however by this time so fierce and violent that Roger felt bound to assist the police

man.

As soon as the man was locked up, he went to Lime Court. The moon was shining, and the narrow passage lay bright beneath her. Along the street people were going and coming, though it was past midnight, but the court was very still. He walked into it as far as the spot where we had together seen Miss Clare. The door at which she had

entered was open, but he knew nothing of the house or its people, and feared to compromise her by making inquiries. He walked several times up and down, somewhat anxious, but gradually persuading himself that in all probability no further annoyance had befallen her; until at last he felt able to leave the place.

He came back to our house, where, finding his brother at his final pipe in the study, he told him all about their adventure.

Jo

OHN BUNYAN, "that glorious dreamer," is now hardly known but as the writer of the "Pilgrim's Progress;" the rest of his books, except perhaps his "Holy War," are seldom read, possibly almost forgotten. But though the "Pilgrim's Progress" must always stand alone, several others among the sixty works of which he was the author are, in their way, quite as edifying and quite as well worthy of attention. The most important of these is his autobiography, called "Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners," which contains, in one of the most interesting narratives ever written, a simple and touching account of the terrible mental struggles which he endured, and of the continual troubles which beset him. It was composed by Bunyan during his long imprisonment in Bedford gaol, and sent to his "spiritual children" (as he called his congregation), that they might be encouraged to go on hopefully by hearing of the difficulties which he had overcome. He says in the preface that his little book was written because he, "being tied up," could not preach; and adds, "It is something of a relation of the work of God upon my soul, even from the very first until now, wherein you may perceive my castings down and risings up; for He woundeth, and his hands make whole." He reminds his people of their own trials.

"Remember," he says, "the word that first laid hold upon you, remember your terrors of conscience and fear of death and hell: remember also your tears and prayers to God—yea, how you sighed under every hedge of mercy. Have you never a hill Mizar to remember? Have you forgot the close, the milkhouse, the stable, the barn, and the like, where God did visit your souls? Remember also the word, the word, I say, upon which the Lord hath caused you to hope. If you have sinned against light, if you are tempted to blaspheme, if you are drowned in despair, if you think God fights against you, or if heaven is

Old Elegy on Bunyan's death.

From this narrative, and from a later one containing an account of the writer's imprisonment, is taken nearly all that is known of Bunyan's life, and we shall endeavour to tell his story as much as possible in his own graphic words. A short sketch of his history was published in 1691 by Charles Doe, a Baptist minister, who had known him personally, and who collected most of his works (calling himself "The Struggler for the Preservation of Mr. Bunyan's Labours in Folio"), and from this and from a still shorter anonymous notice of him of about the same date (now preserved in the British Museum) a few additional facts have been collected.

Bunyan was born in the year 1628, at a village near Bedford, called Elstow, in which stood the remains of an abbey founded by Judith, the niece of William the Conqueror, and the old church in which is one of the very few in England dedicated to St. Helen. Bunyan's father was a tinker, and he too was brought up to that trade, though, according to a history of Bedfordshire, he afterwards became a brazier, having worked as a journeyman in Bedford. This statement is confirmed by an agreement still in existence for the purchase of ground for the erection of a meeting-house in the town, in which his signature appears as John Bunyan, Brazier, 1672. He says himself that he was "of that rank that is meanest and most despised of all the families of the land," and it has been conjectured with some reason that his ancestors were gipsies.

"But," he continues, "notwithstanding the meanness and inconsiderableness of my parents, it pleased

God to put into their hearts to put me to school to learn me to read and write; the which I also attained according to the rate of other poor men's children, though, to my shame I confess, I did soon lose that I had learned, even almost utterly, and that long before the Lord did work his gracious work of conversion

upon my soul."

in my room, to which, when I had consented, he took my place, and coming to the siege, as he stood sentinel, he was shot in the head with a musket-bullet, and died."

dren.

Even as a child Bunyan was haunted with those dreadful dreams and imaginations which were so real to him, and with which he was to be troubled for so many years. The thought of the fearful torments prepared, as he believed, for those who felt, as he fancied he felt, drawn on by wicked spirits, weighed on him perpetually :

"At nine or ten years old," he says, "" my soul was so distressed, that in the midst of my many sports d childish vanities, amidst my vain companions, I was often much cast down and afflicted in my mind, yet could I not let go my sins. Yea, I was also then so overcome with despair of life and heaven, that I did

often wish either that there had been no hell, or that I had been a devil, supposing that they were only

tormentors; that if it must needs be that I went thither I might be rather a tormentor than be tormented myself."

But this state of feeling did not long continue; Bunyan was, as Southey has described him, "shaken by the hot and cold fits of a spiritual ague even in his very early youth, and the pleasures which he enjoyed with his companions "quickly cut off the remembrance of those terrible dreams, as if they never had been." He owns that the thought of religion was now very grievous" to him, even "as it were a prison," but at the same time he says,

"This I well remember, that though I could myself sin with the greatest delight and ease, yet, even then, if I had at any time seen wicked things done by those who professed goodness it would make my spirit tremble. As once above all the rest, when I was in the height of vanity, yet hearing one to swear that was reckoned for a religious man it had so great a stroke upon my spirits that it made my heart ache. But God did not utterly leave me, but followed me still, not with convictions, but judgments mixed with mercy. For 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 yet preserved me; besides, another time, being in the field with my companions, it chanced that an adder passed over the highway, so I, having a stick, struck her over the back, and plucked her sting out with my fingers; by which act, had not God been merciful to me, I might by my desperateness have brought myself to my end. This also I have taken notice of with thanksgiving.

When I was a soldier I, with others, were drawn out to go to such a place to besiege it; but when I was just ready to go one of the company desired to go

Soon after this event Bunyan married "a very virtuous, loving, and conformably obedient, and obliging woman;" to use his own words,

"My mercy was to light upon a wife whose father and mother were counted godly. This woman and I, though we came together as poor as poor might be (not having so much household stuff as a dish or spoon betwixt us both), yet this she had for her part, The Plain Man's Pathway to Heaven' and 'The Practice of Piety,' which her father had left her when he died. In these two books I sometimes read, pleasing to me (but all this while I met with no conwherein I found some things that were somewhat viction). She also often would tell me what a godly man her father was, and how he would reprove and bours; and what a strict and holy life he lived in his correct vice, both in his house and among his neighdays, both in word and deed."

She, besides this, according to the old biographer, "frequently enticed and persuaded him to read those books, and to apply them to himself, and to the voice of his wife he hearkened, and by that means recovered his reading, which, not minding before, he had almost lost." The name of Bunyan's first wife is not known; she had four children (one of them being the blind girl to whom he was so tenderly attached); and she died before he was imprisoned. By the diligent perusal of these books, Bunyan was brought to wish to reform his life, and his first impulse was to "fall in very eagerly with the religion of the times; to wit, to go to church twice a day, and there very devoutly both say and sing as others did, yet retaining my wicked life.

"But," he continues, "I was withal so overrun that with great devotion, even all things (both the with the spirit of superstition, that I adored, and high-place, priest, clerk, vestment, service, and what holy that were therein contained, and especially the else) belonging to the church; counting all things priest and clerk most happy, and without doubt greatly blessed, because they were the servants, as I then temple to do his work therein.' thought, of God, and were principal in the holy

But church services were not enough to satisfy Bunyan's restless and inquiring disposition; and after attending them for some time he suddenly became anxious to know whether