NOTTINGHAM, CAMBRIDGE, AND BEDFORD.
Preaching to 2,500 People—Entertained after the Manner of
Royalty—Excursion to Cambridge—What Happened on the Way—Received
an Entertainment by the Mayor—Cambridge University—King’s
Chapel—Fitzwilliam Museum—Trinity College—Cambridge Bibles—Adieu
to Friends—Bedford—The Church where John Bunyan Preached—Bedford
Jail, where Bunyan wrote _Pilgrim’s Progress_—Bunyan’s
Statue—Elstow, Bunyan’s Birthplace—His Cottage—His Chapel—An Old
Elm Tree.
I AM now in Bedford; but before writing about this historic place,
I must go back a little and tell you something about my wayward
wanderings for the last ten days. While in Nottingham, some weeks ago,
I preached one Sunday night in the Albert Hall to twenty-five hundred
or three thousand people. The good Lord graciously blessed the meeting.
Several persons were converted—they found that peace which passeth all
understanding. The people insisted that I remain and preach again, but
I could not do so.
After visiting Wales, and spending a week or two in London, the
minister accepted an invitation to go back to Nottingham and preach.
He remained over two Sundays, preaching both days to the Albert
Hall people. The happiest moments of a minister’s life are when he
is preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ to a large and sympathetic
audience, It is then that his delight reaches the highest point on the
thermometer of the soul.
During my stay in Nottingham, I was the guest of a model Christian
family who treated me after the manner of royalty. Nottingham is a
railroad centre, and each day I was taken in a carriage or by rail to
see a beautiful river, placid lake, or a towering mountain; or to see
some noted forest ancient hall, or historic castle. The members of the
family who accompanied me on these delightful excursions were familiar
with the legends, literature, and history of the country.
Yesterday I went on an excursion with this family, and sixty other
Nottingham people, to Cambridge. We were up in time to hear the lark’s
morning song. The sky was clear; scarcely a cloud floated above us. And
ere yet the bright sun had kissed the dewdrop from off the grass, we
had turned our faces toward those classic halls where learning lives.
We dashed through many meadows where the wild flowers were beautifully
interwoven with the green grass. We leaped many laughing rivers,
winding streams, and babbling brooks. We wound around among many hills,
and tunneled many mountains. These tunnels were numerous, long and
dark. Now, in our party there happened to be a newly-married couple
in the same compartment with myself, and these tunnels were to them
always a source of joy and rejoicing. They loved darkness rather than
light—why, it is not necessary for me to state. Johnson says it was
always thus.
At the depot, we were met by the aldermen and deputy mayor of the city
of Cambridge, who, in a most graceful manner, informed us that we were
their guests, that they had plenty of carriages present to accommodate
the party, and would first show us the sights of the city, and then
return to the hotel where a public dinner would be served. We proceeded
at once to the University which comprises seventeen different colleges,
all having different names, having been founded at different times by
different persons. Each college owns its own grounds, buildings, and
endowment fund, and has its separate faculty. Some of the buildings
are six or seven hundred years old. They are, however, quite well
preserved, and are splendid specimens of the style of architecture
of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. King’s Chapel, the Chapel of
King’s College, was built in the twelfth century, and it is nothing
less than an architectural wonder. It is said to be one of the most
remarkable structures in christendom. The Chapel is quite narrow, but
is well-nigh four hundred feet long, and one hundred and twenty-five
feet high. Reader, I shall not attempt to describe this building, for,
unless the massive structure could rise before you in its colossal
proportions; unless you could go on the inside, and actually stand
upon thrilling history as it is written in the Mosaic marble floor;
unless you could lift your eyes from the historic floor, and see Bible
stories standing out in life-like reality as they are pictured before
you in the stained-glass windows; unless you could look up and behold
for yourself the exquisite carving on the vaulted Gothic roof a hundred
feet above you; unless that holy calm, which these scenes inspire and
which forever inhabits these sacred walls, could settle down upon your
own spirit,—I say, that unless you could see, realize, and experience
all these things in, and of, and for, yourself, then it were impossible
for you to appreciate the beauty, the grandeur, the sublimity of this
splendid structure.
The Fitzwilliam Museum is the most handsome modern building in
Cambridge, if not in Great Britain. It looks as if it should be placed
in a glass case and kept for the angels to inhabit.
In Trinity College Library, I saw the original manuscript of Milton’s
“Paradise Lost,” the manuscript of Lord Macaulay’s “History of
England,” also the first letter that Lord Byron ever penned; he wrote,
in his mother’s name, thanking a neighbor lady for some potatoes which
she had been kind enough to send Lady Byron. I saw the telescope used
by Newton in studying the heavenly bodies, and by the assistance of
which he discovered new planets.
I was much interested in going through the University printing
establishment, and in seeing the Cambridge Bibles manufactured. When
I got back to Nottingham, I felt that I could truly say: “I have
been through Cambridge University, and still I may write, ‘Plus
ultra’—there is more beyond, more to learn.”
I bade adieu to my Nottingham friends this morning while the
dewdrops and the rays of the sun were yet playing hide-and-seek and
seek-and-hide. Two hours later found me in Bedford. I go at once to
the church where John Bunyan was pastor two hundred years ago. The
church I find surrounded by a huge iron fence. After hunting for half
an hour, I succeed in finding the sexton who kindly shows me through.
The front door of the church cost six thousand dollars. It is molded of
heavy bronze. The door is divided into twelve large panels, each panel
representing a scene taken from _Pilgrim’s Progress_. The first panel
on the bottom of the lefthand side represents Christian with the burden
of sin on his back, parting with his wife and children, leaving the
city of Destruction and starting out for that city whose builder and
maker is God. In the other panels we see Christian as he passes through
the wicket gate; as he approaches the cross and loses his burden; as
he falls into the hands of Giant Despair and is thrust into Doubting
Castle; as he passes the lions in his way; as he sleeps and loses
his scroll; as he enters Vanity Fair; as he stands on the Delectable
Mountains from which he views the city of the blessed and hears the
music of the redeemed; and finally we see him as he crosses the River
of Death, and is welcomed by the angels as he reaches the golden shore.
In the back end of the church, is a small room containing some relics
of Bunyan. Among other things, is the chair which Bunyan occupied
while in Bedford jail, and in which he sat while writing _Pilgrim’s
Progress_. The iron-barred door of this little room is the same door
that locked Bunyan in his prison cell. My blood runs cold in my veins
as I look upon the iron bolts and bars behind which Bunyan stood and
preached the gospel to the listening multitudes as they gathered around
the jail.
Near by the church is the place where the old prison stood. The prison
was torn down in 1801, the old site now being used as a market-place
during the week, and as a place for street-preaching on Sunday.
At the head of High Street, near where the old jail stood, there is
a splendid bronze statue of the immortal dreamer. The statue is more
than life size. It stands upon a tall granite pedestal, on which is the
following inscription;
“He had his eyes lifted to heaven;
The best of books in his hand,
The law of truth was written upon his lips;
He stood as if he pleaded with men.”
One hour’s walk from Bedford brings me to Elstow. This is the
birthplace of the man who wrote the greatest book this world ever saw,
excepting only the Bible. The old dormer-windowed cottage where Bunyan
first saw light still survives the wrecks of time. On the village
green, near by the cottage, is an old church where in early life he was
sexton. Close by this church stands Bunyan’s chapel, where he first
began to publish the glad tidings of salvation.
[Illustration: BUNYAN’S COTTAGE.]
At the forks of the road, about two hundred yards from the cottage, is
a lordly elm-tree, beneath whose sheltering branches Bunyan used to
stand and preach the gospel to listening thousands. I climb this tree,
and cut several branches of which to make pen-stocks.
Well, reader, I am tempted to go on and give you the thoughts that are
passing through my mind; but I must not. Like Bunyan’s _Pilgrim_, I am
tired. I feel weak and faint. I must have quiet and rest, so let us
close this chapter.