hearing the Gospel, some for preaching it. He had, it is said, the experience of some cruel and oppressive jailors, though others were very kind to him. Twelve years of imprisonment are long to bear,

Long years, it tries the thrilling frame to bear,

and for six or seven of those it has been said that there is no reason to believe that he ever was permitted to set his foot outside the rocky threshold. Perhaps he had died, says the continuation of his own life, which is supposed to have been written by a brother Baptist minister intimately acquainted with him—perhaps he had died, by the noisomeness and ill usage of the place, had not his enlargement been procured from his hard and unreasonable sufferings. Unable to pursue the honest trade at which he had always hitherto wrought for the support of his family, he now learned, assisted, doubtless, by them, to make tagged thread laces, by the sale of which they might procure what must have been, at best, a scanty subsistence. A beloved wife and four children were dependent upon him, and were permitted at times to visit him; and that dear blind child, in regard to whom he has, in so artless and affecting a manner, related the trial of his feelings, was permitted to abide with him through the day, a solace to his heart, a companion in his work, and one to whom he could talk as artlessly as to his own soul; their conversation must have been often as the prattle of two children, for Bunyan had in him the freshness and simplicity of childhood, even in riper years; a mark of genius,

which a great and profound writer has pointed out as one of its most precious and undoubted characteristics.

Now let us enter his little cell. He is sitting at his table, to finish by sunlight the day's work, for the livelihood of his dear family, which they have prepared for him. On a little stool his poor blind child sits by him, and with that expression of cheerful resignation, with which God seals the countenance when he takes away the sight, the daughter turns her face up to her father, as if she could see the affectionate expression with which he looks upon her, and prattles to her. On the table and in the grated window there are three books, the Bible, the Concordance, and Bunyan's precious old copy of the Book of Martyrs. And now the day is waning, and his dear blind child must go home with the laces he has finished, to her mother. And now Bunyan opens his Bible, and reads aloud a portion of scripture to his little one, and then encircling her in his arms, and clasping her small hands in his, he kneels down on the cold stone floor, and pours out his soul in prayer to God for the salvation of those so inexpressibly dear to him, and for whom he has been all day working. So daily he prays for them and for her, and daily he prays with her, and teaches his blind child to pray. This done, with a parting kiss he dismisses her to her mother, by the rough hands of the jailor.

And now it is evening. A rude lamp glimmers darkly on the table, the tagged laces are laid aside, and Bunyan, alone, is busy with his Bible, the

Concordance, and his pen, ink, and paper. He writes as though joy did make him write. His pale, worn countenance is lighted with a fire, as if reflected from the radiant jasper walls of the Celestial City. He writes, and smiles, and clasps his hands, and looks upward, and blesses God for his goodness, and then again turns to his writing, and then again becomes so entranced with a passage of scripture, the glory of which the Holy Spirit lets in upon his soul, that he is forced, as it were, to lay aside all his labors, and give himself to the sweet work of his closing evening's devotions. The last you see of him for the night, he is alone, kneeling on the floor of his prison; he is alone, with God.

Hear him when he speaks of the blessedness he thus enjoyed: "I never had, in all my life, so great an inlet into the word of God, as now. Those scriptures that I saw nothing in before, are made, in this place and state, to shine upon me. Sometimes, when I have been in the savor of them, I have been able to laugh at destruction, and to fear neither the horse nor his rider. I have had sweet sights of the forgiveness of my sins in this place, and of my being with Jesus in another world. O, the Mount Sion, the heavenly Jerusalem, the innumerable company of angels, and God, the Judge of all, and the spirits of just men made perfect, and Jesus, have been sweet to me in this place! I have seen that here, which I am persuaded I shall never, in this world, be able to express. I have seen a truth in this Scripture, Whom, having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see

him not, yet, believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.'"

And where, and by whom, and for what, is this man imprisoned? In a Christian land, by an Established Church, for preaching the Gospel to the poor, the ignorant, the destitute, and for not praying with a Common Prayer Book! For this a heavencommissioned minister of Jesus Christ languishes twelve years in prison! For this he is kneeling on the cold stone floor of a narrow cell, in secret with his God, because he chose, without a commission from the government, to worship God in public, and to lead the devotions of others, by the Scriptures merely, without the liturgical form imposed, by the State, upon the conscience. Yes! astounding as the fact may seem, John Bunyan is shut up within iron bars and stone walls, as men would shut up a wild beast or a murderer, because he would pray without a Common Prayer Book! The only paralbe found in the

lel instance of persecution is to

case of Daniel, thrown by an oriental despot into the lions' den, for praying to God without the State liturgy. The cases are strikingly similar, the concoction of bigotry very much the same. All the presidents of the kingdom, the governors and the princes, the counsellors and the captains, had consulted together to establish a royal statute, and to make a firm decree, that whosoever shall ask a petition of any god or man for thirty days, save of thee, O King, he shall be cast into the den of lions. Then Daniel, with his windows open towards Jerusalem, eschewing the king's liturgy, kneeled upon his knees without it, three times a

day, and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime. Then these men assembled, and found Daniel praying and making supplications before his God; so they hasted with their accusation, and under the king's royal signet, caused Daniel to be thrown into the den of lions, because they found him praying and making supplications before his God.

And so did the sheriffs to Bunyan; they found him praying without the Common Prayer Book, in a place not permitted by the decree of the king; they found him with the Bible in his hand, worshipping God in a conventicle, and forthwith, according to the king's decree, they threw him into prison, to remain there, for no crime whatever, twelve years, as a common malefactor! But they were years of mercy, comfort, glory. He has himself given some account of his own blessedness in this tribulation. 66 Many more of the dealings of God towards me," says he, "I might relate, but these, out of the spoils won in battle, have I dedicated to maintain the house of God."

And now we will turn to another scene during the same period, in the city of London. It is in the midst of the plague. The grass is growing in the streets. The red cross is marked upon the houses, the dead-cart is moving from street to street, with its melancholy bell, and the hoarse wailing cry of the grave's-man reverberates through the deserted passages, Bring out your dead! The pulpits have been forsaken of the established clergy, but holy men of God, persecuted of the Church and State,