I judged all was a lie, and that there was no devil at all, nor, indeed, no God neither, save one, Nature."

Our philosopher, in short, had now found out that the Scriptures were contradictory, that the world was eternal, and arrived at the point of believing neither in revelation, redemption, nor resurrection. To this dreadful result was he conducted by the bewildered principles of his metaphysical theology, though he does not stop there any more than at any former stage of his deluded journey, but settles in becoming a follower of the prophet Reeves, and, as he has the audacity to call himself," the only true converted messenger of the Deity." Such were the effects on different men of the then prevailing audacity of fanaticism. The same course of study which all but fixed Bunyan in religious despair, hurried into profligacy and atheism the less favourably constituted mind of Claxton.

The religious terrors of Bunyan had been considerably checked by his constant course of scriptural study; but there can be no doubt that he owed much to a new occupation, which necessarily fixed his attention upon the minds of others, instead of permitting him to indulge in his own reveries. His habitual serious habits and undenied purity of life had not escaped the observation of the congregation of which he was a member, who passed a resolution, after the death of their pastor, Gifford, that some of the brethren (one at a time, as is not injudiciously provided), to whom the Lord may have given a gift, and among others, John Bunyan,

be called forth to speak a word or two for mutual edification. Full of scriptural thoughts and language, and having the Scriptures themselves at command, the author of the Pilgrim's Progress, was, nevertheless, totally void of that confidence which made so many in those days rush per saltum on the task of the preacher. He laboured painfully that he might speak persuasively. His attention to his new duties seems, in some degree, to have relieved his own dubious state of mind; yet he flinched not from the task of preaching the same severely Calvinistic doctrine under the strictness of which he himself still groaned internally. The following are his own remarkable expressions :

"This part of my work,' says he, I fulfilled with great sense; for the terrors of the law, and guilt for my transgressions, lay heavy upon my conscience. I preached what I felt-what I smartingly did feel-even that under which my poor soul did groan and tremble to astonishment. 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 own conscience that I persuaded them to be aware of. I can truly say, that when I have been to preach, I have gone full of guilt and terror even to the pulpit door, and there it hath been taken off, and I have been at liberty in my mind until I have done my work; and then immediately, even before I could get down the pulpit stairs, I have been as bad as I was before. Yet God carried me on, but surely with a strong hand; for neither guilt nor hell could take me off my work.'"-P. xlviii.

Besides his preaching, in which he seems now to have acted as a kind of volunteer auxiliary to one John Burton, he was also engaged in religious controversy, and that with the then frantic Quakers, who, thanks to time and toleration, have now settled down into the gentlest and mildest of

religionists. Bunyan accused the Quakers of denying some of the most essential doctrines of Christianity; and Edward Burroughs, his antagonist, objected to our author his taking reward for his services, and going shares with his principal, Burton, in £150, which he affirms was received as that pastor's yearly salary. To this charge Bunyan returned an explicit denial, alleging that he wrought with his hands for his daily living, and for that of his family, and solemnly affirming, that he distributed the knowledge which God had given him freely, and not for filthy lucre's sake.

The Quakers could only attack his principles and his character; but the persecuting spirit which had, by a not unnatural reaction, taken possession for a time of the government, imposed direct personal and penal consequences for nonconformity. Considerable efforts were made after the restoration for the suppression of these sectaries, who were held as the principal cause of the late civil war, and of the death of Charles I. John Bunyan was cited before the justices as a person in the habit of going about preaching, although the charge does not appear to have been mingled with any specific impeachment of his political or religious opinions. He refused to find security to abstain from his itinerant ministry, and he was, of course, sent to prison, resigned and contented with his captivity, so it might be the awakening of the saints in the country, or otherwise serve the cause of vital religion." The fruit of his submission to the will of God was probably a state of peace of

mind and contentment, such as in his lifetime he had not hitherto enjoyed.

This persecution was no sudden storm, which was to pour forth its violence, and then be hushed to rest. Bunyan dwelt no less than twelve years in Bedford jail rather than surrender the liberty of preaching, which he considered as his birth-right; and the manner in which he employed his leisure during this seclusion constitutes his great distinction as a benefactor to the Christian world; this he has expressed himself, in the first sentence of his memorable work :-" As I walked through the wilderness of this world, I lighted on a certain place where there was a den, where I laid me down to sleep; and as I slept I dreamed a dream." The allegorical den is on the margin explained to be the prison where the author sustained so many years' confinement.

It is true, Bunyan's captivity was neither rigorous nor continued. He was, indeed, deprived of the power of working at his usual occupation of a tinker. "He was as effectually taken away from his pots and kettles," says one of his former biographers, "as the Apostles were from mending their nets;" but he learned to make tagged thread laces, and thus supported his family by the labour of his hands. The jailer of Bedford was a "gentle provost," and at length he indulged his respected prisoner with all, and more than all, the liberty which he could grant with safety to himself. John Bunyan was suffered to go abroad at pleasure, visited the various assemblies of his sect, and was

actually chosen pastor of the Anabaptist congregation in the town. He accepted the office, and being thus only a prisoner on parole, he appears to have been able to exercise its duties freely and usefully—for as it is well expressed by Mr Southey "the fever of his enthusiasm had spent itself; the asperity of his opinions had softened as his mind enlarged."

About sixteen years before his death, in 1672, he was at length released entirely from a confinement which, for at least five years, had been in a great degree nominal. After this his life passed smoothly. His reputation as a preacher stood very high, even in the metropolis, where the chapels were crowded to overflowing when his appearance was expected. A chapel was built for him near Bedford, and he often frequented another at a place called Bentick, where the pulpit which he used is still preserved with pious care. We cannot see in the sermons which Bunyan has left any strong marks of the genius which he really possessed, but the fashion of them is strange to the present day. His elocution must have been warm and fervent; and he himself even distrusted the degree of applause which he excited.

"One day when he had preached with peculiar warmth and enlargement,' some of his friends came to shake hands with him after the service, and observed to him what a sweet sermon' he had delivered. 'Ay!' he replied, you need not remind me of that; for the Devil told me of it before I was out of the pulpit.' This anecdote authenticates itself."

He died at no very late period of life, from the consequences of a labour of friendship. He had