To him, the Devil was a very real person, who came as a tempter and would not be denied, long after Bunyan had completely reformed his ways and was living a life of strict honesty, purity and self-denial. No sooner had his manner of living become perfect, as we should consider it, than mental and spiritual temptations fell upon him. He believed that he had denied and sold his Savior; that he had committed the one sin for which no atonement was possible, and that he stood on the brink of a very real hell in whose sulphurous flames his body would burn forever. We cannot help pitying the poor country workman whose tender conscience and loyal soul tortured him with pains, worse a thousand times than those of physical death. No doubt his mind wavered in the balance, for such agonies lead to insanity, if they are not the evidence of it.
At last, however, his self-tormenting ceased, and his weary soul found rest in a comforting belief in Christ's forgiveness. As a result of his worry his health had given way, and he felt that his end was at hand. But after peace came to him and he joined the Baptist Church his strength came back, and for several years he kept at his business, making good progress and finding himself at twenty-five years of age in a better position in life than that to which he had been born.
There came to him a further call, and ignorant as he was of history, literature and philosophy, he entered the ministry of his church. He knew his Bible thoroughly, he had experienced all the terrors of the lost and all the joys of the redeemed, and he possessed that living enthusiasm that carries conviction to others. So, when he spoke to the people among whom he had passed his life, he caught the imagination of every one and bore them all along on the flood of his eloquence. No such preacher was there in England; and everywhere, in woods, in barns, on the village greens and in the chapels of the towns he preached his religion.
In the height of his fame, the Commonwealth ended, the Puritans lost their control of political affairs, and Charles II was restored to the throne of England. Soon the separate meetings of the Nonconformists were prohibited, and Bunyan was warned that he must cease his preaching. No one could be more firm, however, in following the dictates of his conscience than this reformed tinker*, and so, although he knew arrest and imprisonment faced him, he arranged to meet his people and deliver to them a farewell address in November, 1660. At that meeting the constables found him and took him away without any resistance on his part. The government was anxious to deal liberally with Bunyan, for his fine character and good influence were both recognized, but the sturdy exhorter declined to stop his preaching and would not give the least assurance that he would not continue to spread his faith. As a consequence he was committed to the Bedford jail, where he was not kept, however, in close confinement for any great part of the time. His family were allowed to visit him, and his friends often came in numbers to listen to his addresses.
There was no time when he would not have been liberated if he had merely promised to give up his preaching. At the end of six years he was liberated, but as he began preaching at once, he was rearrested and kept for six years longer, when a general change of governmental policy sent him out into the world at forty-four years of age, free to preach when and where he wished.
Bunyan's imprisonment was of great value to him, in one respect at least, for it gave him time to read, reflect and write. That he availed himself of the privilege, his great works testify. After his release he continued his labors among his congregation, in writing, and in visiting other churches. His little blind child, who visited him so often in the jail, died; but the rest of his family lived and did well, and Bunyan must be considered a very happy man during the sixteen years he stayed in his neat little home in Bedford.
In August, 1688, he received word that a bad quarrel had taken place between a father and son, acquaintances of Bunyan, who lived at Reading. The old peacemaker went at once to the family and after much persuasion succeeded in reconciling the two and persuading the father not to disinherit the son. But this was the last charitable act of the great preacher, for in returning he was drenched to the skin in a heavy shower of wind and rain, and after a brief illness died at the home of one of his friends in London.
THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS
INTRODUCTION
The Pilgrim's Progress was written while Bunyan was in the Bedford jail, and as the writer says, was written for his own amusement. Christian is Bunyan himself, and the trials and experiences of the former are but the reflections of the temptations and sufferings of the great preacher set forth in wonderfully dramatic and striking form.