The great civil war broke out, and Bunyan was a soldier; he tells us not on which side. Dr. Brown and Mr. Lewis Morris think he was on that of the Parliament, but his old father, the tinker, stood for the King. Mr. Froude is rather more inclined to hold that he was among the “gay gallants who struck for the crown.” He does not seem to have been much under fire, but he got that knowledge of the appearance of war which he used in his siege of the City of Mansoul. One can hardly think that Bunyan liked war—certainly not from cowardice, but from goodness of heart.
In 1646 the army was disbanded, and Bunyan went back to Elstow village and his tinkering, his bell-ringing, his dancing with the girls, his playing at “cat” on a Sunday after service.
He married very young and poor. He married a pious wife, and read all her library—“The Plain Man’s Pathway to Heaven,” and “The Practice of Piety.” He became very devout in the spirit of the Church of England, and he gave up his amusements. Then he fell into the Slough of Despond, then he went through the Valley of the Shadow, and battled with Apollyon.
People have wondered why he fancied himself such a sinner? He confesses to having been a liar and a blasphemer. If I may guess, I fancy that this was merely the literary genius of Bunyan seeking for expression. His lies, I would go bail, were tremendous romances, wild fictions told for fun, never lies of cowardice or for gain. As to his blasphemies, he had an extraordinary power of language, and that was how he gave it play. “Fancy swearing” was his only literary safety-valve, in those early days, when he played cat on Elstow Green.
Then he heard a voice dart from heaven into his soul, which said, “Wilt thou leave thy sins and go to heaven, or have thy sins and go to hell?” So he fell on repentance, and passed those awful years of mental torture, when all nature seemed to tempt him to the Unknown Sin.
What did all this mean? It meant that Bunyan was within an ace of madness.
It happens to a certain proportion of men, religiously brought up, to suffer like Bunyan. They hear voices, they are afraid of that awful unknown iniquity, and of eternal death, as Bunyan and Cowper were afraid.
Was it not De Quincey who was at school with a bully who believed he had been guilty of the unpardonable offence? Bullying is an offence much less pardonable than most men are guilty of. Their best plan (in Bunyan’s misery) is to tell Apollyon that the Devil is an ass, to do their work and speak the truth.
Bunyan got quit of his terror at last, briefly by believing in the goodness of God. He did not say, like Mr. Carlyle, “Well, if all my fears are true, what then?” His was a Christian, not a stoical deliverance.
The “church” in which Bunyan found shelter had for minister a converted major in a Royalist regiment. It was a quaint little community, the members living like the early disciples, correcting each other’s faults, and keeping a severe eye on each other’s lives. Bunyan became a minister in it; but, Puritan as he was, he lets his Pilgrims dance on joyful occasions, and even Mr. Ready-to-Halt waltzes with a young lady of the Pilgrim company.