I confessed myself guilty no
otherwise.
KEELING. Then said he, Hear your judgment. You must be had back
again to prison, and there lie for three months following; and at
three months' end, if you do not submit to go to church to hear
divine service, and leave your preaching, you must be banished the
realm: and if, after such a day as shall be appointed you to be
gone, you shall be found in this realm, or be found to come over
again without special license from the king, you must stretch by the
neck for it; I tell you plainly. And so he bid my jailer have me
away.
BUNYAN. I told him, as to this matter I was at a point with him; for
if I was out of prison today, I would preach the gospel again
tomorrow, by the help of God.
I continued in prison till the next assizes, which are called
midsummer assizes, being then kept in August, 1661.
Now at that assizes, because I would not leave any possible means
unattempted that might be lawful, I did, by my wife, [Footnote:
"This courageous woman [his second wife] and lord chief-justice Hale
and Bunyan have long since met in heaven; but how little could they
recognize each other's character on earth! How little could the
distressed, insulted wife have imagined, that beneath the judge's
ermine there was beating the heart of a child of God, a man of
humility, integrity, and prayer! How little could the great, learn-
ed, illustrious, and truly pious judge have dreamed that the man,
the obscure tinker whom he was suffering to languish in prison for
want of a writ of error, would one day be the subject of greater
admiration and praise than all the judges in the kingdom of Great
Britain.
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