The stories of his early years remind one of the experiences of Rousseau. Between the man of supreme literary genius and the epileptic there is a very narrow line, and more than once Bunyan seemed about to overstep this danger line. At seventeen the youth joined the Parliamentary army and saw some service. The sudden death of the soldier next to him in the ranks made a profound impression upon his sensitive mind; he seemed to see in it the hand of the Lord which had been stretched out to protect him.
On his return from the wars he married a country girl, who brought him as a marriage portion a large number of pious books. These Bunyan devoured, and they served as fuel to his growing sense of the terrible results of sin. Of his spiritual wrestlings in those days he has given a very good account in Grace Abounding, a highly colored autobiography in which he is represented as the chief of sinners, driven to repentance by the power of God. The fact is that he was a very fine young Puritan and his only offense lay in his propensity to profane swearing.
Out of this mental and moral turmoil Bunyan emerged as a wayside preacher who finally came to address small country congregations. Soon he became known far and wide as a man who could move audiences to tears, so strong was the feeling that he put into his words, so convincing was the picture that he drew of his own evil life and the peace that came when he accepted the mercy of the Lord. He went up and down the countryside and he preached in London.
Finally, in 1660, he was arrested under the new law which forbade dissenters to preach and was thrown into Bedford jail. He had then a wife and three children, the youngest a blind girl whom he loved more than the others. To provide for them he learned to make lace. The authorities were anxious to free Bunyan because his life had been without reproach and he had made many friends, but he refused to take the oath that he would not preach. For twelve years he remained in Bedford jail, and it is in these years that he conceived the plot of Pilgrim's Progress and wrote most of the book, although it was three years after his release before the volume was finally in form for publication.
Bunyan in a rhymed introduction to the book apologizes for the story form, which he feared would injure the work in the eyes of his Puritan neighbors, but the allegory proved a great success from the outset. No less than ten editions were issued in fourteen years. It made Bunyan one of the best known men of his time and it added greatly to his influence as a preacher. He wrote a number of other works, including a fine allegory, The Holy War, but none of these approached the Pilgrim's Progress in popularity.
When one takes up the Pilgrim's Progress in these days it is always with something of the same feeling that the book inspired in childhood. Then it ranked with the Arabian Nights as a thrilling story, though there were many tedious passages in which Christian debated religious topics with his companions. Still, despite these drawbacks, the book was a great story, full of the keenest human interest, with Christian struggling through dangers on every hand; with Giant Despair and Apollyon as real as the terrible genii of Arabian story, and with Great-heart a champion who more than matched the mysterious Black Knight in Ivanhoe.
Facsimile of the
Title Page of the First Edition of
"The Pilgrim's Progress"