Journeys Through Bookland Volume Iv Part 41

The father of John Bunyan was a poor tinker, a mender of pots and kettles, working sometimes in his own house and sometimes in the homes of others. His son followed the same occupation and did his work well.

Even after he became a popular preacher and a great author he kept on with his humble calling. It was a queer occupation for a man of genius, and scarcely any one would expect the man who followed it to write a book that would be more widely read than anything except the Bible.

Evidently Bunyan was no common tinker.

John Bunyan was born at Elstow, a village near Bedford, in 1628, a year famous in English history as that in which the king, Charles I, was forced to grant the Pet.i.tion of Right presented by the House of Commons. But the commotion in politics produced little effect on father and child, and the latter grew up as most English boys of his time did grow, except that he had the advantage of attending a grammar school in Bedford, a greater advantage than it seems unless we remember that there were then no common schools in England.

The young tinker was a violent and pa.s.sionate boy, profane, and a leader in all the mischief of his kind. In his own account of his early life written long years afterward he accuses himself of all manner of sins. Yet from what he says in other places we know that he was far from being the worst of boys, and that many things that gave him the greatest concern were curiously exaggerated by his uneasy conscience.

He must have been a strange little fellow, for while he was swearing, lying and leading raids upon his neighbors' fruit orchards he was often terrified by the awfulness of his sin and "trembling at the thoughts of the fearful torments of h.e.l.l-fire."

To appreciate his feelings fully, we must remember the age in which he lived as the time when everything in the Bible was taken as wholly literal, when people believed that sin was followed by awful punishments in a fiery h.e.l.l, and when miraculous events were considered common.

The young John must have known such occurrences as the following, related by Froude in his Life of Bunyan:

"A man commonly called 'Old Tod' came one day into court, in the Summer a.s.sizes at Bedford, to demand justice upon himself as a felon. No one had accused him, but G.o.d's judgment was not to be escaped, and he was forced to accuse himself. 'My lord,' said Old Tod to the judge, 'I have been a thief from my childhood. I have been a thief ever since. There has not been a robbery committed these many years, within so many miles of this town, but I have been privy to it.' The judge, after a conference, agreed to indict him for certain felonies which he had acknowledged. He pleaded guilty, implicating his wife along with him, and they were both hanged."

Filled with terror by the fearful things he heard and saw, it is no wonder that so sensitive a child was haunted by such nightmares as are described by one of his biographers.

[Ill.u.s.tration: JOHN BUNYAN 1628-1688]

Once he dreamed that he was in a pleasant place, jovial and rioting, when an earthquake rent the earth, out of which came b.l.o.o.d.y flames, and the figures of men tossed up in globes of fire, and falling down again with horrible cries and shrieks and execrations, while devils mingled among them, and laughed aloud at their torments. As he stood trembling, the earth sank under him, and a circle of flames embraced him.. But when he fancied he was at the point to perish, one in shining white raiment descended and plucked him out of that dreadful place, while the devils cried after him to take him to the punishment which his sins deserved. Yet he escaped the danger, and leapt for joy when he awoke and found it was a dream.

At seventeen, Bunyan was a tall, active lad still wild and reckless, an inventor of tales, who swore to their truth, a great leader in athletic sports, but free from drunkenness and other coa.r.s.e vices. The Civil War was nearing its end, and martial deeds drew Bunyan to enlist, but his term of service was short and it is not known on which side he served.

Soon after this he married an excellent girl, an orphan, who had been brought up religiously and who made an excellent wife for the successful tinker. He was now a regular attendant upon the Established Church, though, as he says, still retaining his wicked life.

The story of Bunyan's conversion is one that is difficult for us to understand. To him it was a series of terrifying experiences, a succession of agonizing struggles, which grew only the more terrible after he was convinced of his own sinful ways. He tells the story of his fearful spiritual contest in the plainest, most matter-of-fact way, but scarcely mentions his home life, his daily work, or the growth of his family.

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 h.e.l.l 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 pa.s.sed 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 st.u.r.dy exhorter declined to stop his preaching and would not give the least a.s.surance 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 amus.e.m.e.nt.

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.

At some time nearly every person reads _The Pilgrim's Progress_, and to those who do, Christian becomes a very real person. It is a Puritan book, pure and simple, and as such, contains some things that people of other denominations may object to, but there is so much of truth, simplicity and real human nature in it, so much that touches the spiritual experiences of all human beings, that most people, regardless of creed, are helped by it.

_The Pilgrim's Progress_ is a very plain allegory. It describes persons and things as real and material, but always gives to everything a spiritual significance. There is no room for doubt at any time, for the names are all so aptly chosen that the meaning may be seen by any reader. Yet the allegory is so significantly true that while a child may read and enjoy it as a story and be helped by its patent truthfulness and poetry, the maturer mind may find latent truths that compensate for a more careful reading.

"As I walked through the wilderness of this world," the book begins, "I lighted on a certain place where there was a den [Footnote: The Bedford jail.] and I laid me down there to sleep, and as I slept, I dreamed a dream. I dreamed, and behold, I saw a man, a man clothed in rags, standing with his face from his own home, with a book in his hand, and a great burden upon his back. I looked and saw him open the book and read therein; and, as he read, he wept and trembled; and not being able longer to contain, he broke out with a lamentable cry, saying, 'What shall I do?'" This man is Christian, the hero of the story.

CHRISTIAN BEGINS HIS JOURNEY

In this plight, therefore, he went home and refrained himself as long as he could, that his wife and children should not perceive his distress; but he could not be silent long, because that his trouble increased. Wherefore at length he brake his mind to his wife and children; and thus he began to talk to them:

"O my dear wife," said he, "and you, my children, I, your dear friend, am in myself undone by reason of a burden that lieth hard upon me; moreover I am for certain informed that this our city will be burned with fire from heaven, in which fearful overthrow, both myself, with thee, my wife, and you my sweet babes, shall miserably come to ruin, except (the which yet I see not) some way of escape can be found, whereby we may be delivered."

At this his relations were sore amazed; not for what they believed that what he had said to them, was true, but because they thought that some frenzy distemper had got into his head; therefore, it drawing near night, and they hoping that sleep might settle his brains, with all haste they got him to bed.

But the night was as troublesome to him as the day; wherefore, instead of sleeping, he spent it in sighs and tears. So, when the morning was.

come, they would know how he did. He told them, "Worse and worse." He also set talking to them again; but they began to be hardened.

They also thought to drive away his distemper by harsh and surly carriages to him; sometimes they would deride, sometimes they would chide, and sometimes they would quite neglect him. Wherefore he began to retire himself to his chamber, to pray for and pity them, and also to condole his own misery; he would also walk solitarily in the fields, sometimes reading, and sometimes praying: and thus for some days he spent his time.

Now, I saw, upon a time, when he was walking in the fields, that he was, as he was wont, reading in his book, and greatly distressed in his mind; and as he read, he burst out, as he had done before, crying, "What shall I do to be saved?"

I saw also that he looked this way and that way, as if he would run; yet he stood still, because, as I perceived, he could not tell which way to go. I looked then, and saw a man named Evangelist coming to him, who asked, "Wherefore dost thou cry?"

He answered, "Sir, I perceive by the book in my hand that I am condemned to die, and after that to come to judgment, and I find that I am not willing to do the first, nor able to do the second."

Then said Evangelist, "Why not willing to die, since this life is attended with so many evils?" The man answered:

"Because I fear that this burden that is upon my back will sink me lower than the grave, and I shall fall into Tophet. And, sir, if I be not fit to go to prison, I am not fit, I am sure, to go to judgment, and from thence to execution; and the thoughts of these things make me cry."

Then said Evangelist, "If this be thy condition, why standest thou still?"

He answered, "Because I know not whither to go."

Then he gave him a parchment roll, and there was written within, "Flee from the wrath to come."

The man therefore read it, and looking upon Evangelist very carefully, said, "Whither must I fly?"

Then said Evangelist, pointing with his finger over a very wide field, "Do you see yonder wicket gate?"

The man said, "No."

"Then," said the other, "Do you see yonder shining light?"

He said, "I think I do."