Part 5 (1/2)

Bedford was dealt with in its turn Under Ja Dissenters were the first persons to be approached

Two are specially nae-Advocate-General of the Army under General Monk, and John Bunyan It is no matter of surprise that Bunyan, who had been so severe a sufferer under the old penal statutes, should desire their abrogation, and express his readiness to ”steer his friends and followers” to support candidates ould pledge theo

The Bedford Corporation was ”regulated,” which means that nearly the whole of its members were removed and others substituted by royal order

Of these newpersons of Bunyan's congregation But, with all his ardent desire for religious liberty, Bunyan was too keen-witted not to see through Jaive it any direct insidious support ”In vain is the net spread in the sight of any bird” He clearly saw that it was not for any love of the Dissenters that they were so suddenly delivered from their persecutions, and placed on a kind of equality with the Church The king's object was the establishment of Popery To this the Church was the chief obstacle That must be underious denoain by yielding, was the favour Polyphemus promised Ulysses, to be devoured last Zealous as he was for the ”liberty of prophesying,” even that h a price The boon offered by the king was ”good in itself,” but not ”so intended” So, as his biographer describes, when the regulators ca the bad consequences that would ensue, and laboured with his congregation” to prevent their being imposed on by the fair promises of those ere at heart the bitterest enemies of the cause they professed to advocate The newly-modelled corporation of Bedford seeh the country, to have proved as uneable as the old As Macaulay says, ”The sectaries who had declared in favour of the Indulgence had becoenerally ashamed of their error, and were desirous tothe ulators” are said to have endeavoured to buy Bunyan's support by the offer of sonantly rejected Bunyan even refused to see the governent who offered it,--”he would, by no means come to him, but sent his excuse” Behind the treacherous sunshi+ne he saw a black cloud, ready to break The Ninevites' reation together and appointed a day of fasting and prayer to avert the danger that, under a specious pretext, again ious liberties A true, sturdy Englishence which could only be purchased by the violent overthrow of the law”

Bunyan did not live to see the Revolution Four months after he had witnessed the delirious joy which hailed the acquittal of the seven bishops, the Pilgriress ended, and he was bidden to cross the dark river which has no bridge The suious activity, both as a preacher and as a writer His pen had never been more busy than when he was bidden to lay it down finally Early in 1688, after a two years' silence, attributable perhaps to the political troubles of the ti Souls,” one of the best known and most powerfully characteristic of his works, had issued from the press, and had been followed by four others between March and August, the month of his death

These books were, ”The Work of Jesus Christ as an Advocate;” a poetical co, Nature, and Excellency of the House of God,” a discourse on the constitution and government of the Christian Church; the ”Water of Life,” and ”Solomon's Temple Spiritualized” At the tih the press a sixth book, ”The Acceptable Sacrifice,” which was published after his funeral

In addition to these, Bunyan left behind him no fewer than fourteen works in manuscript, written at this ti pen Ten of these were given to the world soon after Bunyan's death, by one of Bunyan's most devoted followers, Charles Doe, the coe (who naively tells us how one day between the stairhead and the middle of the stairs, he resolved that the best work he could do for God was to get Bunyan's books printed and sell the, ”I have sold about 3,000”), and others, a few years later, including one of the raciest of his coht by Doe of Bunyan's eldest son, and, he says, ”put into the World in Print Word for Word as it came from him to Me”

At the tiained no small celebrity in London as a popular preacher, and approached the nearest to a position of worldly honour Though we must probably reject the idea that he ever filled the office of Chaplain to the Lord Mayor of London, Sir John Shorter, the fact that he is styled ”his Lordshi+p's teacher”

proves that there was some relation istrate and the Bedford enial to hireat, he would not shrink from intercourse, with those of a rank above his own, but his heart ith his own humble folk at Bedford Worldly advancement he rejected for his family as well as for himself A London merchant, it is said, offered to take his son Joseph into his house of business without the customary premium But the offer was declined e may consider an overstrained independence ”God,” he said, ”did not send ospel” ”An instance of other-worldliness,” writes Dr Brown, ”perhaps more consistent with the honour of the father than with the prosperity of the son”

Bunyan's end was in keeping with his life He had ever sought to be a peacemaker and to reconcile differences, and thus had ”hindered many mishaps and saved many families from ruin” His last effort of the kind caused his death The father of a young man in whom he took an interest, had resolved, on some offence, real or supposed, to disinherit his son

The young ht Bunyan's mediation Anxious to heal the breach, Bunyanjourney to the father's house at Reading--the scene, as we have noticed, of his occasional ministrations--where he pleaded the offender's cause so effectually as to obtain a proh London, where he was appointed to preach at Mr Ga-house near Whitechapel His fortyrain He eary and drenched to the skin when he reached the house of his ”very loving friend,” John Strudwick, grocer and chandler, at the sign of the Star, Holborn Bridge, at the foot of Snow Hill, and deacon of the Nonconfor in Red Cross Street A fewsickness The exposure caused a return of the e Tuesday dangerous symptoms declared themselves, and in ten days the disease proved fatal He died within two ust, 1688, just a month before the publication of the Declaration of the Prince of Orange opened a new era of civil and religious liberty, and between two and threein Torbay He was buried in Mr Strudwick's newly-purchased vault, in what Southey has terround in Finsbury, taking its name of Bunhill or Bonehill Field, from a vast mass of human remains removed to it from the charnel house of St Paul's Cathedral in 1549 At a later period it served as a place of interue of 1665 The day after Bunyan's funeral, his powerful friend, Sir John Shorter, the Lord Mayor, had a fatal fall from his horse in Smithfield, and ”followed him across the river”

By his first wife, whose Christian name is nowhere recorded, Bunyan had four children--two sons and two daughters; and by his second wife, the heroic Elizabeth, one son and one daughter All of these survived hihter Mary, his tenderly-loved blind child, who died before hi her faithful pilgrione before her” either in 1691 or 1692 Forgetful of the ”deed of gift,” or ignorant of its bearing, Bunyan'stook out letters of administration of her late husband's estate, which appears froister Book to have amounted to no more than, 42 pounds 19s On this, and the proceeds of his books, she supported herself till she rejoined him

Bunyan's character and person are thus described by Charles Doe: ”He appeared in countenance to be of a stern and rough teiven to loquacity or ent occasion required it Observing never to boast of himself or his parts, but rather to see just, in all that lay in his power, to his word Not see to reconcile differences and make friendshi+p with all He had a sharp, quick eye, with an excellent discerning of persons, being of good judg-boned, though not corpulent; so his hair on his upper lip after the old British fashi+on His hair reddish, but in his later days tirey His nose well set, but not declining or bending

His h, and his habit always plain and modest Not puffed up in prosperity, nor shaken in adversity, always holding the golden mean”

We may add the portrait drawn by one who had been his companion and fellow-sufferer for rave and sedate, and did so to the life discover the inward fra to the beholders and did strike so of the fear of God”

The sa: ”As a , diligent in his preparation for it, and faithful in dispensing the Word, not sparing reproof whether in the pulpit or no, yet ready to succour the tempted; a son of consolation to the broken-hearted, yet a son of thunder to secure and dead sinners Hiscusto after he had preached thereat saint was always in his own eyes the chiefest of sinners and the least of saints”

An anecdote is told which, Southey says, ”authenticates itself,” that one day when he had preached ”with peculiar warement,” one of his hearers remarked ”what a sweet sermon he had delivered” ”Ay,” was Bunyan's reply, ”you have no need to tell me that, for the devil whispered it to me before I ell out of the pulpit” As an evidence of the estihly-educated, it is recorded that Charles the Second 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,” Owen replied ”I would gladly give up all h much of Bunyan's literary activity was devoted to controversy, he had none of the narrowness or bitter spirit of a controversialist It is true that his zeal for what he dee with those whoarded as its perverters But this intensity of speech was coupled with the utmost charity of spirit towards those who differed froreater stress on the infinitely small points on which all true Christians differ than on the infinitely great truths on which they are agreed Bunyan inherited from his spiritual father, John Gifford, a truly catholic spirit External differences he regarded as insignificant where he found real Christian faith and love

”I would be,” he writes, ”as I hope I am, a Christian But for those factious titles of Anabaptist, Independent, Presbyterian, and the like, I conclude that they come neither from Jerusalem nor from Antioch, but from hell or froraphers, ”a true lover of all that love our Lord Jesus, and did often bewail the different and distinguishi+ng appellations that are a he did believe a time would come when they should be all buried”

The only persons he scrupled to hold communion ere those whose lives were openly immoral ”Divisions about non-essentials,” he said, ”were to churches ere to countries Those who talked ion cared least for it; and controversies about doubtful things and things of little s which were practical and indisputable” His last sermon breathed the same catholic spirit, free from the trammels of narrow sectarianisly If the world quarrel with you it is no ether If this be a Dost thou see a soul that has the ie of God in hio to heaven one day' Serve one another Do good for one another If any wrong you pray to God to right you, and love the brotherhood” The closing words of this his final testiold as the su: ”Be ye holy in all manner of conversation: Consider that the holy God is your Father, and let this oblige you to live like the children of God, that you may look your Father in the face with comfort another day” ”There is,” writes Dean Stanley, ”no co in his convictions; but his love and adood men love, and his detestation on the whole is reserved for that which all good h his writings, especially through ”The Pilgriress,” the tinker of Elstow ”has become the teacher not of any particular sect, but of the Universal Church”

CHAPTER IX

We have, in this concluding chapter, to take a review of Bunyan's merits as a writer, with especial reference to the works on which his faiven him his chief title to be included in a series of Great Writers, ”The Pilgriress”

Bunyan, as we have seen, was a very copious author His works, as collected by the late industrious Mr Offor, fill three bulky quarto volues in small type And this copiousness of production is coeneral excellence in the h standard of ”The Pilgriress” or ”Holy War,” none, it may be truly said, sink very far below that standard It may indeed be affirenius was a native genius As soon as he began to write at all, he wrote well

Without any training, is he says, in the school of Aristotle or Plato, or any study of the great h level of thought and composition His earliest book, ”Some Gospel Truths Opened,” ”thrown off,” writes Dr Brown, ”at a heat,” displays the same ease of style and directness of speech and absence of stilted phraseology which he reat chars is their naturalness You never feel that he is writing for effect, still less to perforenial piece of task-work He writes because he had soe to deliver on which the highest interests of others were at stake, which dehtforward earnestness and plainness of speech, such as coht best reach the hearts of others He wrote as he spoke, because a necessity was laid upon hie quoted in a forher style, and have employed more literary ornament But to atterade his calling

He dared not do it Like the great Apostle, ”his speech and preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and in power” God had not played with him, and he dared not play with others His errand was ent to waste ti out his words with human skill And it is just this which, with all their rudeness, their occasional bad gras a power of riveting the attention and stirring the affections which feriters have attained to The pent-up fire glows in every line, and kindles the hearts of his readers ”Beautiful iloith passion, tender pleadings, soles, make those who read hiour is attributable, in no sree, to the manner in which for theHe did not set hiical treatises upon stated subjects, but after he had preached with satisfaction to himself and acceptance with his audience, he usually wrote out the substance of his discourse froht seelow and fervour of the unwritten utterances of a practised orator, united with the orderliness and precision of a theologian, and are no less adeelical spirit and scriptural doctrine

Originallyread But few can read theination and impressed with the solemn earnestness of his convictions

Like the subject of the portrait described by him in the House of the Interpreter, he stands ”like one who pleads with men, the law of truth written upon his lips, the world behind his back, and a crown of gold above his head”

These characteristics, which distinguish Bunyan as a writer from most of his Puritan contemporaries, are most conspicuous in the works by which he is chiefly known, ”The Pilgri,” and we h from the repulsiveness of the subject the book is now scarcely read at all, the ”Life and Death of Mr Badreat charress,”

lies in the pure Saxon English in which they are written, which render thear, hoery but never obscure, always intelligible, always forcible, going straight to the point in the fewest and simplest words; ”powerful and picturesque,” writes Hallam, ”from concise simplicity” Bunyan's style is recommended by Lord Macaulay as an invaluable study to every person ishes to gain a wide coue Its vocabulary is the vocabulary of the corile expression, if we except a few technical tery, that would puzzle the rudest peasant” We es, and not find a word of more than two syllables Nor is the source of this pellucid clearness and iinative power far to seek

Bunyan was essentially a man of one book, and that book the very best, not only for its spiritual teaching but for the purity of its style, the English Bible ”In no book,” writes Mr J R Green, ”do we see inative force which had been given to the colishlish is the sireat English writer, but it is the English of the Bible His ielist So completely had the Bible become Bunyan's life that one feels its phrases as the natural expression of his thoughts He had lived in the Bible till its words became his own”

All who have undertaken to take an estienius call special attention to the richness of his iinative power Feriters indeed have possessed this power in so high a degree In nothing, perhaps, is its vividness more displayed than in the reality of its impersonations The _dra far above us in a ures ticketed with certain names, but solidin our own everyday world, and of like passions with ourselves Many of them we know familiarly; there is hardly one we should be surprised to s in the highest degree to ”The Pilgrih with sorave themselves on the popular ory have done The secret of this graphic pohich gives ”The Pilgriress” its universal popularity, is that Bunyan describes men and women of his own day, such as he had known and seen theh the featuresbrush, the outlines of his bold personifications are truthfully drawn from his own experience He had had to do with every one of theiven a personal name to most of them, and we could do the same to many We are not unacquainted with Mr Byends of the town of Fair Speech, who ”always has the luck to juet thereby,” who is zealous for Religion ”when he goes in his silver slippers,” and ”loves to ith him in the streets when the sun shi+nes and the people applaud his are only too faning's daughter, bothways, Mr Anything, and the Parson of the Parish, his ues