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Its principal function is to supply heat, and thereby assist the digestive organs in assimilating the nutrition which is contained in milk, milk being almost always a necessary adjunct for Corn Flour. It also contributes to the formation of fat, so essential to life at all stages, but especially to the earlier. Growing Children of all ages may be largely dieted upon any of its preparations with milk, either in liquid or solid form, with the utmost advantage to their health and appearance. It is nearly always agreeable to them in its simplest form, but can be made acceptable to the most fastidious by additions of flavouring or other ingredients. THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS IT FROM THIS WORLD TO THAT WHICH IS TO COME. MEMOIR OF JOHN BUNYAN. T is a noteworthy fact that among the books written in the reign of Charles the Second, the two works which outstripped the rest in genius, as much as they have surpassed them in popularity, should have been produced by men whose opportunities, mode of life, and literary antecedents were in direct and complete opposition. These two works are Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," and Milton's "Paradise Lost." No two careers can have been separated by a wider distance than that which intervened between the "blind bard" and him whom criticism, half sneering, half in wonder, has dubbed the "inspired tinker." What a difference between the Latin Secretary of the great and powerful Protector, loved and trusted by his master, and respected by the decorous Puritan Court at Whitehall, and the despised handicraftsman, brought before harsh judges, under the operation of an infamous law, and jeeringly told, in reply to his pathetic remonstrance against enforced silence, that his true power lay in repairing kettles, rather than in healing breaches in wounded consciences! On the one hand, we have all that careful classical training, aided by years of deep study, and matured by foreign travel, can accomplish. On the other, the absence of everything but the very rudiments of education, and of every art, which can embellish a style or present ideas under an improved or engaging aspect. In Milton's noble epic we have genius, aided by learning and directed by the taste of the well-read student. Bunyan's matchless allegory the whole effect is produced by the overwhelming power of genius, guided by strong zeal and resolute purpose. And in the channels through which these two books worked their way, there is the same opposite character to be noted. "Paradise Lost," comprehended in the first instance only by the few, who, in the seventeenth century, had enough of education and taste to understand its meaning, worked its way down through two centuries, from one class to another, as each in turn became cultivated enough to be brought within the circle of its charm. The "Pilgrim's Progress," on the other hand, welcomed at first only by a few members of a comparatively limited sect, worked its passage into the good graces of the cultivated and refined, until sect after sect had taken it up-Roman Catholics, Church of England, and Dissenters of every shade of opinion vying with one another in appreciation of and respect for this noble work. In Even in the last century literary men were slow to admit the claims of Bunyan to literary fame, or to do full justice to the marvellous excellence of the "Pilgrim's Progress." Dr. Kippis, in the "Biographia Britannica," observes, in an amusing tone of patronage, that "Bunyan had the invention, but not the other natural qualifications which are necessary to constitute a great poet. Few who nowadays read the biography of "Christian" and of "Faithful" will be found to endorse the learned doctor's opinion. Doctor Johnson, too clear-sighted, in spite of all his BY JOHN BUNYAN. classical prejudice, to fail altogether to appreciate the astonishing genius of Bunyan, records his admiration of the Baptist preacher's work with cautious reticence, and opines that the author of the " Pilgrim's Progress" must have read Spencer; noticing, too, a similarity between Dante's great poem and Bunyan's allegory, though Dante had not been translated into English at the time when Bunyan wrote. Cowper pays a poetical tribute to Bunyan's genius, but does not mention him by name; and a notable exception to the generally disparaging tone in which the critics of the last century speak of Bunyan, is to be found in the writings of Mr. Newton, who, in noticing a spurious third part of the "Pilgrim's Progress," which some scribbler endeavoured to foist upon the public as a genuine work of Bunyan's, compares the attempted fraud to an endeavour to pass off a hedge-stake for "Aaron's rod blossoming with flowers and almonds." But in the present century, full, though tardy, justice has been done. Year by year new editions of the "Pilgrim's Progress" appear; and as the fame of the great writer spreads, so the demand for his work is likewise increased. As Macaulay, in his masterly essay on Bunyan, justly observes, a glance at the rough paper and cheap binding, the execrable engravings and clumsy ornaments of all the editions published to within a few years, will show that they are intended for purchasers of humble means, and are not intended for sale among the wealthy and literate classes. How different 66 John Bunyan, the immortal author of the "Pilgrim's Progress," the scarcely less valuable Holy War," and of many works of kindred character, was born in 1628, in the village of Elstow, near Bedford. His father, a man in very humble circumstances, carried on the occupation of a tinker -a trade usually connected with vagrant habits, and thus standing the reverse of high in the scale of employments. The elder Bunyan, however, seems to have been superior to the generality of his fraternity; having a settled abode, working hard to maintain his family, and even bestowing upon his son some rudiments of education; for John Bunyan learned in his youth to read and write-accomplishments anything but general among the children of cottagers in those days. Several of his biographers, perhaps with the pardonable intention of heightening the. effect of his subsequent piety and usefulness, have drawn a dreary picture of the depravity of Bunyan during his childhood and youth, representing him as the pest of the village, a monster of iniquity, and lost to all sense of rectitude and decency. But we are strongly inclined to think with Macaulay, that there are no just grounds for these assumptions. Of recorded acts of depravity, such as his enemies, of whom he had many, when he became great and famous, would have been only too glad to use to his detriment, we have absolutely none. Malice itself could only indulge in vague innuendoes and general accusations, drawn chiefly from his own passionate confession of his unworthiness; and these he repelled indignantly, and with a force that silenced his detractors. Indeed, his conscience seems to have been remarkably tender even from his earliest years; and escapes from dangers, which would have made no impression on a stolid or hardened temperament, were looked upon by him as direct interpositions of Providence. In his own words we are told: "God followed me with judgments mixed with mercy. Once I fell into a creek of the sea and hardly escaped drowning; another time I fell out of a boat into Bedford river, but mercy preserved me alive; again, being in the field with one of my companions, an adder passed over the highway; so I, having a stick in my hand, struck her over the back, and having stunned her, I plucked out her sting with my fingers, by which, had not God been merciful to me, I might have brought myself to my end." In Bunyan's early days it was customary to assemble the village youth by the sound of the church bell, for sports on the village green on the afternoon of Sunday. In earlier times archery and quarterstaff practice had been the favourite amusements; and this state of things continued until the Puritans introduced a stricter rule. As respects his manner of employing his time on Sunday, Bunyan seems to have been no better and no worse than his neighbours. His conscience, however, was more tender than theirs. While they pursued their sports with no idea of any unlawfulness in such proceedings, Bunyan felt wretched and unhappy. Voices seemed to sound in his ears in reprobation of his conduct. He thought he saw the Saviour himself looking down upon him in anger. He tells how, as he was playing at tipcat on Elstow Green on a Sunday afternoon, the words suddenly rang in his ears, "Wilt thou leave thy sins and go to Heaven, or have thy sins and go to Hell?" mons of Bunyan have been. "In my preaching of torn from his home and his family, and incarcerated the Word," he says, "I took special notice to open in a filthy den, a receptacle for felons and cut-throats, and allege that the curse of God by the law doth there to lie in durance for a dozen years. Truly, of belong to and lay hold upon all men as they come all the crimes committed under the cloak of what is into the world, because of sin. This part of my good and great, those perpetrated in the name of work I fulfilled with great feeling, for the terrors of religion and liberty have been the worst. the law, and guilt for my transgressions, lay heavy Imprisonment is a bitter cup at any time, especially on my own conscience. I preached what I smart- to a man of the freedom-loving Anglo-Saxon race; ingly did feel, even that under which my poor soul but in Bunyan's case the bitterest of personal did groan and tremble to astonishment. Indeed, I suffering was greatly increased by the woe and want have been as one sent to them from the dead; I his sentence entailed upon those nearest and dearest to went, myself in chains, to preach to them in chains; his heart. He had lost his first wife some time before and carried that fire in my own conscience that I these disastrous events occurred. He had married persuaded them to beware of." again; and his second wife, a noble, tender-hearted woman, was left with four young children, the issue of his first marriage, to face the world, while the support of the father and bread-winner of the family was withdrawn from the sorrowing flock. So great was the popularity of the young preacher, that he was soon called upon to pay the penalty of success. Malevolence began barking at his heels, and calumny flung stones and mud at him, as it is its nature to do. All kinds of charges were hinted against him; but not one was found capable of proof. Bunyan himself behaved in the matter with the conscious dignity of innocence. Challenging his accusers to the proof, he cared not to retort upon them; and the fact that every charge was dropped, speaks volumes as to the tenor of his life up to that time. Had there been any tangible ground on which to proceed against him, his enemies were not the men to have left their advantage unpursued. One incident of this portion of his career is particularly deserving of mention. It reminds us of Goldsmith's admirable description of the village pastor, at whose ministrations "Fools who came to scoff remained to pray." Bunyan was a staunch royalist, and for a short time took part in the great Civil War, fighting on the King's side at the siege at Leicester. It is related that on one occasion he had been selected for a particular duty, but was superseded by a comrade who A wild Cambridge undergraduate had come, attracted put himself forward in Bunyan's place, and who by curiosity, to "hear the tinker prate;" and the perished in the service, being slain by a musket- tinker "prated" to such good purpose that the bullet. Bunyan's career as a soldier was short. The King's cause languished, and he returned to Elstow, and, at the early age of nineteen, married; a step which had an important effect upon his state of mind, and influenced all his subsequent career. THE BIRTHPLACE OF BUNYAN. hearer went away a sadder and a wiser man; and, returning in a different spirit to hear more, became at last an eminent preacher himself, and one who did good service in his time. Bunyan's wife was a simple-minded, godly woman; and a great consolation was her gentle sympathy and modest counsel to the strong storin-tost mind of the young soldier, struggling with a sense of sin, and unconscious whither to turn for peace and pardon. Small store of book knowledge had she, but much child-like faith. She brought out her little stock of theological literature-two volumes, "The Practice of Piety," and "The Plain Man's Pathway to Heaven," and encouraged him to read and meditate. And now, in his own person, he went through the experiences which he embodied, years afterwards, in the history of the personages in his masterly allegory. Like "Christian," he felt the burden of sin weighing heavily upon him, and from his lips burst The restoration of the monarchy in 1660 is generally the desponding cry, "What shall I do? What shall described as a time of universal rejoicing. Some I do?" With difficulty he waded, through the classes, however, found far more reason for grief than "Slough of Despond" and climbed the Hill of for joy in that auspicious event; and foremost among Difficulty;" and more than once he narrowly escaped the sufferers were the Nonconformist preachers. the clutch of "Giant Despair." Profanity in speech, To meet peacefully for public worship was a crime a vice common enough in all ages, and universally against the laws, and might subject any member prevalent in the ranks of the Cavalier army, seems of a congregation to fine and imprisonment; upon to have been his chief stumbling-block. The dis- the preacher the penalties of an iniquitous and course, accidentally overheard, of three good women bigoted system weighed with tenfold force; and a at Bedford, gave him an undoubted impetus in his repetition of the offence might even endanger his spiritual career. After a conflict which would have life. It was not likely that so eminent and marked driven a weaker man mad, he became at length per- a man as John Bunyan should escape during this suaded that he was saved from the wrath to come; period of persecution; and accordingly we find that and in his strong, enthusiastic nature there arose the very few months had elapsed since the "glorious irrepressible desire to preach the glad tidings of sal-restoration," ere the zealous preacher was seized and vation, that others might, by his means, be brought incarcerated under circumstances of peculiar hardto partake of the benefits he himself enjoyed. At ship and cruelty. In November 1660, he was the age of five-and-twenty, John Bunyan was ad- arrested at the village of Samsall, whither he had mitted into the community of Baptists at Bedford. gone to preach; and, after some formalities, was conThe little stream in which he was baptized, and the veyed to Bedford gaol, where he remained a prisoner spot where the ceremo y took place, at a short dis-in custody, more or less strict, for twelve years! Betance from Bedford Bilge, can still be pointed out. fore his Judge he maintained a bold and determined As a preacher, Bunyan was invaluable. He had, bearing, free, however, from every touch of bravado. during his years of condit, read and studied the When required to plead, he frankly avowed that he had Scriptures with untiring perseverare. He possessed preached, and exhorted, and comforted his brethren; great fluency of speech, and, most valuable gift of that he had used the powers God had given him to all, he uttered every word he spoke with the force the best of his poor ability in furtherance of the and weight of thorough conviction. No doubt was glory and the knowledge of the truth; and on being there in the minds of the hearers who thronged to warned that a persistence in this offence would be him, that this man was speaking from the heart. followed by banishment from the realm, with They knew that he himself had undergone the trials "stretching of the neck" if he returned without he described, and that he was enjoying the peace he special license from the King, he nobly replied that wished them to win. They listened as to one in- if he were released to-day, he would preach, by spired; and his reputation increased daily. God's help, to-morrow." And so this good man, this zealous, self-sacrificing preacher of the Gospel, was Strong awakening discourses must these first ser 66 And to make this picture of desolation doubly pathetic, one of the children, a little daughter, was blind! The good father's heart yearned towards his wife and his little ones. Indeed, his affection for them had frequently been reproved as weakness by his sterner brethren, in those days, when harshness towards children was the rule, and kindly intercourse between the elders and juniors in a family the exception. But towards his little sightless one he cherished a beautiful love, that brightens his dismal cell at the distance of two centuries; her presence was his joy, her conversation his delight. Cheerfully, indeed, would he have laid down his life for those dear ones; there was but one thing he could not and would not sacrifice for them-and that was principle! Even in prison, he could still work to earn their bread. Shut out from the exercise of the industry he had earned, he laboriously acquired the art of making tagged laces; and many thousands of these his industrious hands manufactured during the years of his bondage, while his brain was busy with work of a very different kind; for during this time there arose in his mind the idea of the "Pilgrim's Progress"! His wife, distracted with grief and anxiety, summoned courage to appear before the judges, when they visited Bedford, to plead for a hearing, and for merciful consideration, for her husband. Her case was hard enough, poor woman. She piteously urged upon the judges her miserable position, with four young children, one of them blind, and no hope but in the charity of good people. The merciful and considerate Hale, though he did nothing-perhaps could do nothing for the poor wife, but put her into the way of suing out a pardon, or a writ of error, on behalf of the prisoner, at any rate listened to her tale with considerate pity; but his associate on the bench was brutal enough to brow beat the poor disconsolate applicant, telling her she made use of poverty as a cloak-to which taunt she made no reply-and that her husband was an impostor-when she indignantly declared that the day of judgment would show whether he was false or true. Small justice was there, in those evil days, for the Nonconformist. While vice and profligacy were not pardoned only, but tolerated, and even encouraged and rewarded, the preacher of the Gospel and the teacher of Christianity lay year after year in prison; in bonds, indeed, but no way desponding. Humble as he was, and far removed from arrogance or self-laudation, he knew himself to be literally a sufferer for conscience' sake. Hard as it was to see wife and children in trouble and in poverty, andworse than all-to have his blind child-the darling of his little flock-exposed to the sufferings of the hard world, he was spared all internal doubt and conflict on the subject. His duty lay clearly in suffering quietly whatever his enemies chose to inflict. He never for an instant thought of compromise, or the purchase of freedom by the sacrifice of principle. "Buy the truth, and sell it not," saith the Scripture. He had indeed bought it, at the price of much suffering and much inward conflict; and the whole world did not contain the price at which he would have sold it. And He who feedeth the ravens, provided for the poor family during those evil times of persecution; and the very malice of Bunyan's enemies defeated itself, and did but open to him a far wider sphere of usefulness than, in all human probability, would have been afforded had he continued to preach to his congregation of Bedfordshire peasants and artisans. During those twelve years of incarceration his great thoughtful mind and vivid imagination were busily at work. Through the gloom of his prison walls there came to him visions of the bright- The late at night, for readmission into the gaol, to the of the Roman Catholics, and we are told by Mr. The period of his life immediately following upon his liberation was eminently peaceful, happy, and fraught with extended usefulness. A large meetinghouse, built for him by his brethren, was far too small to hold the crowds who flocked to hear him; his fame had even reached the metropolis. More liberal in his views than many members of the sect to which he belonged, he scandalised some of the more rigid brethren by his enlarged ideas on the adDuring the latter years of Bunyan's imprisonment mission of Pado-Baptists and Quakers to their comthe rigour of his confinement seems to have been con-munity. But this liberality gained him far more siderably relaxed. We often hear of him, preaching friends than foes; and the reputation of "Bishop and working outside the walls of the gaol. He had Bunyan," as he was sometimes playfully called, won the respect and love of his gaolers themselves; grew with each succeeding year of his ministry. and indeed it must have been almost impossible to Often he would preach in the open air; and several look unmoved npon the Christian patience, the holy places are pointed out near Bedford as having been faith, the unbounding hope of this good man. His the scenes of his sermons and especially a dell in name and fame spread rapidly and steadily. In Wainwood, near Hitchin. 1671 he was chosen by the Baptists of Bedford as their pastor, and received the royal licence to preach many months before his final discharge from the prison, which, in spite of darkness and outward gloom, had been made to him a place of Christian usefulness and holy joy. An interesting incident is related of him during the last period of his imprisonment. The indulgent keeper had sent forth the illustrious captive to visit and comfort his suffering wife and children. Seated amid his dear ones, Bunyan was seized with a restless and uncontrollable impulse to return to his cell; and presented himself, During the latter years of his life his journeys to London were frequent; and the chapels and meetingplaces were crowded to the threshold whenever he preached. His popularity was still on the increase when the evil days of James the Second came. Bunyan was too old, and had learned and suffered too much, to be deceived by the specious appearance of toleration assumed by the dull tyrant, who first goaded the English into resistance and then fled like a craven from the throne he had disgraced. Bunyan saw plainly that the so-called indulgence to Nonconformists was a cloak for restoring the supremacy His end was worthy of his life. During his stay in London, at the house of a friend, Mr. Strudwick, of Snow Hill, he undertook his old office of peacemaker on behalf of a young man who had fallen under his father's displeasure through wild courses, and, menaced with being disinherited, begged Bunyan to intercede for him. The good preacher, now sixty years of age, undertook the task. He accomplished it successfully, and procured the youth's pardon; but it was bought at the cost of the good man's life. The long ride to Reading, and back to London, was too much for Bunyan's strength. He fell ill of a fever, and, after lingering for ten days, quietly expired, in full and certain hope, if ever man had, of a glorious resurrection. Three of his children, with his second wife, survived him. One of them, Thomas, was for many years a Baptist preacher. But the pet lamb of his little flock, his blind daughter, Mary, was already blind no longer. She had passed before him into the glorious land where we see no longer "as through a glass darkly," and there, we may humbly hope and believe, she met her gallant father" face to face." Under a plain slab in Bunhill Fields burialground sleeps the great author of "The Pilgrim's Progress," the fearless preacher, the zealous disciple, the humble, devout follower of Him "whose yoke is easy, and whose burden is light." He needs no monument of stone to commemorate his death, no epitaph to tell what deeds he achieved during his life; for wherever his glorious allegory penetrates, wherever hearts glow at the story of Christian and Hopeful and Evangelist, there men shall tell of he worth, and the genius, and the work of the Nonconformist preacher, John Bunyan. |