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INTRODUCTION.

Two centuries ago, John Bunyan was a prisoner in Bedford jail, in England, for preaching the Gospel according to the dictates of his conscience, being a dissenter from the established church. He was committed to jail in 1660, and was a prisoner for more than twelve years. While there, he penned several religious works, which were afterward published. While thus shut out from the world, like John the Revelator, on the isle of Patmos, the immortal allegory of the "Pilgrim's Progress" was conceived (may we not say) in the inspired mind of the Author, and probably mostly written, before he was liberated from prison.

For nearly a century, this remarkable work remained in comparative obscurity, being considered rather beneath the notice of the literati of that age. It was, however, popular among the moral and religious part of the common people, the same class of old who "heard gladly" the words of the Divine Teacher. In more modern times, when the learned and polished wished to ascertain the cause why a book "written by a tinker" could continue to be so popular among so large a class of people, they discovered that John Bunyan, with all his want of learning, together with his roughness of style, was indeed "a child of genius and providence, a writer of striking originality and power."

The Pilgrim's Progress has been published in every variety of form-some of the editions with all the attractions which art or taste could impart and it has found a place in the libraries and drawing-rooms of lords and nobles. "It has been read with avidity wherever the English language is spoken, and has been translated into more than thirty languages-an honor paid to no other book,

the Book of God alone excepted." Although two centuries have nearly passed since it was first issued, the work now stands higher in the public estimation than at any former period, and there is every reason to believe that it will be read with admiration and advantage until the consummation of all things.

The secret of Bunyan's charm is the strong human interest which he gives to his characters. Dr. Franklin remarks that "Honest John Bunyan is the first who has mingled narrative and dialogue together a mode of writing very engaging to the reader, who, in the most interesting passages, finds himself admitted, as it were, into the company, and present at the conversation."

"The happy idea," says James Montgomery, "of representing his story under the similitude of a dream, enabled him to portray, with all the liveliness of reality, the scenes which passed before him. It makes the reader himself, like the author, a spectator of all that occurs, thus giving him a personal interest in the events, an individual sympathy for the actors and sufferers."

Robert Southey, the poet-laureate, the high-church advocate, the apologist of persecution, describes the "Pilgrim's Progress" as a "book which makes its way through the fancy to the understanding and the heart. The child pursues it with wonder and delight; in youth we discover the genius it displays; its worth is apprehended as we advance in years; and we perceive its merits feelingly in declining age."

The estimate of Coleridge is remarkable. He says: "This wonderful work is one of the very few books which may be read over repeatedly at different times, and each time with new and different pleasure. I read it once as a theologian-and let me assure you that there is a great theological acumen in the work-once with devotional feelings, and once as a poet. I know of no book, the Bible excepted, as above all comparison, which I, according to my judgment and experience could so safely recommend as teaching and enforcing the whole saving truth, according to the mind that was in Jesus Christ, as the "Pilgrim's Progress. It is, in my conviction, incomparably the best summa theologa evangelicæ ever produced by a writer not miraculously inspired. I hold John Bunyan to be a man of incomparably greater genius than any of them (the divines), and to have given a far more edifying picture of Christianity. His "Pilgrim's Progress" seems to be a complete reflection of Scripture, with none of the rubbish of theologians mixed up with it. I have been always struck by its piety; I am now,

having read it through again, after a long interval, struck equally, or even more, by its profound wisdom."

Macauley places the shrine of Bunyan next to that of Milton, in his hero worship. In his review of "Southey's Life of Bunyan," he says: "The characteristic peculiarity of the "Pilgrim's Progress" is, that it is the only work of its kind which possesses a strong human interest. Other allegories only amuse the fancy. It is not so with the "Pilgrim's Progress. That wonderful book, while it obtains. admiration from the most fastidious critics, is loved by those who are too simple to admire it. In the wildest parts of Scotland it is the delight of the peasantry. In every nursery the "Pilgrim's Progress" is a greater favorite than "Jack the Giant Killer." Every reader knows the strait and narrow path as well as he knows the road in which he has gone backward and forward a hundred times. This is the highest miracle of genius-that things which are not, should be as though they were-that the imaginations of one mind should become the personal recollections of another; and this miracle the tinker has wrought. The style of Bunyan is delightful to every reader, and invaluable, as a study, to every person who wishes to obtain a wide command over the English language. The vocabu lary is the vocabulary of the common people. For magnificence, for pathos, for vehement exhortations, for subtle disquisitions, for every purpose of the poet, the orator, and the divine, this homely dialect, the dialect of plain working men, was perfectly sufficient. Though there were many clever men in. England during the latter half of the seventeenth century, there were only two great creative minds: one of those minds produced the "Paradise Lost," the other the "Pilgrim's Progress!" Other allegorists have shown great ingenuity, but no other allegorists have ever been able to touch the heart, and to make abstractions objects of terror, of piety, and of love."

Elstow is one mile from the outskirts of Bedford. There are no houses on the route between the villages. The country is open and generally level, having very much the appearance of the better portion of our northern Atlantic States, excepting, of course, the hedgerows on each side of the road, which were so thick-set, that in many places one could hardly see into the fields adjoining the road.

As I entered the village, I was quite struck with the appearance of a man tinkering in the narrow street, nearly opposite the small house seen in the central part of the engraving. This house, I was afterward informed, was the one in which John Bunyan was bor,

and where he lived, and, in all probability, worked at the same business, on or near the same spot, two centuries before. The accompanying view shows the southern extremity of the village as it

[graphic]

ELSTOW, THE BIRTH-PLACE OF JOHN BUNYAN.

Drawn by the Author, when on a visit to this place several years since.

is entered on the Bedford road. The hawthorn hedges appear on each side of the road, and the thatched-roofed cottages next. The Bunyan house is the smallest in the view, and has two windows in its roof. By the very ancient appearance of the houses and surroundings, I should judge there had been no material alteration in the appearance of the village since the time that Bunyan lived in it, two centuries since. Even the dress of some of the inhabitants appeared quite antiquated, and judging from some language which I heard while in the village, the morality of the inhabitants remained at the same standard as in the days of Bunyan.

Having made some inquiries of an aged and respectable inhabitant, who had always lived within a few rods of the Bunyan house, he kindly offered his services in conducting me to the localities in

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