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14 INTRODUCTORY NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR

Tn the circumstances we have thus briefly narrated—especially in his imprisonment—some
writers see the discipline and training which were necessary to fit him for writing ‘The Pilgrim’s
Progress.” But though we cannot question that whatsoever God did for him and whatsoever men
were permitted to do, had some effect in fitting him for whatever work he was destined to perform,
it seems to us that such a discovery is but one of numerous instances in which men are wise after
the event, and that Bunyan’s great work is not to be accounted for except by a profounder phi-
losophy than such writers bring to the task. Few beforehand would have ventured to predict, from
anything in the antecedents of the man Bunyan, that he would be able to produce such a book; or
that anything in his circumstances and upbringing and parentage would produce sucha man. He
is a great creation, no more to be accounted for in such a manner than is the creation of a world.
Antecedents conduce to, but do not account for, it. He is a phenomenon only to be understood on
the principle that God, by a process which we cannot trace, and sometimes by means which appear
to us unsuitable, raises up great men for the performance of great works. Not only does He make
the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and the weak to confound the mighty, but
gives us to find both wisdom and strength where such qualities are least likely to exist.

It is a fact significant of the nature of the times, that Christian England, which ought to have
been proud to rank him among her favored sons, had no better treatment for this man than the most
relentless persecution, no better home for twelve years than a damp cell in the gaol which stood on
the bridge over the Ouse at Bedford. His crime, as we have intimated, was that of absenting him-
self from the Established Church, and holding meetings where he preached the gospel, and conducted
worship in a manner which appeared to him more in accordance than the established service with
New Testament principles—one of the worst crimes, in the estimation of the authorities, of wuich a
man could be guilty. On the warrant of a Justice he was apprehended at a meeting in Sansell, and,
no bail being found, was thrown into prison to await his trial, which took place seven weeks after-
wards. His indictment set forth that “John Bunyan, of the town of Bedferd, laborer, hath devil-
ishly and perniciously abstained from coming to church to hear Divine service, and is a common
upholder of several unlawful meetings and conventicles, to the great disturbance and distraction of
the good subjects of this kingdom, contrary to the laws of our sovereign lord the king.” On this
indictment, without any examination of witnesses, he was found guilty. Justice Keeling, in a
savage tone strangely unbecoming in a judge passing sentence, said, “Hear your judgment: you
must be had back to prison, and there lie for three months following. And at three months’ end, if
you do not submit to go to church to hear Divine service, and leave your preaching, you must be
banished the realm; or be found to come back again without special license from the king, you must
stretch by the neck for it, I tell you plainly. Jailor, take him away.”

Bunyan’s reply was as worthy of his Christian chara: ter as the judge’s manner was unworthy of
his exalted office. All that he had to say in answer to such brutal browbeating was, ‘‘ If I was out
of prison to-day, I would preach again to-morrow, by the help of God!” Such a man was evidently
not to be frightened either by frowns or by threats; so they had him back to prison, of which he had
already tasted the sweets. But not all the horrors of prison—not the pain of separation from his
wife and four children, cculd move his dauntless soul. He felt that separation most keenly-—no -
man could have felt it more. Especially was he solicitous about his blind daughter, to whom he was
all the more tenderly attached because of her helplessness. “ Poor child, thought I; what sorrow
art thou like to have for thy portion in this world! Thou must be beaten, must beg, suffer hunger,
cold, nakedness, and a thousand calamities, though I cannot now endure the wind should blow upon
thee! Oh, the hardships I thought my blind one might go under would break my heart in pieces.”
Still he did not falter, for he could commit her as well as himself to God; and God’s peace was with