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MEMOIR OF JOHN BUNYAN
THE FIRST PERIOD.
THIS GREAT MAN DESCENDED FROM IGNOBLE PARENTS—BORN IN POVERTY—HIS EDUCATION AND EVIL HABITS—FOLLOWS HIS FATHER’S BUSINESS AS A BRAZIER—ENLISTS FOR A SOLDIER—RETURNS FROM THE WARS AND OBTAINS AN AMIABLE, RELIGIOUS WIFE—HER DOWER.
‘We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.’—2 Cor 4:7
‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.’—Isaiah 55:8.
‘Though ye have lien among the pots, yet shall ye be as the wings of a dove covered with silver, and her feathers with yellow gold.’—Psalm 68:13.
When the Philistine giant, Goliath, mocked the host of Israel, and challenged any of their stern warriors to single combat, what human being could have imagined that the gigantic heathen would be successfully met in the mortal struggle by a youth ’ruddy and of a fair countenance?’ who unarmed, except with a sling and a stone, gave the carcases of the hosts of the Philistines to the fouls of the air, and to the wild beasts of the earth.’
Who, upon seeing an infant born in a stable, and laid in a manger, or beholding him when a youth working with his father as a carpenter, could have conceived that he was the manifestation of the Deity in human form, before whom every knee should bow, and every tongue confess Him to be THE ETERNAL?