they spake as if joy did make them speak. They spake such pleasantness of scripture language, and with such appearance of grace in all they said, that they were to me, as if they had found a new world, and as if they were people that dwelt alone and were not to be reckoned among their neighbors." He felt his own heart shake as he heard them; and when he turned away, and went about his own employment again, their talk went with him; for he had heard enough to convince him that he "wanted the true tokens of a truly godly man," and to convince him, also, of the blessed condition of him that was one indeed. He made it his business, therefore, frequently to seek the conversation of these women. They were members of a small Baptist congregation, which a Kentish man, John Gifford by name, had formed at Bedford. By these pious, humble disciples, he was led to an acquaintance with their pastor. By his frequent intercouse and conversation with them he presently found two things within him, at which he marvelled. To use his own words, "the one was a very great softness and tenderness of heart, which caused me to fall under the conviction of what, by Scripture, they asserted; and the other was a great bending in my mind to a continual meditating on it, and on all other good things, which at any time I heard or read of.”

"By these things, my mind was now so turned, that it lay like a horse-leech at the vein; still crying out, 'Give, Give,' and was so fixed on eternity and on the things of the kingdom of heaven (that is, so far as I knew, though as yet I knew God but little), that neither pleasures, nor profits, nor persuasions, nor threats, could loose it, or make it let go its hold. And though I speak it with shame, yet it is in very deed a certain truth, that it would have been as difficult for me to have taken my mind from heaven to earth, as I have found it often since, to get it again from earth to heaven."

This may be regarded as the opening dawn of his regenerate life, and though he had conflicts and trials afterward, some of them very peculiar and distressing,yet from this period he gave decided indications of being led by the Spirit of God.

Who can review the steps of this process, without adoring gratitude and praise for that grace which plucked

him as a brand from the burning, and made him a trophy of its riches and power?

What encouragement is here given to earnest, affectionate, discreet solicitude on the part of companions and friends, even to those who seem far from righteousness! How must Mrs. Bunyan have felt, as she saw this wild and raving man sitting at Jesus' feet, and at her side, too, clothed with humility and holy love!

The example of the poor women of the Bedford church, who spoke of their religious enjoyments in the hearing of this profane scoffer, with such salutary effect, throws a flood of light upon that emphatic testimony of our Lord, addressed to his disciples, Ye are the salt of the earth! How loudly it says to all who love the Saviour, "Go and do likewise!"

If any poor sinner, ready to despair, hears from heaven, or from any other quarter, the startling inquiry, "Wilt thou leave thy sins and go to heaven, or have thy sins and go to hell?"-let him not wickedly reply, It is too late; but while he remembers the divine grace which welcomed Bunyan, steeped as he was in sin, let him come unto him who will in no wise cast out, and be saved with his everlasting salvation.

BUNYAN'S ENTERING THE MINISTRY.

We now come to regard Bunyan as a preacher of the gospel. There are several instructive lessons, we think, growing out of the elevation of such a man to the official dignity of a minister of Christ. In the first place, it shows the advantage of our free, and social, and equal system of church order. Bunyan's connection with the Baptists, as Mr. Southey remarks, "was eventually most beneficial to him; had it not been for the encouragement which he received from them, he might have lived and died a tinker; for even when he cast off, like a slough, the coarse habits of his early life, his latent powers could never, without some such encouragement and impulse, have broken through the thick ignorance with which they were incrusted."

Bunyan explains the manner in which he was introduced to his earliest exercises in public speaking. "Some," he says, "of the most able among the saints with us, I say, the most able for judgment and holiness

of life, as they conceived, did perceive that God had counted me worthy to understand something of his will in his holy and blessed word; and had given me utterance, in some measure to express what I saw to others for edification. Therefore, they desired me, and that with much earnestness, that I would be willing at some times, to take in hand in one of the meetings, to speak a word of exhortation unto them. The which, though, at the first, it did much dash and abash my spirit, yet being still by them desired and entreated, I consented to their request; and did twice, at two several assemblies (but in private), though with much weakness and infirmity, discover my gift amongst them; at which, they not only seemed to be, but did solemnly protest, as in the sight of the great God, they were both affected and comforted, and gave thanks to the Father of mercies for the grace bestowed on me."

The distinguished success, even of his early attempts, especially in drawing a multitude,-almost all the town coming to hear, and the humility and self-distrust which he evinced, are particularly worthy of notice. Exercising himself there, as occasion offered, he was encouraged by the approbation with which others heard him; and in no long time, "after some solemn prayer, with fasting, he was more particularly called forth, and appointed to a more ordinary and public preaching, not only to and amongst them that believed, but also to offer the gospel to those who had not yet received the faith thereof."

The Bedford meeting had at this time its regular minister, whose name was John Burton, so that what Bunyan received was a commission as an evangelist to itinerate in the villages round about; and in this he was so much employed, that when, in the ensuing year, he was nominated for a deacon of the congregation, they declined electing him to that office, on the ground that he was too much engaged to attend to it. Having, in previous training, overcome his first diffidence, he now "felt in his mind a secret pricking forward" to this ministry; not "for desire of vain glory," for he was even at that time "sorely afflicted" concerning his own eternal state, but because the Scriptures encouraged him, by texts which ran continually in his mind, whereby, "I was made," he says, "to see, that the Holy Ghost never intended that

men who have gifts and abilities should bury them in the earth, but rather did command and stir up such to the exercise of their gifts, and also did command those that were apt and ready so to do."

When he first began to preach, Bunyan endeavored to work upon his hearers by alarming them; he dealt chiefly in comminations, and dwelt upon the doctrine that the curse of God "lays hold on all men as they come into the world because of sin." "This part of my work," says he, "I fulfilled with great sense: for the terrors of the law, and guilt for my transgressions, lay heavy upon my conscience. I preached what I felt,-what I smartingly did feel,-even that under which my poor soul did groan and tremble to astonishment. Indeed, I have been as one sent to them from the dead. I went myself in chains, to preach to them in chains; and carried that fire in my own conscience that I persuaded them to beware of." Subsequently, and when he was in a happier state of mind, he took a different course, "still preaching what he saw and felt;" he then labored "to hold forth our Lord and Saviour, in all his offices, relations and benefits, unto the world; and to remove those false supports and props on which the world doth lean, and by them fall and perish." Preaching, however, was not his only employment, and though still working at his business for a maintenance, he found time to compose a treatise against the heresies which some of the first Quakers advanced in their overflowing enthusiasm. It seems that they came into some of the meetings which Bunyan attended, to bear testimony against the doctrines which were taught there; and this induced him to write his first work, entitled, "Some Gospel Truths opened according to the Scriptures: or the Divine and Human Nature in Christ Jesus; His coming into the world; His Righteousness, Death, Resurrection, Ascension, Intercession, and Second Coming to Judgment plainly demonstrated and proved." Burton prefixed to this treatise a commendatory epistle, bidding the reader not to be offended because the treasure of the gospel was held forth to him in a poor earthen vessel, by one who had neither the greatness nor the wisdom of this world to commend him. "Having had experience," he says, "with many other saints, of this man's soundness in the faith, of his godly conversation, and his

ability to preach the gospel, not by the human art, but by the Spirit of Christ, and that with much success in the conversion of sinners,-I say, having had experience of this, and judging this book may be profitable to many others, as well as to myself, I thought it my duty, upon this account, to bear witness with my brother to the plain and simple, and yet glorious truths of our Lord Jesus Christ."

It was not until a considerably later period that he became the pastor of the church in Bedford. Indeed, it was, as Mr. İvimey justly remarks, a great privilege to him that from the first he belonged to a church where the day of small things was not despised, but encouraged; and where his character was duly appreciated in distinction from his circumstances. No sooner were they satisfied that he was apt to teach, than they called him to the work of the Lord, with due solemnity, by fasting and prayer, and sent him forth to preach wherever the providence of God should open the way for his labors. Mr. Philip remarks, "that such churches did not admit preachers indiscriminately, although they often called forth uneducated men, of whose talents and piety they had 'good experience.' So far were they from countenancing ignorant men, that they subjected their candidates to an ordeal of preaching or expounding before the church, to which the theological examinations of a bishop's chaplain, apart from the Greek and Hebrew of it, is a gentle probation. I do not mean, of course, that they were questioned or tested by the formula; but that they had to approve themselves sound in the faith and mighty in the Scriptures, to a prayerful and thoughtful assembly of men and women, who made the Bible all in all in religion. Assent to a creed did not satisfy these churches. They judged candidates for the ministry by their gift in prayer, and their power in preaching."

The next interesting view which his case presents was, his assiduous endeavor to cultivate the gifts which God had bestowed upon him. Though he was eminently taught of the Spirit of the Lord, he never seems to have given way to that perversion which indolence, pride and presumption are always ready to foster,-that reading and study are needless. He had indeed but narrow privileges, but he made the most of them. Few books, beside