Old Portraits and Modern Sketches; Personal Sketches and Tributes; Historical Papers | Page 5

that they only had attained
to perfection, that they could do what they would, and not sin. Oh!
these temptations were suitable to my flesh, I being but a young man,
and my nature in its prime; but God, who had, as I hope, designed me
for better things, kept me in the fear of His name, and did not suffer me
to accept such cursed principles."
At this time he was sadly troubled to ascertain whether or not he had
that faith which the Scriptures spake of. Travelling one day from
Elstow to Bedford, after a recent rain, which had left pools of water in
the path, he felt a strong desire to settle the question, by commanding
the pools to become dry, and the dry places to become pools. Going
under the hedge, to pray for ability to work the miracle, he was struck
with the thought that if he failed he should know, indeed, that he was a
castaway, and give himself up to despair. He dared not attempt the
experiment, and went on his way, to use his own forcible language,
"tossed up and down between the Devil and his own ignorance."
Soon after, he had one of those visions which foreshadowed the
wonderful dream of his Pilgrim's Progress. He saw some holy people of
Bedford on the sunny side of an high mountain, refreshing themselves
in the pleasant air and sunlight, while he was shivering in cold and
darkness, amidst snows and never-melting ices, like the victims of the

Scandinavian hell. A wall compassed the mountain, separating him
from the blessed, with one small gap or doorway, through which, with
great pain and effort, he was at last enabled to work his way into the
sunshine, and sit down with the saints, in the light and warmth thereof.
But now a new trouble assailed him. Like Milton's metaphysical spirits,
who sat apart,
"And reasoned of foreknowledge, will, and fate," he grappled with one
of those great questions which have always perplexed and baffled
human inquiry, and upon which much has been written to little purpose.
He was tortured with anxiety to know whether, according to the
Westminster formula, he was elected to salvation or damnation. His old
adversary vexed his soul with evil suggestions, and even quoted
Scripture to enforce them. "It may be you are not elected," said the
Tempter; and the poor tinker thought the supposition altogether too
probable. "Why, then," said Satan, "you had as good leave off, and
strive no farther; for if, indeed, you should not be elected and chosen of
God, there is no hope of your being saved; for it is neither in him that
willeth nor in him that runneth, but in God who showeth mercy." At
length, when, as he says, he was about giving up the ghost of all his
hopes, this passage fell with weight upon his spirit: "Look at the
generations of old, and see; did ever any trust in God, and were
confounded?" Comforted by these words, he opened his Bible took
note them, but the most diligent search and inquiry of his neighbors
failed to discover them. At length his eye fell upon them in the
Apocryphal book of Ecclesiasticus. This, he says, somewhat doubted
him at first, as the book was not canonical; but in the end he took
courage and comfort from the passage. "I bless God," he says, "for that
word; it was good for me. That word doth still oftentimes shine before
my face."
A long and weary struggle was now before him. "I cannot," he says,
"express with what longings and breathings of my soul I cried unto
Christ to call me. Gold! could it have been gotten by gold, what would
I have given for it. Had I a whole world, it had all gone ten thousand
times over for this, that my soul might have been in a converted state.

How lovely now was every one in my eyes, that I thought to be
converted men and women. They shone, they walked like a people who
carried the broad seal of Heaven with them."
With what force and intensity of language does he portray in the
following passage the reality and earnestness of his agonizing
experience:--
"While I was 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, or
child. Lord, thought I, what seeking after carnal things by some, and
what grief in others for the loss of them! If they so much