Works of John Bunyan —BUNYAN IS BAPTIZED, AND ENTERS INTO COMMUNION WITH A CHRISTIAN CHURCH AT BEDFORD- 5th Period

 

BUNYAN SUFFERS PERSECUTION, AND A LONG AND DANGEROUS IMPRISONMENT, FOR REFUSING TO ATTEND THE COMMON PRAYER SERVICE, AND FOR PREACHING.

Bunyan's popularity and fame for wisdom and knowledge had spread all around the country, and it naturally brought him, visitors, with their doubts, fears, and cases of conscience. Among these, a singular instance is recorded in the Life of Badman. 'When I was in prison,' says the narrator, 'there came a woman to me that was under a great deal of trouble. So I asked her, she is a stranger to me, what she had to say to me? She said she was afraid she should be damned. I asked her the cause of those fears. She told me that she had, some time since, lived with a shopkeeper at Welling Borough, and had robbed his box in the shop several times of money, and pray, says she, tell me what I shall do?

I told her I would have her go to her master and make him satisfied. She said she was afraid lest he should hang her. I told her that I would intercede for her life, and would make use of other friends to do the like, but she told me she durst not venture that. Well, said I, shall I send to your master, while you abide out of sight, and make your peace with him before he sees you? and with that, I asked her master's name. But all she said in answer to this was, pray let it alone till I come to you again. So away she went, and neither told me her master's name nor her own, and I never saw her again.' He adds, 'I could tell you of another, that came to me with a like relation concerning herself, and the robbing of her mistress.'

To his cruel imprisonment, the world is indebted to the most surprising narrative of new birth that has ever appeared. It was there that he was led to write the Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners. He displays in the preface his deep interest in the spiritual welfare of those who had been born under his ministry. He rejoices in their happiness, even while he was 'sticking between the teeth of the lions in the wilderness. I now again, as before from the top of shenir and Hermon, so now from the lions' dens, from "the mountains of the leopards," do look yet after you all, greatly longing to see your safe arrival into the desired haven.' How natural it was that, while narrating his own experience, he should be led to write a guide to pilgrims through time to eternity, and that it should be dated from 'the den!'

   'And thus it was: I writing of the way

    And race of saints, in this our gospel-day,

    Fell suddenly into an allegory

    About their journey, and the way to glory.'

Anyone possessing powers of imagination, to whom the adventures of Christian are familiar, would, on reading the Grace Abounding, be continually struck with the likeness there drawn of the pilgrim—the more he contemplates the two pictures of Christian experience, so much the more striking is their similarity. One is a narrative of facts, and the other contains the same facts allegorized. Thus, by an irresistible impulse from heaven upon the mind of a prisoner for Christ, did a light shine forth from the dungeon on Bedford bridge which has largely contributed to enlightening the habitable globe.

The Pilgrim has been translated into most of the languages and dialects of the world. The Caffrarian and Hottentot, the enlightened Greek and Hindoo, the remnant of the Hebrew race, the savage Malay, and the voluptuous Chinese—all have a wondrous narrative in their own languages. Bunyan was imprisoned by bigots and tyrants, to prevent his being heard or known; and his voice, in consequence, reaches the ends of the earth. Let every wretched persecutor contemplate this instance of God's over-ruling power.

You will surely plunge the avenging sword into your own vitals if, by persecution, you vainly endeavor to wound the saints of the living God. You may make hypocrites throw off their disguise. The real Christian may be discouraged, but he perseveres. He feels the truth of Bunyan's quaint saying, 'the persecutors are but the devil's scarecrows, the old one himself lies quat'; while the eye of God is upon him to save the children of Zion. His otherwise dreary imprisonment was lightened, and the time beguiled by these delightful writings. His fellow-prisoners were benefited by hearing him read his pilgrim's adventures. But this has been so fully displayed in the introduction to the Pilgrim that any further notice is unnecessary.