INTRODUCTORY NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR.

 

ry) HE PILGRIM’S PROGRESS” is, without question, of all uninspired volumes,
5) the most extraordinary book in the English language. Regard being had to the
\ condition of its author, and the circumstances connected with its production, to
its widespread popularity, and its suitableness for readers of every class, there is
none to compare with it.

We shall probably find few readers who are not already acquainted with the
leading facts of Bunyan’s life; and to whom a record of them would not appear
® ike the rehearsal of an old story. It may suffice, therefore, if we present, in few

words, such a summary as will refresh the memory, dwelling only on those which are

fitted to shed a little light on his immortal production.
Born at Elstow in Bedfordshire in 1628, of parents who belonged to the humbler
walks of life, he received little early education worthy of the name; but grew up in the
ignorance which was then, and in England is still, common to his class, At an early age
he learned the trade of tinker, and by that occupation earned his livelihood for a few
years. Up to the time of his first marriage he lived, if not a desperately profligate, yet
a thoroughly godless and openly wicked life. And though the character and conversation of his
wife exerted a restraining influence, and awoke in him some desire for reformation, no real, and
but little apparent, change took place until some time afterwards, when he became the subject of
converting grace. The deep experiences through which he had passed in connection with this
change, combined with his natural gifts, qualified him for profitably addressing others; and he
very soon began, in an irregular way at first, to exercise the ministry, which ultimately became
his sole occupation, and in which he obtained to a proficiency unsurpassed by any preacher
of his time. His preaching, and consequent absence from the parish church, attracted the
notice of the ecclesiastical authorities of the neighborhood, at whose instigation he was thrown
into prison for twelve years, where he tagged laces to support his wife and blind child, and
conceived and wrote the wonderful allegory by which he has ranked himself forever among the
peers of the intellectual world, and secured for himself an ever-widening and undying fame. After
his release he preached with great acceptance and usefulness, statedly at Bedford, occasionally in
London and elsewhere; and composed and published various other works of great practical useful-
ness, some of which would no doubt have attained to a wide popularity had they not been eclipsed
by his greatest production. He diligently prosecuted his labors until he was sixty years of age,
when a severe cold caught in the discharge of a ministerial duty—a journey which he took for the

purpose of reconciling a father and son who had quarrelled—abruptly terminated his life.
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