ELSTOW CHURCH.
ELSTOW, BEDFORD.
Elstow, a village about one mile south of Bedford, was Bunyan's birthplace. The house is still pointed out, though a new front has been put into it, and it is a very small building, suitable to the tinker's humble estate. The village-green where he played is near by, alongside the churchyard wall; the church, which has been little changed, stands on the farther side of the yard, with a massive tower at the north-western angle, looking more like a fortress than a religious edifice. The bells are still there which Bunyan used to ring, and they also point out "Bunyan's Pew" inside, though the regularity of his attendance is not vouched for, as he says "absenting himself from church" was one of his offences during the greater part of his life. He married early and in poor circumstances, the young couple "not having so much household stuff as a dish or spoon betwixt them both," though he considered it among his mercies that he was led "to light upon a wife of godly parentage." He says that a marked change in his mental condition suddenly began while playing a game of "tip-cat" on Sunday afternoon on the village-green, having listened in the morning to a sermon upon Sabbath-breaking. His conscience smote him; he abandoned the game, leaving his cat upon the ground, and then began his great spiritual struggle. He joined the Baptists, and began preaching, for at length, after many tribulations, he says, "the burden fell from off his back." He was persecuted, and committed to Bedford jail, where he remained (with short intervals of parole) for about twelve years. Here he wrote what Macaulay declares to be incomparably the finest allegory in the English language—the Pilgrim's Progress. He was a voluminous author, having written some sixty tracts and books. Finally pardoned in 1672, he became pastor of the Bedford meeting-house, and afterwards escaped molestation; he preached in all parts of the kingdom, especially in London, where he died at the age of sixty, having caught cold in a heavy storm while going upon an errand of mercy in 1688. His great work will live as long as the Anglo-Saxon race endures. "That wonderful book," writes Macaulay, "while it obtains admiration from the most fastidious critics, is loved by those who are too simple to admire it.... Every reader knows the strait and narrow path as well as he knows a road in which he has gone backward and forward a hundred times. This is the highest miracle of genius, that things which are not should be as though they were—that the imaginations of one mind should become the personal recollections of another; and this miracle the tinker has wrought."
NORTH DOOR, ELSTOW CHURCH.
WOBURN ABBEY.
The county of Bedford gives the title to the dukedom held by the head of the great family of Russell, and Francis Charles Hastings Russell, the ninth Duke of Bedford, has his residence at the magnificent estate of Woburn Abbey. It is about forty miles from London, and on the Buckinghamshire border. Here the Cistercians founded an abbey in the twelfth century, which continued until the dissolution of the religious houses by Henry VIII., and the last abbot, Robert Hobs, was executed for denying the king's religious supremacy, the tree on which he was hanged being still carefully preserved in Woburn Park. The abbey and its domain were granted by the youthful king Edward VI. to John Russell, first Earl of Bedford, under circumstances which show how fortune sometimes smiles upon mortals. Russell, who had been abroad and was an accomplished linguist, had in 1506 returned, and was living with his father in Dorsetshire at Berwick, near the sea-coast. Soon afterwards in a tempest three foreign vessels sought refuge in the neighboring port of Weymouth. On one of them was the Austrian archduke Philip, son-in-law of Ferdinand and Isabella, who was on his way to Spain. The governor took the archduke to his castle, and invited young Mr. Russell to act as interpreter. The archduke was so delighted with him that he subsequently invited Russell to accompany him on a visit to King Henry VII. at Windsor. The king was also impressed with Russell, and appointed him to an office in the court, and three years afterwards, Henry VIII. becoming king, Russell was entrusted with many important duties, and was raised to the peerage as Baron Russell. He enjoyed the king's favor throughout his long reign, and was made one of the councillors of his son, Edward VI., besides holding other high offices, and when the youthful prince ascended the throne he made Russell an earl and gave him the magnificent domain of Woburn Abbey. He also enjoyed the favor of Queen Mary, and escorted her husband Philip from Spain, this being his last public act. Dying in 1555, he was buried in the little parish church of Chenies, near Woburn, where all the Russells rest from his time until now. He thus founded one of the greatest houses of England, which has furnished political leaders from that day to this, for the Dukes of Bedford and Devonshire are the heads of the Whig party, and Lord John Russell (afterwards an earl) was the uncle of the present duke.