called them, how would I have cried, O Lord, call me also.  But oh! I feared he would not call me.’”

There was at that time a minister in Bedford whose history was almost as remarkable as Bunyan’s own.  His name was Gifford.  He had been a staunch royalist, and concerned in the rising in Kent.  He was arrested, and, with eleven of his comrades, was doomed to die.  The night before the day fixed for his execution his sister came to visit him.  She found the guard asleep, and, with her assistance, the prisoner effected his escape.  For three days he was hid in a field, in the bottom of a deep ditch; but at last he contrived to get away to a place of safety in the neighbourhood of Bedford.  Being there a perfect stranger, he ventured on the practice of physic; but he was still abandoned to reckless habits and outrageous vice.  One evening he lost a large sum of money at the gaming-table, and in the fierceness of his chagrin his mind was filled with the most desperate thoughts of the providence of God.  In his vexation he snatched up a book.  It was a volume of Bolton, a solemn and forceful writer then well known.  A sentence in this book so fixed on his conscience that for many weeks he could get no rest in his spirit.  When at last he found forgiveness through the blood of Christ, his joy was extreme, and, except for two days before his death, he never lost the comfortable persuasion of God’s love.  For some time the few pious individuals in that neighbourhood would not believe that such a reprobate was really converted; but, nothing daunted by their distrust, like his prototype of Tarsus, he began to preach the Word with boldness, and, endowed with a vigorous mind and a fervent spirit, remarkable success attended his ministry.  A little church was formed, and he was invited to become its pastor; and there he continued till he died. [11]  It was to this Mr Gifford that Bunyan was at this time introduced; and though the conversations of this “Evangelist” brought him no immediate comfort, it was well for him to enjoy the friendship and sympathy of one whose own views were so clear and happy.

It is instructive to find, that, amid all the depression of these anxious days, it was not any one sin, nor any particular class of sins, which made him so fearful and unhappy.  He felt that he was a sinner, and as a sinner he wanted a perfect righteousness to present him faultless before God.  This righteousness, he also knew, was nowhere to be found except in the person of Jesus Christ.  “My original and inward pollution,—that was my plague and affliction.  That I saw at a dreadful rate, always putting forth itself within me,—that I had the guilt of to amazement; by reason of that I was more loathsome in mine own eyes than a toad; and I thought I was so in God’s eyes too.  Sin and corruption, I said, would as naturally bubble out of my heart as water would out of a fountain.  I thought now that every one had a better heart than I had.  I could have changed hearts with any body.  I thought none but the devil himself could equalize me for inward wickedness and pollution of mind.  I fell, therefore, at the sight of my own vileness, deeply into despair; for I concluded that this condition that I was in could not stand with a state of grace.  Sure, thought I, I am forsaken of God; sure I am given up to the devil and a reprobate mind.  And thus I continued a long while, even for some years together.”

During these painful apprehensions regarding his own state, it is no marvel that he looked on secular things with an apathetic eye.  “While thus afflicted with the fears of my own damnation, there were two things would make me wonder: the one was, when I saw old people hunting after the things of this life, as if they should live here always; the other was, when I found professors much distressed and cast down when they met with outward losses, as of husband, wife, child, &c.  Lord, thought I, what a-do is here about such little things as these!  What seeking after carnal things by some, and what grief in others for the loss of them!  If they so much labour after, and shied so many tears for the things of this present life, how am I to be bemoaned, pitied, and prayed for!  My soul is dying, my soul is damning.  Were my soul but in a good condition, and were I but sure of it, ah! how rich would I esteem myself, though blessed but with bread and water!  I should count those but small afflictions, and bear them as little burdens.  A wounded spirit who can bear?”

This long interval of gloom was at last relieved by a brief sunburst of joy.  He heard a sermon on the text, “Behold, thou art fair, my love;” in which the preacher said, that a ransomed soul is precious to the Saviour, even when it appears very worthless to itself,—that Christ loves it when tempted, assaulted, afflicted, and mourning under the hiding of God’s countenance.  Bunyan went home musing on the words, till the truth of what the preacher said began to force itself upon his mind; and half incredulous at first, a hesitating hope dawned in upon his spirit.  “Then I began to give place to the word, which, with power, did over and over make this joyful sound within my soul—“Thou art my love, thou art my love; and nothing shall separate thee from my love.”  And with that my heart was filled full of comfort and hope; and now I could believe that my sins should be forgiven me: yea, I was now so taken with the love and mercy of God, that I remember I could not tell how to contain till I got home.  I thought I could have spoken of his love, and have told of his mercy to me, even to the very crows that sat upon the ploughed lands before me, had they been capable to have understood me.  Wherefore, I said in my soul, with much gladness, Well, I would I had pen and ink here.  I would write this down before I go any farther; for surely I will not forget this forty years hence.”

However, as he himself remarks, in less than forty days he had forgotten it all.  A flood of new and fierce temptations broke over him, and had it not been for a strong sustaining arm which unseen upheld him, his soul must have sunk in the deep and angry waters.  At one time he was almost overwhelmed in a hurricane of blasphemous suggestions, and at another time his faith had wellnigh made shipwreck on the shoals of infidelity or deliberate atheism.  But the very reluctance and dismay of his spirit showed that a new nature was in him.  “I often, when these temptations have been with force upon me, did compare myself to the case of such a child whom some gipsy hath by force took up in her arms, and is carrying from friend and country; kick sometimes I did, and also shriek and cry; but yet I was bound in the wings of the temptation, and the wind would carry me away.”  It was all that he could do to refrain from articulating such words as he imagined would amount to the sin against the Holy Ghost; and for a year together he was haunted with such diabolical suggestions that he was weary of his life, and fain would have changed condition with a horse or a dog.  During this dreary term it is no wonder that his heart felt hard.  “Though he should have given a thousand pounds for a tear, he could not shed one; and often he had not even the desire to shed one.”  Every ordinance was an affliction.  He could not listen to a sermon, or take up a religious book, but a crowd of wild and horrid fancies rushed in betwixt the subject and his bewildered mind, he could not assume the attitude of prayer but he felt impelled to break off, almost as if some one had been pulling him away; or, to mar his devotion, some ridiculous object was sure to be presented to his fancy.  It is not surprising that he should have concluded that he was possessed by the devil; and it is scarcely possible to peruse his own and similar recitals without the