NOTTINGHAM, CAMBRIDGE, AND BEDFORD.
Preaching to 2,500 People—Entertained after the Manner of Royalty—Excursion to Cambridge—What Happened on the Way—Received an Entertainment by the Mayor—Cambridge University—King’s Chapel—Fitzwilliam Museum—Trinity College—Cambridge Bibles—Adieu to Friends—Bedford—The Church where John Bunyan Preached—Bedford Jail, where Bunyan wrote Pilgrim’s Progress—Bunyan’s Statue—Elstow, Bunyan’s Birthplace—His Cottage—His Chapel—An Old Elm Tree.
I AM now in Bedford; but before writing about this historic place, I must go back a little and tell you something about my wayward wanderings for the last ten days. While in Nottingham, some weeks ago, I preached one Sunday night in the Albert Hall to twenty-five hundred or three thousand people. The good Lord graciously blessed the meeting. Several persons were converted—they found that peace which passeth all understanding. The people insisted that I remain and preach again, but I could not do so.
After visiting Wales, and spending a week or two in London, the minister accepted an invitation to go back to Nottingham and preach. He remained over two Sundays, preaching both days to the Albert Hall people. The happiest moments of a minister’s life are when he is preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ to a large and sympathetic audience, It is then that his delight reaches the highest point on the thermometer of the soul.
During my stay in Nottingham, I was the guest of a model Christian family who treated me after the manner of royalty. Nottingham is a railroad centre, and each day I was taken in a carriage or by rail to see a beautiful river, placid lake, or a towering mountain; or to see some noted forest ancient hall, or historic castle. The members of the family who accompanied me on these delightful excursions were familiar with the legends, literature, and history of the country.
Yesterday I went on an excursion with this family, and sixty other Nottingham people, to Cambridge. We were up in time to hear the lark’s morning song. The sky was clear; scarcely a cloud floated above us. And ere yet the bright sun had kissed the dewdrop from off the grass, we had turned our faces toward those classic halls where learning lives. We dashed through many meadows where the wild flowers were beautifully interwoven with the green grass. We leaped many laughing rivers, winding streams, and babbling brooks. We wound around among many hills, and tunneled many mountains. These tunnels were numerous, long and dark. Now, in our party there happened to be a newly-married couple in the same compartment with myself, and these tunnels were to them always a source of joy and rejoicing. They loved darkness rather than light—why, it is not necessary for me to state. Johnson says it was always thus.
At the depot, we were met by the aldermen and deputy mayor of the city of Cambridge, who, in a most graceful manner, informed us that we were their guests, that they had plenty of carriages present to accommodate the party, and would first show us the sights of the city, and then return to the hotel where a public dinner would be served. We proceeded at once to the University which comprises seventeen different colleges, all having different names, having been founded at different times by different persons. Each college owns its own grounds, buildings, and endowment fund, and has its separate faculty. Some of the buildings are six or seven hundred years old. They are, however, quite well preserved, and are splendid specimens of the style of architecture of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. King’s Chapel, the Chapel of King’s College, was built in the twelfth century, and it is nothing less than an architectural wonder. It is said to be one of the most remarkable structures in christendom. The Chapel is quite narrow, but is well-nigh four hundred feet long, and one hundred and twenty-five feet high. Reader, I shall not attempt to describe this building, for, unless the massive structure could rise before you in its colossal proportions; unless you could go on the inside, and actually stand upon thrilling history as it is written in the Mosaic marble floor; unless you could lift your eyes from the historic floor, and see Bible stories standing out in life-like reality as they are pictured before you in the stained-glass windows; unless you could look up and behold for yourself the exquisite carving on the vaulted Gothic roof a hundred feet above you; unless that holy calm, which these scenes inspire and which forever inhabits these sacred walls, could settle down upon your own spirit,—I say, that unless you could see, realize, and experience all these things in, and of, and for, yourself, then it were impossible for you to appreciate the beauty, the grandeur, the sublimity of this splendid structure.