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of life, from old age to childhood, have made it next to the Bible, the story of their lives. In all sonls it has created visions, interpreted dreams, and awakened the joy ' that made me write.' The eight editions through which it passed in thirty years gave but small promise of the progress of its pilgrimage since. No book has been rendered into so many languages, except the word of God itself. To many who are now 'high in bliss upon the hills of God,' it first set 'the joy-bells ringing in the city of habitation.' The pauper and beggar of London have read it in thoroughfares and squares, and threaded their way by its guidance through Vanity Fair. The Italian has crouched beneath the shade of the Vatican, and trembled to look up lest he should see Giant Pope. The dusky Burman has taken it into the deep jungle, to show him stepping-stones through the Slough of Despond. The darker African has stolen with it into a by-path of the wild woods, and, under the palmtree, has dreamed of the white man's heaven. The son of Abraham and the daughter of Jerusalem have read its pages to the sigh of the wind amongst the olives and the ripple of Kedron; and the Hindoo, with Bunyan in his hand, has resolved on courage when he crossed the deep river;' for angels, such as do not wait upon the banks of his sacred Ganges, beckon him over.

No wonder that when Mr. Brown, the minister of Bunyan's meeting, lately visited Scotland, a worthy Highlander was startled when introduced to him as 'Bunyan's successor.' Starting back and measuring him from head to foot, he exclaimed: Eh, mon! but ye'll ha hard work to fill his shoon!' Dean Stanley says: When in early life I lighted on the passage where the Pilgrim is taken into the House Beautiful to see "the pedigree of the Ancient of Days, and the varieties and histories of that place, both ancient and modern," I determined that if ever the time should arrive when I should become a professor of ecclesiastical history, these should become the opening words in which I would describe the treasures of that magnificent store-house. Accordingly, when, many years after, it so fell out, I could find no better mode of beginning my course at Oxford than by redeeming that early pledge; and when the course came to an end, and I wished to draw a picture of the prospects still reserved for the future of Christendom, I found again that the best words I could supply were those in which, on leaving the Beautiful House, Christian was shown in the distance the view of the Delectable Mountains, "which they said, would add to his comfort because they were nearer to the desired haven." This was a worthy and heart-felt tribute from Westminster to the dreaming tinker whose effigy now adorns the House of Commons, side by side with those of orators, heroes and statesmen in honor of the man, who, though he 'devilishly' abstained from attending the church 'contrary to the laws of the king, has preached in all pulpits and palaces ever since.

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After Bunyan's final release in 1672, he became pastor of the Church at ford, and so threw his life into Gospel labor, that his fame as a preacher increased until he was, perhaps, the most famous minister of his day. The few sermons

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which have come down to us, show that he spoke as he wrote. As in his Pilgrim he embodies more of the Bible than does Milton in his Paradise Lost, so in his sermons we find more true human nature than in Shakespeare. His sentences burn with sacred touches of divine experience and move us with sympathy, so that they must have melted his hearers to tears. They also abound in personification and figure, touched by a little quiet but keen satire, and are rich in reality, tenderness and life. So great was his success as a preacher, that the largest buildings to which he had access in London would not contain the multitudes who flocked to hear him. One of his early biographers says: I have seen about twelve hundred at a morning lecture, by seven o'clock, on a working day, in the dark winter time.

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I have computed about three thousand that came to hear him one Lord's-day at the town's-end meeting-house, so that half were fain to go back again for want of room, and then himself was fain, at a back door, to be pulled almost over people to get up stairs to his pulpit.' John Owen heard him preach, probably at Zoar Chapel, and when King Charles expressed wonder that a man of his learning could bear to listen to the 'prate' of a tinker, he answered, that he would gladly give all his learning for this tinker's power. In the doctrinal controversies of the times, he gave and took many a hard blow, but his writings leave slight traces of personal bitterness toward his opponents. Indeed, hard feeling seems to have been a stranger both in him and his house. His wife was gentle to a proverb. When he was in prison she went to London to pray for his release, and induced a peer of the realm to present a petition to the House of Lords in his behalf; so the judges were directed to look into the matter afresh. She, therefore, appeared before Sir

Matthew Hale, Chester and Twisden. With all the simplicity of a woman's love she told her artless story. She said that her husband was a peaceable person,' and wished to support his family. They had four helpless children, one of them blind, and while he was in prison they must live on charity. Hale treated her kindly, Twisden harshly, and demanded whether he would leave off preaching if released. In child-like honesty she replied, that he dare not leave off preaching so long as he could speak. Her request was denied and she left the Court in tears, not so much, she said, 'because they were so hard-hearted against me and my husband, but to think what a sad account such poor creatures would have to give at the coming of the Lord.' Jesus wept because Jerusalem stoned the prophets, and Bunyan's wife was much like him. But, this giant in genius was just as tender-hearted as his wife. Where do we find such pathos in any passage as this, which he wrote in prison:

The parting with my wife and poor children hath often been to me in this place as the pulling off my flesh from my bones; and that not only because I am too, too fond of those great mercies, but also because I should have often brought to my mind the hardships, miseries and wants my poor family was like to meet with should I be taken from them; especially my poor blind child, who lay nearer my heart than all I had besides. Poor child, thought I, what sorrow art thou like to have for thy portion in this world! Thou must be beaten, suffer hunger, cold, nakedness and a thousand calamities, though I cannot now endure the wind should blow on thee. But yet, thought I, I must venture all with God, though it goeth to the quick to leave you. I was as a man who was pulling down his house upon the head of his wife and children. Yet, thought I, I must do it, I must do it.'

So loving was Bunyan's disposition, that he kept the heart of the jailer soft all the time. He not only allowed him to visit his church frequently, unattended, and to preach the Gospel, too; but his blind Mary constantly visited him, with such little gifts as she could gather for his solace. She had great concern for him, lest he sorrowed beyond all hope, and often when parting with him, would put her delicate fingers to his eyes and cheeks, to feel if the tears flowed that she might kiss them away. His blind babe died and left him in prison; with O, how many fatherly benedictions upon her sweet memory. It was meet that little, blind Mary Bunyan should enter the Celestial Gate before the hero of the 'DEN,' a true 'shining one' to watch and wait for his coming. Nor did she wait long. In 1688 he went to London to reconcile an alienated father and son, and succeeded. But on the journey a violent storm overtook him, and he contracted a fatal illness which after ten days took him to Jesus, the King in his beauty and to blind Mary, when he first saw her sweet eyes blaze with light. She raised not a hand to his cheek then, as was her old wont in Bedford, for God had wiped away all tears from his eyes; and since then the old and young pilgrim have dwelt together in the golden city.

Bunyan died just as the day dawned on England when the second great Revolution was to make her a free nation, in which Baptists could breathe freely. Mr. Froude couples him thus with them, in his biography of Bunyan: "In the language of the time, he became convinced of sin and joined the Baptists, the most thorough

ENGLAND HONORS HIM.

The

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BUNYAN'S TOMB.

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going and consistent of all the Protestant sects. If the sacramemt of baptism is not a magical form, but is a personal act in which the baptized person devotes himself to Christ's service, to baptize children at any age when they cannot understand what they are doing may seem irrational and even impious.' Bunyan's ashes rest in Bunhill Fields, marked by a neat tomb, bearing simply his name. But in 1874 the Duke of Bedford, a descendant of Lord William Russell, the martyr to liberty, presented a most costly and beautiful statue to that city, in Bunyan's memory. 10th of June in that year was one of the greatest days that Bedford ever knew. The corporation, with many thousands of distinguished persons from all parts of the kingdom, assembled on St. Peter's green, to unveil this work of art. This was done by Lady Augusta Stanley, sister of the Earl of Elgin and wife of the Dean of Westminster. Although Bunyan's back is still turned toward St. Peter's Church, the bells rang a merry peal, and immense crowds assembled in the Corn Exchange and on the green, to listen to addresses from the Mayor, Dean Stanley, Earl Cowper and many others of great note; and a banquet at the Swan Hotel crowned the day. As was fitting, 4,000 Sunday-school children of Bedford and Elstow consumed a ton and a quarter of cake and six hundred gallons of tea, in honor of the occasion; and with bands of music made a pilgrimage to Elstow, the birthplace of their enchanting dreamer; and the press of the United Kingdom that day called Bunyan blessed. The statue is of bronze, cast of cannon and bells brought from China, weighing two and a half tons. The figure of Bunyan is taken from a painting by Sadler, and is ten feet high. The idea which Boehm, the sculptor, has striven to give, is expressed in an inscription on the pedestal, and is taken from the picture of 'a very grave person,' which Bunyan saw hung in the Interpreter's house:

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'It had eyes uplifted to heaven;
The best of books in his hand;

The law of truth was written
Upon his lips. . . .

It stood as if it pleaded
With men.'

A broken fetter at his feet represents his long imprisonment, and on a tablet beneath is a fac-simile of his autograph in his will, John Bunyan.' Three sides of the pedestal contain scenes from 'Pilgrim's Progress,' in bold relief: Evangelist pointing Christian to the wicket gate; Christian's fight with Apollyon; Pilgrim released from his load and the three shining ones pointing him to the Celestial

City. The monument stands where four roads meet, but, like its original, it only faces one way and is full of repose, the ideal of that lofty spirituality, which claims

BUNYAN'S MONUMENT.

the right to look to heaven without a license from the established Church.

Bunyan's figure is thus described: He was tall of stature, strongbrowed, with sparkling eyes, wearing his hair on his upper lip after the old British fashion; his hair reddish, but in his latter days sprinkled with gray; his nose well cut, his mouth moderately large, his forehead something high, and his habit always plain and modest.'

That Bunyan was an open communion Baptist has never been seriously doubted until the recent publication of his life, by Rev. John Brown, A.M., minister of the yan meeting at Bedford.

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Bun-
This

work throws new light on many

points in his history and is ably written, but because of certain parish records which it publishes, and which seem to imply that Bunyan's children were christened, after he had united with the Bedford Church,

it is needful to examine that subject candidly and carefully. Whether Mr. Brown
intended to convey this impression or not, his book is well adapted to place Bun-
yan's practice in direct contradiction with many of his own utterances, and to
render his conduct irreconcilable with the universal testimony of history as to his
union with the Baptists. Yet Mr. Brown carefully avoids saying that he was not
a Baptist. He quotes Bunyan's words: Do not have too much company with some
Anabaptists, though I go under that name myself, and then adds: This is plain
enough. The only difficulty is how to reconcile his practice with his declaration;
for he seems to have had three of his children baptized at church in their infancy,
as we gather from the register of the parishes of Elstow and St. Cuthbert's.'

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