THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS FROM THIS WORLD TO THAT WHICH IS TO COME. DELIVERED UNDER THE SIMILITUDE of a DREAM. BY JOHN BUNYAN. Part First. WHEREIN IS DISCOVERED THE MANNER OF HIS SETTING OUT, HIS DANGEROUS JOURNEY, AND SAFE ARRIVAL AT THE DESIRED COUNTRY. UNIVERSITY CALIFORNIA INTRODUCTION. His father was a poor JOHN BUNYAN, the writer of "The Pilgrim's Progress," was born at Elstow, a small village a mile south of Bedford, England, in 1628. tinker, but sent him to school till he could read and write. bad companions, with whom he would lie and swear; but his conscience often reproved him, and he was frightened in his sleep with terrible dreams, and in his waking hours he had anticipations of future judgment. His own simple and pathetic account of his turning from wickedness is worth reading : "One day I was standing at a neighbor's shop window, cursing and playing the madman; there sat within the woman of the house, who, though she was a very ungodly wretch, protested that she trembled to hear me, and that I, by thus doing, was able to spoil all the youth in the town if they came into my company. At this reproof I was silenced. I wished with all my heart that I might be a little child again, that my father might learn me to speak without this wicked way of swearing. And from this time forward I left my swearing; and whereas before I knew not how to speak unless I put an oath before and another behind, to make my words have authority, now I could, without an oath, speak better and with more pleasantness than ever I could before." Bunyan had, after this, many grievous temptations, but he was greatly helped, by God's grace, under the teaching of Mr. Gifford, a Baptist, at Bedford. Bunyan was immersed about 1655; the traditional place of his immersion is in a small stream near Bedford Bridge. After he had been about five or six years awakened, he was induced to speak at some of the country meetings, and at last he was particularly called to the ordinary preaching of the word at Bedford; and he was diligent in going round the neighboring villages, so as by some, in a jeering way, to be called Bishop Bunyan. He had been a preacher about five years when he was arrested (November 12, 1660) at a meeting in the country, and subsequently tried as an upholder of conventicles. He was sentenced to perpetual banishment, because he refused to conform to the Church, and he was confined in Bedford jail more than twelve years. The Bishop of Lincoln, Dr. Thomas Barlow, and other churchmen, moved by Bunyan's sufferings and patience, so stood his friends as to procure his enlargement in 1672. In prison he made many hundred gross of long-tagged laces, and wrote his famous book, the delight of young and old, "The Pilgrim's Progress." His library there was the Bible, and Fox's "Book of Martyrs." Bunyan's popularity was great; when he preached in London, about twelve hundred attended a morning lecture on a week day in the winter, at seven o'clock, and on the Lord's Day about three thousand, so that he was almost pulled over people to get into the pulpit. He took great care to visit the sick. Returning to London from a journey, being overtaken with excessive rains, and extremely wet, he fell sick of a violent fever at the house of a friend, where, after ten days' illness, he died, August 12, or, according to another account, August 31, 1688, and was buried in Bunhill Fields. Bunyan appeared in countenance to be of a stern and rough temper, but in his conversation mild and affable; not given to much discourse in company, unless some urgent occasion required it. He was free from boasting. He abhorred lying and swearing. He was righteous and charitable. He had a sharp, quick eye, was an excellent discerner of persons, of good judgment, and quick wit. He was tall of stature, strong-boned, though not corpulent; somewhat of a ruddy face; with sparkling eyes; wearing his hair on his upper lip, after the old British fashion; his hair reddish, and, in his latter days, sprinkled with gray; his nose well set, but not declining or bending; his mouth moderately large, his forehead something high, his dress plain. He is said to have written at least sixty books, but he is chiefly known by his great allegory, "The Pilgrim's Progress." "This is the highest miracle of genius," says Lord Macaulay, "that the imaginations of one mind should become the personal recollections of another: and this miracle the tinker has wrought. There is no ascent, no declivity, no resting-place, no turnstile, with which we are not perfectly acquainted." This is well said; and it is true. "The Pilgrim's Progress" is one of the best known books of human origin. It is a household book. Men love to retrace the steps of the journey, to revisit the familiar scenes of the wondrous Pilgrimage, and to live over again the experiences of the Pilgrim. The Dreamer rests himself in his dreary prison-house, and, as he sleeps, he sees the outline of a Vision. And whether it be in his sleeping or his waking moments, it is true that Heaven hath somehow drawn aside the veil, and revealed those grand and glorious sights which reach so near to the things that "eye hath not seen," permitting the far-sighted man to look "Through golden vistas into Heaven." 中 THE AUTHOR'S APOLOGY FOR HIS BOOK. WHEN at the first I took my pen in hand To make another; which, when almost done, And thus it was: I, writing of the way About their journey, and the way to glory, Like sparks that from the coals of fire do fly. Well, so I did; but yet I did not think Neither did I but vacant seasons spend And quickly had my thoughts in black and white. For length and breadth, the bigness which you see. Now was I in a strait, and did not see For, thought I, some, I see, would have it done, I further thought, if now I did deny For those which were not for its coming forth, I said to them, Offend you I am loath; If that thou wilt not read, let it alone; May I not write in such a style as this? none, Yea, dark or bright, if they their silver drops You see the ways the fisherman doth take How does the fowler seek to catch his game By divers means! all which one cannot name : His guns, his nets, his lime-twigs, light, and bell; He creeps, he goes, he stands; yea, who can tell Of all his postures? Yet there 's none of these Will make him master of what fowls he please. |