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The most extraordinary circumstance that took place at this time was, that while Bunyan was a prisoner in a wretched dungeon for preaching the glad tidings of salvation, or, in the mysterious legal jargon of the period, 'holding conventicles, he received his Majesty's license to preach, and thus to hold conventicles it was one of the first that was granted.
This picture is drawn by a master hand: the master is laid by for a season; or, as Bunyan quaintly expresses it, 'a little a to side': when raised from affliction earthly affairs absorb his attention, and he forgets his good resolves. According to the old rhyme: 'The devil was sick, the devil a saint would be The devil to well, the devil a saint was he. Ed.
It is a book so well known and so well loved that I think I need say little about it. In the form of a dream Bunyan tells, as you know, the story of Christian who set out on his long and difficult pilgrimage from the City of Destruction to the City of the Blest.
Stepping up to his foster-father he asked: "And what is the boy's name?" "His name is Matthew Bunyan," Mrs. Bradley said; "but what about you, Fred? Do you want to have the new brother? And will you treat him kindly?" "That I will," Fred responded gladly. "I have always wished for a brother, who could work and play with me. And Matthew Bunyon is such a fine name! When can I see him?"
Public preaching and public prayer entered largely into the fasting of the Prophetical and the Puritan periods; and John Bunyan, after Joel, has told us some things about the Fast-day preaching of his day that it will be well for us, both preachers and people, to begin with, and to lay well to heart. In the first place, the preaching of that Fast-day was 'pertinent' and to the point.
The rough road after the meadow of lilies, the stile into By-Path-Meadow, the night coming on, the thunder and the lightning and the waters rising amain, Giant Despair's apprehension of Christian and Hopeful, their dreadful bed in his dungeon from Wednesday morning till Saturday night, how they were famished with hunger and beaten with a grievous crab-tree cudgel till they were not able to turn, with many other sufferings too many and too terrible to be told which they endured till Saturday about midnight, when they began to pray, and continued in prayer till almost break of day; John Bunyan is surely the best story-teller in all the world.
There were three prisons in Bedford the county jail, the bridewell, and the tower jail. No decisive evidence has been discovered as to which prison Bunyan was committed. Two views of the bridge and prison are given in the plate at p. 63, vol. i. Howard's Account of Lazarettos, &c. 4to, 1789, p. 150.
The only dowry which the girl brought to her new home was two old, threadbare books, The Plain Man's Pathway to Heaven, and The Practice of Piety Bunyan read these books, which instantly gave fire to his imagination.
But we know also that there are degrees of demerit, and, theory or no theory, we fall back on the first verse of the English Liturgy, as containing a more endurable account of things. For this reason, among others, Bunyan disliked the Liturgy. He thought the doctrine of it false, and he objected to a Liturgy on principle.
When Ann Blakeley bid Bunyan 'throw away the Scriptures, he replied, 'No, for then the devil would be too hard for me. And when accused of being a hireling priest, how triumphant was the reply it ought to be printed in letters of gold. He was charged with making merchandize of souls, and he answered 'Friend, dost thou speak this from thy own knowledge, or did any other tell thee so?
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