of deep affections and loved his home. He said, "What
a man is at home, that he is indeed. My house and my closet show most
what I am, to my family and to the angels, though not to the world."
He wrote in prison, "The parting with my wife and poor children hath
often been to me in this place as the pulling of my flesh from my bones;
and that not only because I am too, too fond of those great mercies, but
also because I should have often brought to my mind the hardships,
miseries, and wants my poor family was like to meet with should I be
taken from them, especially my poor blind child, who lay nearer my heart
than all I had beside. Poor child, thought I, what sorrow art thou like
to have for thy portion in this world! Thou must be beaten, suffer
hunger, cold, nakedness, and a thousand calamities, though I cannot now
endure the wind should blow on thee.
"But yet, thought I, I must venture all with God, though it goeth to the
quick to leave you. I was as a man who was pulling down his house upon
the head of his wife and children."
As the coronation of Charles II. took place in the spring of 1661, and
it was customary to pardon prisoners under sentence for any offence
short of felony, it was hoped by the followers of Bunyan that he would
be released. As the local authorities did not put his name on the list
of those who might properly be pardoned, his young wife, Elizabeth,
scarcely recovered from her illness, travelled to London, and with great
courage made her way to the House of Lords, and presented her petition
to one of the peers. He received her kindly, but told her that her
husband's case must be left with the judges at the next assizes.
Three times Elizabeth Bunyan, "with abashed face and trembling heart,"
stood before the judges, pleading for her husband. One of the judges,
Sir Matthew Hale, was very kind to her, though he feared he could not
help her, as the law was against her husband. The other judge, Twisden,
was brutal in his manner, so that she feared he would strike her.
Unsuccessful, the poor woman went back to her home, and John Bunyan
remained for twelve long years in prison.
For the first six months Bunyan was allowed considerable liberty by his
sympathetic jailer. He went to some of the meetings of the Baptists, and
to his home. Some of the bishops heard of it, and sent a messenger from
London to ascertain if this were really so. The officer was told to call
at night at the prison. It happened that Bunyan had been allowed to
remain at his home that night, but he became so uneasy that he told his
wife he must go back to prison. It was so late when he returned that the
jailer chided him for coming at all.
Soon afterward the messenger arrived. "Are the prisoners all safe?" he
asked.
"Yes," was the reply.
"Is John Bunyan safe?"
"Yes."
"Let me see him."
Bunyan was called, and fortunately was able to appear. When the
messenger was gone, the jailer said, "Well, you may go out again just
when you think proper, for you know when to return better than I can
tell you." Soon, however, the jailer was censured, and came near losing
his position, while Bunyan himself was not permitted "to look out at the
door." His name does not appear again at a church meeting for seven
years.
Bunyan's prison life was a very busy one. He did not, says his friend
and biographer, the Rev. Charles Doe, "spend his time in a supine and
careless manner, or eat the bread of idleness. For there I have been
witness, that his own hands have ministered to his and to his family's
necessities, by making many hundred gross of long, tagged, thread laces,
to fill up the vacancies of his time, which he had learned for that
purpose since he had been in prison. There also I surveyed his library,
the least and yet the best that ever I saw, consisting only of two
books, a Bible and the 'Book of Martyrs.'"
Bunyan's Bible and his Foxe's "Book of Martyrs" came into the possession
of Mr. Bohn, the London publisher, and were purchased from him for the
Bedford library, where they have been seen by thousands of visitors.
"With those two books," says Froude, "Bunyan had no cause to complain of
intellectual destitution. Foxe's Martyrs, if he had a complete edition
of it, would have given him a very adequate knowledge of history.... The
Bible, thoroughly known, is a literature of itself--the rarest and
richest in all departments of thought or imagination which exists."
Besides these books, he seems to have had a rosebush, about which he
wrote a poem:--
"This homely Bush doth to mine eyes expose,
A very fair, yea, comely, ruddy rose.
This rose doth always bow its head to me,
Saying, 'Come pluck me; I thy rose will be.'"
He also wrote verses about a spider whose habits he closely watched.
Bunyan's prison, if it had much of discomfort, gave him leisure to read
and write--the one thing for which most persons of brain are struggling.
"Prisons in those days," says Canon Venables, "and indeed long
afterwards, were, at their best, foul, dark, miserable places. A century
later John Howard found Bedford jail, though better than some, in what
would now be justly deemed a disgraceful condition. One who visited
Bunyan during his confinement speaks of it 'as an uncomfortable and
close prison.'"
Once or twice his friends tried to regain his liberty for him, but he
always left the matter with his Lord. When they failed to obtain his
freedom, he said, "Verily, I did meet my God sweetly again, comforting
of me and satisfying of me, that it was his will and mind that I should
be there."
In prison Bunyan's pen was a source of great joy to himself, and a
blessing to all the world. His earliest prison work was "Profitable
Meditations" in verse. He put portions of the Old and New Testament into
poetry. Froude calls the "Book of Ruth" and the "History of Joseph"
"beautiful idylls."
He wrote in prose a treatise on prayer, entitled, "Praying in the
Spirit;" a book on "Christian Behavior;" the "Holy City," an exposition
of the closing chapters of Revelation; a work on the "Resurrection of
the Dead and Eternal Judgment;" and "Grace Abounding," the story of his
own conversion. The latter book, "if he had written no other," says
Canon Venables, "would stamp Bunyan as one of the greatest masters of
the English language of his own or any other age."
This book was published by George Larkin, in London, in 1666, in the
sixth year of Bunyan's imprisonment.
Besides these, he wrote his "Confession of Faith," and his "Defence of
the Doctrine of Justification by Faith."
Bunyan's imprisonment came to an end May 8, 1672. Through the
Declaration of Indulgence, granted by Charles II., Nonconformists were
once more allowed to worship God as they chose.
It seems probable, from Bunyan's later biographers, that "Pilgrim's
Progress" was written during a subsequent imprisonment of six months in
1675, when the Nonconformists were again suffering the rigors of law.
The first edition appeared in 1678, when Bunyan was fifty years old. A
second edition was issued the same year, and a third, with additions,
the year following, 1679.
After it was written in prison, Bunyan, always distrusting his own
abilities, consulted with his friends about the wisdom of publishing it,
as will be seen from the metrical preface:--
"When at first I took my pen in hand,
Thus for to write, I did not understand
That I at all should make a little book
In such a mode; nay, I had undertook
To make another; which, when almost done,
Before I was aware I this begun.
* * * * * *
Well, when I had thus put my ends together,
I showed them others, that I might see whether
They would condemn them, or them justify:
And some said, 'Let them live;' some, 'Let them die.'
Some said, 'John, print it;' others said, 'Not so;'
Some said, 'It might do good;' others said, 'No.'
Now was I in a strait, and did not see
Which was the best thing to be done of me;
At last I thought, since you are thus divided,
I print it will, and so the case decided."
Bunyan was already famous. The day after he was released from prison, he
began to preach in a barn standing in an orchard in Bedford, which one
of the congregation, Josias Ruffhead, acting for the members of the
church, had purchased, "to be a place for the use of such as doe not
conforme to the Church of England, who are of the Persuasion commonly
called Congregationall." The barn was so thronged that many were obliged
to stay outside. Here he preached till his death, sixteen years
afterward.
He had a general oversight of the churches far and near, and was often
called Bishop Bunyan.
He was urged to reside in London, but he would not leave Bedford. Here
he lived in a cottage which had three small rooms on the ground
floor--such a house as laborers now use. Behind the cottage stood a
small building which served as his workshop. A person visiting him found
in his "study" the Bible, "Pilgrim's Progress," and a few other books,
chiefly his own productions, "all lying on a shelf or shelves."
His beloved blind daughter, Mary, had died while he was in prison. The
other children, Thomas, John, Joseph, Sarah, and Elizabeth, four by the
first mother, and two by the second, brightened the plain Bedford
cottage. His son Thomas became a minister in 1673, the year after his
father regained his liberty.
Whenever Bunyan went to London to preach, says Charles Doe, "if there
were but one day's notice given, there would be more people come
together than the meeting-house could hold. I have seen, by my
computation, about twelve hundred at a morning lecture, by seven
o'clock, on a working day, in the dark winter time. I also computed
about three thousand that came to hear him one Lord's Day in London, 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 his pulpit." To what honor had
the poor tinker already come!
It is said that Charles II. expressed his surprise to Dr. Owen that "a
learned man, such as he, could sit and listen to an illiterate tinker."
"May it please your majesty," was the reply, "I would gladly give up
all my learning if I could preach like that tinker."
The wonderful success attending the "Pilgrim's Progress" must have been
a surprise to modest John Bunyan. Macaulay says, "He had no suspicion
that he was producing a masterpiece." It spread his fame over Europe and
the American settlements. It was translated into many foreign languages
during his life.
Dr. Brown says: "It is found in _Northern Europe_--in Danish, Icelandic,
Norwegian, Lithuanian, Finnish, Lettish, Esthonian, and Russ; in
_Eastern Europe_--in Servian, Bulgarian, Bohemian, Hungarian, and
Polish; and in _Southern Europe_--in French, Italian, Spanish,
Portuguese, and Romaic, or modern Greek. In _Asia_, it may be met with
in Hebrew, Arabic, Modern Syriac, Armeno-Turkish, Græco-Turkish, and
Armenian. Farther to the south, also, it is seen in Pashtu, or Afghani,
and in the great Empire of India it is found in various forms.
"It has been translated into Hindustani or Urdu, Bengali, Uriya or
Orissa, Hindi, Sindhi, Panjabi or Sikh, Telugu, Canarese, Tamil,
Malayaline, Marathi-Balbodh, Gujarati, and Singhalese.
"In Indo-Chinese countries there are versions of it in Assamese, Khasi,
Burmese, and Sgau-Karen. It has been given to the Dyaks of Borneo, to
the Malays, to the Malagasy, to the Japanese, and to the many-millioned
people of China, in various dialects, both classical and colloquial."
It has also been translated into the languages of Western Africa, the
Pacific Islands, the Mexicans, and various tribes of Indians.
The greatest minds of the world have been unanimous in its praise.
Everybody agrees with Toplady, who wrote "Rock of Ages," that "it is the
finest allegorical work extant."
Macaulay said, "Bunyan is the first of allegorists, as Shakespeare is
the first of dramatists," and recommended the study of his simple style
to any who wished to gain command over his mother tongue.
Coleridge said, "I know of no book, the Bible excepted as above all
comparison, which I, according to my judgment and experience, could so
safely recommend, as teaching and enforcing the whole saving truth,
according to the mind that was in Christ Jesus, as 'The Pilgrim's
Progress.'"
Fronde well says it has made Bunyan's "name a household word in every
English-speaking family on the globe." Hallam calls his style "powerful
and picturesque from concise simplicity." Green, the historian, thinks
"Bunyan's English the simplest and homeliest English that has ever been
used by any great English writer.... It is the English of the Bible."
The second part of "Pilgrim's Progress" was published seven years after
the first, in 1685. In 1680 appeared the "Life and Death of Mr. Badman,"
a contrast to the good Pilgrim; in 1681, "Come and Welcome to Jesus
Christ," which went through several editions; and in 1682, the "Holy
War," which, Macaulay says, would have been our greatest allegory if
"Pilgrim's Progress" had never been written. It represents the fall and
recovery of man.
Several small books from Bunyan's pen appeared from year to year. In
1688, the year of his death, five of his works were published,
"Jerusalem Sinner Saved, or a Help to Despairing Souls;" "The Work of
Jesus Christ as an Advocate;" a poetical composition entitled, "The
Building, Nature, and Excellency of the House of God;" the "Water of
Life;" and "Solomon's Temple Spiritualized." "The Acceptable Sacrifice"
was going through the press at the time of his death.
Besides these, Bunyan had prepared the manuscript of fourteen or more
works. Ten were published soon after his death, by his devoted friend,
Charles Doe, who said he thought the best work he could do for God was
to get Bunyan's books printed and sold.
In the summer of 1688, a young man, in whom Bunyan was deeply
interested, told him that his father was about to disinherit him, and
begged the preacher to see him. Though scarcely recovered from an
illness, he at once rode on horseback to Reading, met the father,
obtained a promise of forgiveness, and returned homeward through London,
where he was to preach near Whitechapel.
His forty miles to London were made through a pouring rain. Drenched and
weary, he reached the home of his friend, Deacon John Strudwick, Holborn
Bridge, Snow Hill. With his usual determination to do what he thought to
be his duty, he preached Sunday, Aug. 19, 1688. Twelve days later, Aug.
31, he was dead. In two months he would have been sixty years old. He
was buried in Mr. Strudwick's vault, in the Dissenters' burying-ground
at Bunhill Field. The mother of John Wesley sleeps close by. This place
was called Bunhill or Bonehill, from a vast quantity of human remains
removed to it from the charnel house of St. Paul's Cathedral in 1549.
Bunyan died as he had lived, in complete trust and faith. He asked those
who stood around his bedside to pray, and he joined fervently with
them. "Weep not for me," he said, "but for yourselves. I go to the
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will, no doubt, through the
mediation of his blessed Son, receive me, though a sinner, where I hope
we ere long shall meet to sing the new song, and remain everlastingly
happy, world without end, Amen."
His blind Mary had gone before him; and Elizabeth, his noble wife, died
four years after him, in 1692.
Bunyan's preaching was natural, simple, and earnest, with now and then
an appropriate comparison and anecdote. He said, "I have observed that a
word cast in by-the-by hath done more execution in a sermon than all
that was spoken besides. Sometimes, also, when I have thought I did no
good, then I did the most of all; and at other times, when I thought I
should catch them, I have fished for nothing."
The Rev. Charles Doe describes Bunyan "as tall of stature, strong-boned,
though not corpulent; somewhat of a ruddy face, with sparkling eyes, ...
hair reddish, but in his later days time had sprinkled it with gray, ...
forehead something high, and his habit always plain and modest.... In
his conversation he was mild and affable, not given to loquacity or much
discourse in company.... He had a sharp, quick eye, with an excellent
discerning of persons, being of good judgment and quick wit."
He was careful in preparing his sermons, usually committing them to
writing after he had preached them. In composing his books his habit
was, "first with doing, and then with undoing, and after that with doing
again."
Froude says if Bunyan's "importance may be measured by the influence
which he has exerted over succeeding generations, he must be counted
among the most extraordinary persons whom England has produced.... To
understand, and to make others understand, what Christ had done, and
what Christ required men to do, was the occupation of his whole mind,
and no object ever held his attention except in connection with it." Is
it any wonder that the ministry of the poor, uneducated tinker was a
marvellous success?
Visitors from all parts of the world go to Bedford yearly to look upon
the scenes associated with Bunyan's life. In the Manor are seen his
will, his cabinet, the Church Book, and various editions and foreign
versions of the "Pilgrim's Progress."
Bunyan's chair is also shown, and the oak door with iron crossbars, once
a part of Bedford jail, the home of the great preacher for twelve long
years.
[Illustration: THOMAS ARNOLD.]