Life of Bunyan | Page 4

after the elaborate biography of Mr Philip, whose
researches have left few desiderata for any subsequent devotee; indeed,
after Bunyan's own graphic and characteristic narrative, the task on
which we are now entering is one which, as we would have courted it

the less, so we feel that we have peculiar facilities for performing it.
Our main object is to give a simple and coherent account of a most
unusual man--and then we should like to turn to some instructive
purpose the peculiarities of his singular history, and no less singular
works.
John Bunyan was born at Elstow, near Bedford, in 1628. His father was
a brazier or tinker, and brought up his son as a craftsman of like
occupation. There is no evidence for the gipsy origin of the house of
Bunyan; and though extremely poor, John's father gave his son such an
education as poor men could then obtain for their children. He was sent
to school and taught to read and write.
There has been some needless controversy regarding Bunyan's early
days. Some have too readily taken for granted that he was in all
respects a reprobate; and others--the chief of whom is Dr Southey--
have laboured to shew that there was little in the lad which any would
censure, save the righteous overmuch. The truth is, that considering his
rank of life, his conduct was not flagitious; for he never was a drunkard,
a libertine, or a lover of sanguinary sports: and the profanity and
sabbath-breaking and heart-atheism which afterwards preyed on his
awakened conscience, are unhappily too frequent to make their
perpetrator conspicuous. The thing which gave Bunyan any notoriety in
the days of his ungodliness, and which made him afterwards appear to
himself such a monster of iniquity, was the energy which he put into all
his doings. He had a zeal for idle play, and an enthusiasm in mischief,
which were the perverse manifestations of a forceful character, and
which may have well entitled him to Southey's epithet--"a blackguard."
The reader need not go far to see young Bunyan. Perhaps there is near
your dwelling an Elstow--a quiet hamlet of some fifty houses sprinkled
about in the picturesque confusion, and with the easy amplitude of
space, which gives an old English village its look of leisure and
longevity. And it is now verging to the close of the summer's day. The
daws are taking short excursions from the steeple, and tamer fowls
have gone home from the darkening and dewy green. But old Bunyan's
donkey is still browzing there, and yonder is old Bunyan's self--the
brawny tramper dispread on the settle, retailing to the more clownish
residents tap-room wit and roadside news. However, it is young
Bunyan you wish to see. Yonder he is, the noisiest of the party, playing

pitch-and-toss--that one with the shaggy eyebrows, whose entire soul is
ascending in the twirling penny--grim enough to be the blacksmith's
apprentice, but his singed garments hanging round him with a lank and
idle freedom which scorns indentures; his energetic movements and
authoritative vociferations at once bespeaking the ragamuffin
ringleader. The penny has come down with the wrong side uppermost,
and the loud execration at once bewrays young Badman. You have only
to remember that it is Sabbath evening, and you witness a scene often
enacted on Elstow green two hundred years ago.
The strong depraving element in Bunyan's character was
UNGODLINESS. He walked according to the course of this world,
fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and conscious of his
own rebellion, he said unto God, "Depart from me, for I desire not the
knowledge of thy ways." The only restraining influence of which he
then felt the power, was terror. His days were often gloomy through
forebodings of the wrath to come; and his nights were scared with
visions, which the boisterous diversions and adventures of his
waking-day could not always dispel. He would dream that the last day
had come, and that the quaking earth was opening its mouth to let him
down to hell; or he would find himself in the grasp of fiends, who were
dragging him powerless away. And musing over these terrors of the
night, yet feeling that he could not abandon his sins, in his despair of
heaven his anxious fancy would suggest to him all sorts of strange
desires. He would wish that there had been no hell at all; or that, if he
must needs go thither, he might be a devil, "supposing they were only
tormentors, and I would rather be a tormentor than tormented myself."
These were the fears of his childhood. As he grew older, he grew
harder. He experienced some remarkable providences, but they neither
startled nor melted him. He once fell into the sea, and another time