them. I will not say, that she was a "believing wife" at this time; but she certainly pursued a wiser plan of reclaiming an ungodly husband than some believing wives do. Accordingly, her "chaste conversation, coupled with fear," had a winning influence upon him. His oldest Biographer says, "She frequently enticed and persuaded him to read" the books left her by her father, and "to apply them to himself."

These books were only two, "The Plain Man's Pathway to Heaven," and "The Practice of Piety." It was, however, to "the relation" (and Bunyan evidently meant by that, what his wife related concerning her father's "holy life") as much as to the books, that he ascribed his first desires to amend at all. His own account of the matter is, "In these two books, I would sometimes read with her; wherein I also found some things that were somewhat pleasing to me; but all this while I met with no conviction." He then states what she often told him about her father, and adds, "Wherefore these books, with the relation, though they did not reach my heart, to awaken it about my sad and sinful state, yet they did beget within me some desires to reform my vicious life, and to fall in very eagerly with the religion of the times."

What these desires led to will be seen in the next chapter. In the mean time, it is evident, that to Mrs. Bunyan must be traced, under God, Bunyan's first steps in the path of duty. She, not the Books, won him to reflection. Indeed, but for her, he would not have read the books: yea, could not have read them. Hence, his oldest biographer says, "To the voice of his wife he hearkened, and by that means recovered his reading, which, not minding before, he had almost lost." This is no exaggeration: he himself says, "To my shame, I confess, I did soon lose that little I learnt,-even almost utterly, and that long before the Lord did work his gracious work of conversion upon my soul."

Thus his wife had to make him her pupil, as if he had been a

child: a triumph which none but a wife, and that a wife combining prudence with sweetness, could have achieved over a ringleader of sports and impiety. True, Bunyan would be an apt scholar, and soon recover his lost learning; but she also must have been "apt to teach." The difficulty was, to keep him within doors after his work was done, and to draw him to her side with a book in his hand, whilst the roisterers on the village green were playing at trap, and his own bat and ball lying dry in the chimney-corner. All this was "tempting fruit" to him. Her voice must, therefore, have sounded sweeter than even the bells of Elstow, and her smile been brighter than the laugh of the merry-makers, whenever she kept him at home to read.

I dwell, I confess, upon her influence, with a fondness bordering on extravagance. I do not feel, however, that I am exaggerating, in ascribing so much to its instrumentality. He himself calls it a "mercy," and says, "Until I came into the marriage state, I was the very ringleader of all the youth that kept me company, in all manner of vice and ungodliness." Her character, however, will come out more fully, as we trace the progress of the reformation of his character, in the next two chapters. And it is worth bringing out: for although she was incapable of directing his inquiries, or solving his difficulties, when he entangled himself amongst the thorns and briars of unanswerable questions, she bore with silent meekness all the wayward moods of his wounded spirit, and kept his home a sanctuary, where he could weep unseen.

CHAPTER IV.

BUNYAN'S FIRST REFORMATION

It was some reformation in his case even to go to church at all on the Sabbath. By the influence of his wife, and her father's books and memory, he fell in eagerly with the religion of the times. His own account of this change is equally minute and graphic. "I went," he says, "to church twice a day, and that too with the foremost; and there I would very devoutly both say and sing as others did, yet retained my wicked life. But withal, I was so overrun with the spirit of superstition, that I adored, and that with great devotion, even all things belonging to the Church; the high place (pulpit), priest, clerk, vestment, service, and what else; counting all things holy, that were therein contained; and especially the priest and clerk most happy, and without doubt greatly blessed, because they were the servants of God, as I then thought, and were principal in his temple, to do his work therein.

"This conceit grew so strong in a little time upon my spirit, that had I but seen a priest (though never so debauched and sordid in his life) I should feel my spirit fall under him, reverence him, and knit to him. Yea, I thought, for the love I did bear unto them (supposing them the Ministers of God), I could have laid down at their feet, and have been trampled upon by them; their name, their garb and work, did so intoxicate and bewitch me."

Dr. Southey says of this, "Bunyan describes himself as having a most superstitious veneration" for the servants and service

of the Church; and very properly adds, "The service, it must be remembered, was not the Liturgy of the Church of England, but the Directory of the victorious Puritans, substituted for it." -Southey's Bunyan.

Now, I have no objection to this distinction. I even think the Directory "meagre," when compared with the Liturgy. What, however, is the design of this contrast here? Does the meagreness of the Directory account for Bunyan's gross superstition? Would the Liturgy have prevented "most superstitious reverence," for either priest, service, garb, or what else? If it would then, it does not now. Its very excellencies-and I think them glories-win, from wiser men than Bunyan then was, veneration for priests who utter nothing evangelical but the liturgy. It is easy to laugh at Bunyan's veneration for the clerk; but veneration for Archbishop Laud is far more laughable, and superstitious, too, if Bishop Hall's opinion of him was just, or Hume's honest. I have much sympathy for Laud on the scaffold: his dying prayer, as given by Rushworth, I love more than I can express. Its opening petitions breathe a penitential faith of the highest order, because of the humblest character. But Laud on the scaffold, and Laud on his own throne or behind the King's throne, is not the same person. His life was a curse to the Church, whatever ornament his death became. They are more superstitious than Bunyan, who canonize either Laud or Charles.

It was whilst this superstitious fit lasted, that Bunyan consulted his father about the Jews. They, like the Gipsies, had come out of Egypt originally; and as Tinkers and Gipsies were often identified, he fondly hoped that there might be some connection between the two races. "The Israelites," he says, were once the peculiar people of God: if I were one of them, thought I, my soul must needs be happy. I found a great longing to be resolved about this question; but could not tell how

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I should."

He asked his father, and he told him, "No, we were not." He then fell in spirit, as to the hopes of that. The fact seems to be, that he was unhappy in his own mind; but still wishing for an easier way to heaven, than he had found church-going to be, easy as he made that duty by sport afterwards. He wanted to be one of the "peculiar people," that he might have nothing peculiar to do, as he thought. So think many, who conclude their own election from less resemblance to the Elect, than what subsists between Jews and gipsies.

"But all this while," he says, "I was not sensible of the danger and evil of sin. I was kept from considering, that sin would damn me, what religion soever I followed, unless I was found in Christ. Nay, I never thought of HIM, nor whether there was such a one or no."

What must the Directory have been, it may be said, seeing it left him thus ignorant of the Saviour? Very inferior, I grant, to the Liturgy, except when filled up by the prayers of eminently devotional men: I have, however, known of not a few instances of similar ignorance, under the Liturgy. The sober experimental fact is, that the Prayers rarely teach the ignorant the way of salvation, however much they edify the pious. Whereever the Pulpit contradicts the Desk, the prayers soon become a dead letter. This is a solemn, as well as a sober fact; for if any thing human could counteract bad preaching, the Liturgy would do so; but it is itself counteracted wherever the Gospel is not preached.

Whatever else Bunyan's "parson" was, he seems to have been a Puritan, in reference to the Sabbath. It was well for Bunyan he was so. A sermon against amusements on that day, made him feel what he never felt before-guilty before God. "One day," he says, "amongst all the sermons our parson made, his subject was, to treat of the Sabbath-day, and of the evil of breaking that, either with labor, sports, or otherwise. Now I was, not