style. Having, at the end of some two years more, attained to a clearer insight into the mystical union of Christ with His Church, he carried his hearers along with him into the deep things of God. Among his rules of conduct as a preacher, were these :—to avoid controversy; never to make use of other men's lines; to endeavour to cast in a word by the bye; to get into the darkest places of the country. Often in the pulpit he was a prey to discouragement, yet not exempt from temptations of an opposite character. Thus, when some of his hearers observed what a sweet sermon he had delivered, he quickly replied, "The Devil told me that before I was out of the pulpit." The best evidence of the value of his preaching consisted in its fruits, of which Crosby relates a remarkable instance. Bunyan being about to preach (as during the Commonwealth he might) in a church in Cambridgeshire, a rollicking undergraduate, attracted by the crowd, declared his resolution to "hear the tinker prate," and was so impressed, that, embracing every subsequent opportunity of hearing him, he became himself an eminent preacher in the same county.

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When," observes Bunyan, referring to the progressive character of his preaching, "I had travelled through these three chief points of the Word of God, about the space of five years or more, I was caught in my present practice, and cast into prison, where I have lain above as long again, to confirm the truth by way of suffering." On the 12th of November, 1660, five months after the Restoration, he went to preach at Samsell, a hamlet near Harlington, in Bedfordshire, and was on the point of taking his text, when he was arrested by a tipstaff, bearing the warrant of Mr. Francis Wingate. This event, which had been for some time expected, was one of the first fruits of the new order of things. The prisoner had also received warning of the immediate danger; but to shun it did not comport with his high-minded views of duty. Though provided with bail, yet, when he found that the recognizances would be estreated if he preached, he at once avowed his intention to do so; and, after much parley, he was committed, in default of securities, to Bedford gaol. In due time, an indictment was preferred against him at the quarter sessions, setting forth his devilish and pernicious abstinence from church, and upholding of unlawful meetings and conventicles. A protracted colloquy ensued between the prisoner at the bar and Mr. Sergeant Keeling, (afterwards Lord Chief Justice of the King's

Bench,) probably Chairman of the Bench of Magistrates, chiefly relating to the comparative merits of the Book of Common Prayer and of extempore devotions; which colloquy did not much redound to the magisterial dignity. The judgment of the Court, apparently without hearing a single witness, was, that Bunyan should return to prison for three months; at the end of which time, unless

he promised to desist from preaching and to attend church, he should be banished from the realm, on pain of "stretching by the neck" if he should return without special license. The dauntless Puritan's only reply was, that, as to that matter, he was at a point with the worshipful minister of justice; for, were he out of prison that very day, by God's help he would preach on the morrow. The three months having expired, Mr. Cobb, clerk of the peace, was sent to ascertain whether Bunyan had changed his mind; and, if not, to repeat the menace with which he had been sent

back to prison. In answer, he contended that he had committed no offence against the law, which forbade such assemblies only as used religion for a pretence to cover evil designs. He avowed, that he looked upon it as his duty to behave himself under the King's Government both as became a man and a Christian, and that, if occasion offered, he would willingly manifest his loyalty to his prince, both by word and by deed. Moreover, he offered to give up the notes of all his sermons, in proof of the harmlessness of his teaching, and of his submission to the reigning authority. With an amusing mixture of menace and cajolery, the magisterial messenger prayed the prisoner to be ruled, and to consider that, while he might do much good to his friends in ways more private than preaching, he could be of no benefit to them at all, should he be "sent away beyond the seas into Spain, or Constantinople, or some other remote part of the world." 'Sir," said the inflexible Nonconformist," the law hath provided two ways of obeying; the one, to do that which I, in my conscience, do believe that I am bound to do, actively; and, when I cannot obey actively, then I am willing to lie down, and to suffer what they shall do unto me."

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On the 23rd of April, 1661, Charles the Second was crowned. In the general gaol delivery which, according to custom, then took place, Bunyan might possibly have been included, had he felt it consistent with his high sense of principle to petition for his liberation. As the Royal Proclamation allowed convicted offenders a whole twelvemonth to sue out a pardon, the sentence of banishment was not immediately enforced against him; and, at the assizes in August of the same year, that true woman his second wife thrice presented a petition to the Judges, praying them to hear him and consider his case. On the first occasion, the good Sir Matthew Hale promised to do his best, but expressed a fear of being unable to grant the application. On the second occasion, Mr. Justice Twisdon, a man of a different stamp, waspishly retorted that her husband was a convicted person, who could not be released without a pledge to preach no more. On the third occasion, Hale evinced a disposition to listen to the faithful wife, when a magistrate named Chester prevented him by the observation, that the prisoner had been duly convicted. Undaunted still, she pursued their lordships to their inn, from the bow windows of which the gaol was visible, and argued

B

She

the case with an ability as well as a devotion worthy of the wife of Bunyan. Her immediate object was to prevail upon Chief Justice Hale to send for her husband; but, by the hostile intervention of his colleague, and of the county magistrates present, especially Chester, he was held to his first view of the matter. urged, that her husband had been arrested before the proclamation against meetings was issued; that the indictment against him was false; that he had not been called upon to plead; and that, instead of confessing to it as was pretended, he had but admitted the bare fact of preaching. But all her objections were overruled by the

repeated declarations of Chester, that his conviction was upon the record. The poor woman, it appeared, had even been to London, where she placed in the hands of a peer (Lord Barkwood) a petition to the House of Lords, praying for her husband's release. Their Lordships' answer was, that they could not grant the application, but referred the matter to the Judges of Assize; who, nevertheless, as she said in addressing them, "would give neither releasement nor relief." "He is a breaker of the peace," thundered the rude and surly Twisdon. This, meekly yet firmly, the noble woman denied. Moreover, my lord," said she, turning from the puisné to his chief, "I have four small children, that cannot help themselves, one of which is blind; and we have nothing to live upon, but the charity

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of good people."

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"thou

"Hast thou four children ?" replied Hale; art but a young woman to have four children." 'My lord," she replied, "I am but mother-in-law to them, having not been married to him yet full two years. Indeed, I was with child when my husband was first apprehended; but, being young, and unaccustomed to such things, I, being smayed at the news, fell into labour, and so

continued for eight days, and then was delivered; but my child died." Whereat, continues the narrator, he, looking very soberly on the matter, said, "Alas, poor woman!" The stony-hearted Twisdon, unmoved by a tale so pathetic, told her that she made poverty her cloak; and even Hale, though touched with her misfortunes, and evidently in admiration of her courage, gave her but cold comfort. "I am sorry that I can do thee no good," said he to this poor woman, with her husband in prison, and his four children on her hands; "thou must either apply thyself to the King, or sue