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BUNYAN, JOHN (1628-1688)

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Originally appearing in Volume V04, Page 806 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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BUNYAN, See also:JOHN (1628-1688) , See also:English religious writer, was See also:born at Elstow, about a mile from See also:Bedford, in See also:November 1628. His See also:father, See also:Thomas Bunyan,' was a See also:tinker, or, as he described himself, a " brasier." The tinkers then formed a hereditary See also:caste, which, was held in no high estimation. Bunyan's father had a fixed See also:residence, and was able to send his son to a See also:village school where See also:reading and See also:writing were taught. The years of John's boyhood were those during which the Puritan spirit was in the highest vigour all over See also:England; and nowhere had that spirit more See also:influence than in See also:Bedfordshire. It is not wonderful, therefore, that a lad to whom nature had given a powerful See also:imagination and sensibility which amounted to a disease, should have been See also:early haunted by religious terrors. Before he was ten his See also:sports were interrupted by fits of remorse and despair; and his See also:sleep was disturbed by dreams of fiends trying to See also:fly away with him. As he See also:grew older his See also:mental conflicts became still more violent. The strong See also:language in which he described them strangely misled all his earlier biographers except See also:Southey. It was See also:long an See also:ordinary practice with pious writers to cite Bunyan as an instance of the super-natural See also:power of divine See also:grace to See also:rescue the human soul from the lowest depths of wickedness. He is called in one See also:book the most notorious of profligates; in another, the See also:brand plucked from the burning. Many excellent persons, whose moral See also:character from boyhood to old See also:age has been See also:free from any stain discernible to their See also:fellow-creatures, have, in their autobiographies and diaries, applied to themselves, and doubtless with sincerity, epithets as severe as could be applied to See also:Titus See also:Oates or Mrs Brownrigg. It is quite certain that See also:Banyan was, at eighteen, what, in any but the most austerely puritanical circles, would have been considered as a See also:young See also:man of singular gravity and innocence.

Indeed, it may be remarked that he, like many other penitents who, in See also:

general terms, acknowledge themselves to have been the worst of mankind, fired up, and stood vigorously on his See also:defence, whenever any particular See also:charge was brought against him by others. He declares, it is true, that he had let loose the reins on the See also:neck of his lusts, that he had delighted in all transgressions against the divine See also:law, and that he had been the ringleader of the youth of Elstow in all manner of See also:vice. But when those who wished him See also:ill accused him of licentious amours, he called on See also:God and the angels to attest his purity. No woman, he said, in See also:heaven, See also:earth or See also:hell, could charge him with having ever made any improper advances to her. Not only had he been strictly faithful to his wife; but he had, even before his See also:marriage, been perfectly spotless. It does not appear from his own confessions, or from the railings of his enemies, that he ever was drunk in his See also:life. One See also:bad See also:habit he contracted, that of using profane language; but he tells us that a single reproof cured him so effectually that he never offended again. The worst that can be laid to his charge is that he had a See also:great liking for some diversions, quite harmless in themselves, but condemned by the rigid precisians among whom he lived, and for whose See also:opinion he had a great respect. The four See also:chief sins of which he was guilty were dancing, ringing the bells of the See also:parish See also:church, playing at tipcat and reading the See also:history of See also:Sir Bevis of See also:Southampton. A See also:rector of the school of See also:Laud would have held such a young man up to the whole parish as a See also:model. But Bunyan's notions of See also:good and evil had been learned in a very different school; and he was made miserable by the conflict between his tastes and his scruples. When he was about seventeen the ordinary course of his life was interrupted by an event which gave a lasting See also:colour to his thoughts.

He enlisted in the See also:

Parliamentary See also:army,' and served ' The name, in various forms as Buignon, Buniun, Bonyon or Binyan, appears in the See also:local records of Elstow and the neighbouring parishes at intervals from as far back as 1199. They were small freeholders, but all the See also:property except the cottage had been lost in the See also:time of Bunyan's grandfather. Bunyan's own See also:account of his See also:family as the " meanest and most despised of all the families of the See also:land must be put down to his habitual self-depreciation. Thomas Bunyan had a forge and workshop at Elstow. 2 There is no See also:direct See also:evidence to show on which See also:side he fought, but the See also:balance of See also:probability justifies 64 view.during the decisive See also:campaign of 1645. All that we know of his military career is, that, at the See also:siege of some See also:town,' one of his comrades, who had marched with the besieging army instead of him, was killed by a shot. Bunyan ever after considered himself as having been saved from See also:death by the See also:special interference of See also:Providence. It may be observed that his imagination was strongly impressed by the glimpse which he had caught of the pomp of See also:war. To the last he loved to draw his illustrations of sacred things from camps and fortresses, from guns, drums, trumpets, flags of truce, and regiments arrayed each under its own banner. His Greatheart, his See also:Captain Boanerges and his Captain See also:Credence are evidently portraits, of which the originals were among those See also:martial See also:saints who fought and expounded in See also:Fairfax's army. In 1646 Bunyan returned See also:home and married about two years later. His wife had some pious relations, and brought him as her only portion some pious books.

His mind, excitable by nature, very imperfectly disciplined by See also:

education, and exposed to the See also:enthusiasm which was then epidemic in England, began to be fearfully disordered. The See also:story of the struggle is told in Bunyan's Grace Abounding. In outward things he soon became a strict Pharisee. He was See also:constant in attendance at prayers and sermons. His favourite amusements were, one after another, relinquished, though not without many painful struggles. In the See also:middle of a See also:game at tipcat he paused, and stood staring wildly upwards with his stick in his See also:hand. He had heard a See also:voice asking him whether he would leave his sins and go to heaven, or keep his sins and go to hell; and he had seen an awful countenance frowning on him from the See also:sky. The odious vice of See also:bell-ringing he renounced; but he still for a time ventured to go to the church See also:tower and look on while others pulled the See also:ropes. But soon the thought struck him that, if he persisted in such wickedness, the See also:steeple would fall on his See also:head; and he fled in terror from the accursed See also:place. To give up dancing on the village See also:green was still harder; and some months elapsed before he had the fortitude to See also:part with his See also:darling See also:sin. When this last See also:sacrifice had been made, he was, even when tried by the See also:maxims of that austere time, faultless. All Elstow talked of him as an eminently pious youth.

But his own mind was more unquiet than ever. Having nothing more to do in the way of visible See also:

reformation, yet finding in See also:religion no pleasures to See also:supply the place of the juvenile amusements which he had relinquished, he began to apprehend that he See also:lay under some special malediction; and he was tormented by a See also:succession of fantasies which seemed likely to drive him to See also:suicide or to See also:Bedlam. At one time he took it into his head that all persons of Israelite See also:blood would be saved, and tried to make out that he partook of that blood; but his hopes were speedily destroyed by his father, who seems to have had no ambition to be regarded as a See also:Jew. At another time Bunyan was disturbed by a See also:strange See also:dilemma: " If I have not faith, I am lost; if I have faith, I can See also:work miracles." He was tempted to cry to the puddles between Elstow and Bedford, " Be ye dry," and to stake his eternal hopes on the event. Then he took up a notion that the See also:day of grace for Bedford and the neighbouring_ villages was past; that all who were to be saved in that part of England were already converted; and that he had begun to pray and strive some months too See also:late. Then he was harassed by doubts whether the See also:Turks were not in the right and the Christians in the wrong. Then he was troubled by a maniacal impulse which prompted him to pray to the trees, to a broomstick, to the parish See also:bull. As yet, however, he was only entering the valley of the See also:shadow of death. Soon the darkness grew thicker. Hideous forms floated before him. Sounds of cursing and wailing were in his ears. His way ran through stench and See also:fire, See also:close to the mouth of the bottomless See also:pit.

He began to be haunted by a strange curiosity about the unpardonable sin, and by a morbid longing to commit it. But the most frightful of all the forms which 3 There is no means of identifying the place besieged. It has been assumed to be See also:

Leicester, which was captured by the Royalists in May 1645, and recovered by Fairfax in the next See also:month. his disease took was a propensity to utter See also:blasphemy; and especially to renounce his See also:share in the benefits of the redemption. See also:Night and day, in See also:bed, at table, at work, evil See also:spirits, as he imagined, were repeating close to his See also:ear the words, " Sell him, sell him." He struck at the hobgoblins; he pushed them from him; but still they were ever at his side. He cried out in See also:answer to them, See also:hour after hour, " Never, never; not for thousands of worlds; not for thousands." At length, worn out by this long agony, he suffered the fatal words to See also:escape him, "Let him go if he will." Then his misery became more fearful than ever. He had done what could not be forgiven. He had forfeited his part of the great sacrifice. Like See also:Esau, he had sold his See also:birth-right; and there was no longer any place for repentance. " None," he afterwards wrote, "knows the terrors of those days but myself." He has described his sufferings with singular See also:energy, simplicity and pathos. He envied the brutes; he envied the very stones on the See also:street, and the tiles on the houses. The See also:sun seemed to withhold its See also:light and warmth from him.

His See also:

body, though See also:cast in a sturdy See also:mould, and though scill in the highest vigour of youth, trembled whole days together with the fear of death and See also:judgment. He fancied that this trembling was the sign set on the worst reprobates, the sign which God had put on See also:Cain. The unhappy man's emotion destroyed his power of digestion. He had such pains that he expected to burst asunder like Judas, whom he regarded as his prototype. Neither the books which Bunyan read, nor the advisers whom he consulted, were likely to do much good in a See also:case like his. His small library had received a most unseasonable addition, the account of the lamentable end of See also:Francis Spira. One See also:ancient man of high repute for piety, whom the sufferer consulted, gave an opinion which might well have produced fatal consequences. " I am afraid," said Bunyan, " that I have committed the sin against the See also:Holy See also:Ghost." "Indeed," said the old fanatic, "I am afraid that you have. At length the clouds See also:broke ; the light became clearer and clearer; and the enthusiast who had imagined that he was branded with the See also:mark of the first murderer, and destined to the end of the See also:arch-traitor, enjoyed See also:peace and a cheerful confidence in the See also:mercy of God. Years elapsed, however, before his nerves, which had been so perilously overstrained, recovered their See also:tone. When he had joined a Baptist society at Bedford, and was for the first time admitted to partake of the See also:eucharist, it was with difficulty that he could refrain from imprecating destruction on his brethren while the See also:cup was passing from hand to hand. After he had been some time a member of the See also:congregation he began to preach; and his sermons produced a powerful effect.

He was indeed illiterate; but he spoke to illiterate men. The severe training through which he had passed had given him such an experimental knowledge of all the modes of religious See also:

melancholy as he could never have gathered from books; and his vigorous See also:genius, animated by a fervent spirit of devotion, enabled him not only to exercise a great influence over the vulgar, but even to extort the See also:half-contemptuous admiration of scholars. Yet it was long before he ceased to be tormented by an impulse which urged him to utter words of horrible impiety in the pulpits Bunyan was finally relieved from the See also:internal: sufferings which had embittered his life by See also:sharp persecution from without. He had been five years a preacher when the Restoration put it in the power of the See also:Cavalier gentlemen and clergymen all over the See also:country to oppress the dissenters. In November r66o he was flung into Bedford See also:gaol; and there he remained, with some intervals of partial and See also:precarious See also:liberty, during twelve years. r Bunyan had joined, in 1653, the See also:nonconformist community which met under a certain Mr See also:Gifford at St John's church, Bedford. This congregation was not Baptist; properly so called, as the question of See also:baptism, with other doctrinal points, was See also:left open.. When Bunyan removed to Bedford in 1655, he became a See also:deacon of this church, and two years later he was formally recognized as a preacher, his fame soon spreading through the neighbouring counties. His wife died soon after their removal to Bedford, and he also lost his friend and pastor, Mr Gifford. His earliest work was directed against Quaker See also:mysticism and appeared in 1656. It was entitled Some See also:Gospel Truths Opened; it was followed in the same See also:year by a second See also:tract in the same sense, A Vindication of Gospel Truths. The authorities tried to extort from him a promise that he would abstain from See also:preaching; but he was convinced that he was divinely set apart and commissioned to be a teacher of righteousness, and he was fully determined to obey God rather than man.

He was brought before several tribunals, laughed at, caressed, reviled, menaced, but in vain. He was facetiously told that he was quite right in thinking that he ought not to hide his See also:

gift; but that his real gift was skill in repairing old kettles. He was compared to 'See also:Alexander the coppersmith. He was told that if he would give up preaching he should be instantly liberated. He was warned that if he persisted in disobeying the law he would be liable to banishment, and that if he were found in England after a certain time his neck would be stretched. His answer was, " If you let me out to-day, I will preach again to-morrow." Year after year he lay patiently in a See also:dungeon, compared with which the worst See also:prison now to be found in the See also:island is a See also:palace.' His fortitude is the more extraordinary because his domestic feelings were unusually strong. Indeed, he was considered by his stern brethren as somewhat too fond and indulgent a See also:parent. He had four small See also:children, and among them a daughter who was See also:blind, and whom he loved with See also:peculiar tenderness. He could not, he said, See also:bear even to let the See also:wind See also:blow on her; and now she must suffer See also:cold and See also:hunger; she must beg; she must be beaten; yet," he added, " I must, I must do it." His second wife, whom he had married just before his See also:arrest, tried in vain for his See also:release; she even petitioned the See also:House of Lords on his behalf. While he lay in prison he could do nothing in the way of his old See also:trade for the support of his family. He determined, therefore, to take up a new trade. He learned to make long-tagged See also:thread laces; and many thousands of these articles were furnished by him to the See also:hawkers.

While his hands were thus busied he had other employments for his mind and his lips. He gave religious instruction to his fellow-captives, and formed from among them a little See also:

flock, of which he was himself the pastor. He studied indefatigably the few books which he possessed. His two chief companions were the See also:Bible and See also:Fox's Book of Martyrs. His knowledge of the Bible was such that he might have been called a living See also:concordance; and on the margin of his copy of the Book of Martyrs are still legible the ill-spelt lines of doggerel in which he expressed his reverence for the brave sufferers, and his implacable enmity to the mystical See also:Babylon. Prison life gave him leisure to write, and during' his first imprisonment he wrote, in addition to several tracts and some See also:verse, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, the narrative of his own religious experience. The book was published in 1666. A See also:short See also:period of freedom was followed by a second offence and a further imprisonment. Bunyan's See also:works were coarse, indeed, but they showed a keen See also:mother wit, a great command of the homely mother See also:tongue, an intimate knowledge of the English Bible, and a vast and dearly bought spiritual experience. They therefore, when the corrector of the See also:press had improved the syntax and the spelling, were well received. Much of Bunyan's time was spent in controversy: He wrote sharply against the See also:Quakers, whom he seems always to have held in utter abhorrence. He wrote against the See also:liturgy of the Church of England.

No two things, according to him, had' less See also:

affinity than the See also:form of See also:prayer and the spirit' of prayer. Those, he said with much point, who have most ' of the spirit of prayer are all to be found in gaol; and those who have most zeal for the form of prayer are all to be found at the alehouse. The doctrinal Articles, on the other hand, he warmly praised and defended. The most acrimonious of all his works is his Defence of Justificalion by Faith, an answer to what Bunyan calls " the brutish and beastly latitudinarianism " of See also:Edward See also:Fowler, afterwards See also:bishop of See also:Gloucester, an excellent man, but not free from the taint of Pelagianism. Bunyan had also a dispute with some of the chiefs of the See also:sect to which he belonged. He doubtless held with perfect sincerity 2 He was not, however, as has often been stated, confined in the old gaol which stood on the See also:bridge over the See also:Ouse; but in the See also:county gaol. the distinguishing tenet of that sect, but he did not consider that tenet as one of high importance, and willingly joined in communion with pious Presbyterians and See also:Independents. The sterner See also:Baptists, therefore, loudly pronounced him a false See also:brother. A controversy arose which long survived the See also:original combatants. The cause which Bunyan had defended with See also:rude See also:logic and See also:rhetoric against Kiffin and See also:Danvers has since been pleaded by See also:Robert See also:Hall with an ingenuity and eloquence such as no polemical writer has ever surpassed. During the years which immediately followed the Restoration, Bunyan's confinement seems to have been strict. But as the passions of 166o cooled, as the hatred with which the Puritans had been regarded while their reign was See also:recent gave place to pity, he was less and less harshly treated.

The See also:

distress of his family, and his own See also:patience, courage and piety, softened the See also:hearts of his See also:judges. Like his own See also:Christian in the cage, he found protectors even among the See also:crowd at Vanity See also:Fair. The bishop of the See also:diocese, Dr See also:Barlow, is said to have interceded for him. At length the prisoner was suffered to pass most of his time beyond the walls of the gaol, on See also:condition, as it should seem, that he remained within the town of Bedford. He owed his See also:complete liberation to one of the worst acts of one of the worst governments that England has ever seen. In 1671 the See also:Cabal was in power. See also:Charles II. had concluded the treaty by which he See also:bound himself to set up the See also:Roman See also:Catholic religion in England. The first step which he took towards that end was to annul, by an unconstitutional exercise of his See also:prerogative, all the penal statutes against the Roman Catholics; and in See also:order to disguise his real See also:design, he annulled at the same time the penal statutes against See also:Protestant nonconformists. Bunyan was consequently set at large.i In the first warmth of his gratitude he published a tract, in which he compared Charles to that humane and generous See also:Persian See also:king, who, though not himself blest with the. light of the true religion, favoured the chosen See also:people, and,permitted them, after years of captivity, to rebuild their beloved See also:temple. Before he left his prison he had begun the book which has made his name immortal.2 The history of that book is remark-able. The author was, as he tells us, writing a See also:treatise, in which he had occasion to speak of the stages of the Christian progress. He compared that progress, as many others had compared it, to a pilgriinage.

Soon his See also:

quick wit discovered innumerable points of similarity which had escaped his predecessors. Images came'crowding on his mind faster than he could put them into words, quagmires and pits, steep hills, dark and horrible glens, soft vales, sunny pastures; a gloomy See also:castle, of which the courtyard was strewn with the skulls and bones of murdered prisoners, a town all bustle and splendour, like See also:London on the See also:Lord See also:Mayor's Day, and the narrow path, straight as a See also:rule could make it, See also:running on up See also:hill and down hill, through See also:city and through See also:wilderness, to the See also:Black See also:River and the Shining See also:Gate. He had found out, as most people would have said, by See also:accident, as he would doubtless have said, by the guidance of Providence, where his See also:powers lay. He had no suspicion, indeed, that he was producing a masterpiece He could not guess what place his See also:allegory would occupy in English literature; for of English literature he knew nothing. Those who suppose him to have studied the Faery See also:Queen might easily be confuted, if this were the proper place for a detailed examination of the passages in which the two allegories have been thought to resemble each other. The only work of fiction, in all probability, with which he could compare his See also:Pilgrim was his old favourite, the See also:legend of Sir Bevis of Southampton. He would have thought it a sin to See also:borrow any time from the serious business of his life, from his expositions; 1 His formal See also:pardon is dated the 13th of See also:September 1672; but five months earlier he had received a royal See also:licence to preach, and acted for the next three years as pastor of the nonconformist body to which he belonged, in a See also:barn on the site of which stands the See also:present Bunyan See also:Meeting. It is now generally supposed that Bunyan wrote his Pilgrim's Progress, not during his twelve years' imprisonment, but during a short period of'inearceration in 1675, probably in the old gaol on the bridge:his controversies and his See also:lace tags, for the purpose of amusing himself with what he considered merely as a trifle. It was only, he assures us, at spare moments that he returned to the House Beautiful, the Delectable Mountains and the Enchanted Ground. He had no assistance. Nobody but himself saw a See also:line till the. whole was complete.. He then consulted his pious See also:friends.

Some were pleased. Others were much scandalized. It was a vain story, a See also:

mere See also:romance, about giants, and lions, and goblins, and warriors,. sometimes fighting with monsters, and sometimes regaled by fair ladies in stately palaces. The loose atheistical wits at Will's might write such stuff to divert the painted Jezebels of the See also:court; but did it become a See also:minister of the gospel to copy the evil fashions of the See also:world? There had been a time when the cant of such See also:fools would have made Bunyan miserable. But that time. was past; and his mind was now in a See also:firm and healthy See also:state, He saw that in employing fiction to make truth clear and goodness attractive, he was only following the example which every Christian ought to propose to himself; and he determined to See also:print. The Pilgrim's Progress was published in See also:February 1678. Soon the irresistible See also:charm of a book which gratified the imagination of the reader with all the See also:action and scenery of a See also:fairy See also:tale, which exercised his ingenuity by setting him to discover a multitude of curious analogies, which interested his feelings for human beings, frail like himself, and struggling with temptations from within and from without, which every moment See also:drew a smile from him by some stroke of See also:quaint yet See also:simple pleasantry, and nevertheless left on his mind a sentiment of reverence for God and of sympathy for man, began to produce its effect. In puritanical circles, from which plays and novels were strictly excluded, that effect was such as no work of genius, though it were See also:superior to the Iliad, to See also:Don Quixote or to Othello, can ever produce on a mind accustomed to indulge in See also:literary luxury. A second edition came out in the autumn with additions; and the demand became immense. The eighth edition, which contains the last improvements made by the author, was published in 1682, the ninth in 1684, the tenth in 1685. The help of the engraver had early been called in; and tens of thousands of children looked with terror and delight on execrable copperplates, which represented Christian thrusting his See also:sword into See also:Apollyon, or writhing in the grasp of See also:Giant Despair.

In See also:

Scotland, and in some of the colonies, the Pilgrim was even more popular than in his native country. Bunyan has told us, with very pardonable vanity, that in New England his See also:dream was the daily subject of the conversation of thousands, and was thought worthy to appear in the most superb binding. He had numerous admirers in See also:Holland, and amongst the See also:Huguenots of See also:France. He continued to work the See also:gold-See also:field which he had discovered, and to draw from it new treasures, not indeed with quite such, ease and in quite such abundance as when the See also:precious See also:soil was still virgin, but yet with success, which left all competition far behind. In 168o appeared the Life and Death of Mr Badman; in 1684 the second part of the Pilgrim's Progress. In x682 appeared the Holy War, which if the Pilgrim's Progress did not exist, would be the best allegory that ever was written. Bunyan's place in society was now very different from what it had been, There had been a time when many dissenting ministers, who could talk Latin and read See also:Greek, had affected to treat him with scorn. But his fame and influence now fa) exceeded theirs. He had so great an authority among the Baptists that he was popularly called Bishop Bunyan. His episcopal visitations were See also:annual. From Bedford he rode every year to London, and preached there to large and attentive congregations. From London he went his See also:circuit through. the country, animating the zeal of his brethren, See also:collecting and distributing See also:alms and making up quarrels.

The magistrates seem in general to have given him little trouble. But there is See also:

reason to believe that, in the year 1685, he was in some danger of again occupying his old quarters in Bedford gaol. In that year the rash and wicked enterprise of See also:Monmouth gave the See also:government a pretext for prosecuting the nonconformists; and scarcely one eminent divine of the Presbyterian, See also:Independent or Baptist persuasion remained unmolested. See also:Baxter was in prison: See also:Howe was driven into See also:exile: See also:Henry was arrested. Two eminent Baptists, with whom Bunyan had been engaged in controversy, were in great peril and distress. Danvers was in danger of being hanged and Kiffin's grandsons were actually hanged. The tradition is that, during those evil days, Bunyan was forced to disguise himself as a wagoner, and that he preached to his congregation at Bedford in a smock-See also:frock, with a See also:cart-See also:whip in his hand. But soon a great See also:change took place. See also:James II. was at open war with the church, and found it necessary to court the dissenters. Some of the creatures of the government tried to secure the aid of Bunyan. They probably knew that he had written in praise of the See also:indulgence of 1672, and therefore hoped that he might be equally pleased with the indulgence of 1687. But fifteen years of thought, observation and See also:commerce with the world had made him wiser.

Nor were the cases exactly parallel. Charles was a professed Protestant; James was a professed Papist. The See also:

object of Charles's indulgence was disguised; the object of James's indulgence was patent. Bunyan was not deceived. He exhorted his hearers to prepare themselves by See also:fasting and prayer for the danger which menaced their See also:civil and religious liberties, and refused even to speak to the courtier who came down to remodel the See also:corporation of Bedford, and who, as was supposed, had it in charge to offer some municipal dignity to the bishop of the Baptists. Bunyan did not live to see the Revolution.' In the summer of 1688 he undertook to plead the cause of a son with an angry father, and at length prevailed on the old man not to disinherit the young one. This good work cost the benevolent intercessor his life. He had to ride through heavy See also:rain. He came drenched to his lodgings on See also:Snow Hill, was seized with a violent See also:fever, and died in a few days (See also:August 31). He was buried in Bunhill See also:Fields; and many Puritans, to whom the respect paid by Roman Catholics to the reliques and tombs of saints seemed childish or sinful, are said to have begged with their dying breath that their coffins might be placed as near as possible to the See also:coffin of the author of the Pilgrim's Progress. The fame of Bunyan during his life, and during the See also:century which followed his death, was indeed great, but was almost entirely confined to religious families of the middle and See also:lower classes. Very seldom was he during that time mentioned with respect by any writer of great literary See also:eminence.

Young coupled his See also:

prose with the See also:poetry of the wretched D'Urfey. In the Spiritual Quixote, the adventures of Christian are ranked with those of See also:Jack the Giant-Killer and John Hickathrift. See also:Cowper ventured to praise the great allegorist, but did not venture to name him. It is a significant circumstance that, for a long time all the numerous See also:editions of the Pilgrim's Progress were evidently meant for the cottage and the servants' hall. The See also:paper, the See also:printing, the plates, were all of the meanest.description. In general, when the educated minority and the See also:common people differ about the merit of a book, the opinion of the educated minority finally prevails. The Pilgrim's Progress is perhaps the only book about which the educated minority has come over to the opinion of the common people. The attempts which have been made to improve and to imitate this book are not to be numbered. It has been done into verse; it has been done into See also:modern English. The Pilgrim-age of See also:Tender See also:Conscience, the See also:Pilgrimage of Good See also:Intent, the Pilgrimage of Seek Truth, the Pilgrimage of See also:Theophilus, the See also:Infant Pilgrim, the Hindoo Pilgrim, are among the many feeble copies of the great original. But the peculiar See also:glory of Bunyan is that those who most hated his doctrines have tried to borrow the help of his genius. A Catholic version of his See also:parable may be seen with the head of the virgin in the See also:title-See also:page.

On the other hand, those See also:

Antinomians for whom his Calvinism is not strong enough, may study the Pilgrimage of Hephzibah, in which ' He had resumed his pastorate in Bedford after his imprisonment of 1675, and, although he frequently preached in London to crowded congregations, and is said in the last year of his life to have been, of course unofficially, See also:chaplain to Sir John Shorter, lord mayor of London, he remained faithful to his own congregation. nothing will be found which can be construed into an See also:admission of free agency and universal redemption. But the most extra-ordinary of all the acts of Vandalism by which a See also:fine work of See also:art was ever defaced was committed in the year 1853. It was determined to transform the Pilgrim's Progress into a Tractarian book. The task was not easy; for it was necessary to make two sacraments the most prominent See also:objects in the allegory, and of all Christian theologians, avowed Quakers excepted, Bunyan was the one in whose See also:system the sacraments held the least prominent place. However, the Wicket Gate became a type of baptism, and the House Beautiful of the eucharist. The effect of this change is such as assuredly the ingenious See also:person who made it never contemplated. For, as not a single pilgrim passes through the Wicket Gate in See also:infancy, and as Faithful hurries past the House Beautiful without stopping, the See also:lesson which the See also:fable in its altered shape teaches, is that none but adults ought to be baptized, and that the eucharist may safely be neglected. Nobody would have discovered from the original Pilgrim's Progress that the author was not a Paedobaptist. To turn his book into a book against Paedobaptism, was an achievement reserved for an Anglo-Catholic divine. Such blunders must necessarily be committed by every man who mutilates parts of" a great work, without taking a comprehensive view of, the whole. (M.) The above See also:article has been slightly corrected as to facts, as compared with its form in the 9th edition.

Bunyan's works were first partially collected in a See also:

folio See also:volume (1692) by his friend Charles Doe. A larger edition (2 vols., 1736–1737) was edited by See also:Samuel See also:Wilson of the See also:Barbican. In 1853 a good edition (3 vols., See also:Glasgow) was produced by See also:George Offer. Southey's edition (183o) of the Pilgrim's Progress contained his Life of Bunyan. Since then various editions of the Pilgrim's Progress, many illustrated (by See also:Cruikshank, Byam See also:Shaw, W. See also:Strang and others), have appeared. An interestin4 life by " the author of Mark See also:Rutherford " (W. See also:Hale See also:White) was published in 1904. Other lives are by J. A. See also:Froude (188o) in the " English Men of Letters " See also:series, and E. Venables (1888); but the See also:standard work on the subject is John Bunyan; his Life, Times and Work (1885), by the Rev.

J. See also:

Brown of Bedford. A See also:bronze statue, by See also:Boehm, was presented to the town by the See also:duke of Bedford in 1874.

End of Article: BUNYAN, JOHN (1628-1688)

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