This wonderful
man--who, though bred a tinker, showed a genius little inferior to
that of Dante--having been illegally convicted by the court of
Quarter-sessions, was lying in prison under his sentence in the jail
of Bedford. Soon after the restoration of Charles II., the young
enthusiast had been arrested while he was preaching at a meeting in
a private house; and, refusing to enter into an engagement that he
would preach no more, had been indicted as "a person who devilishly
and perniciously abstained from coming to church to hear divine
service, and a common upholder of unlawful meetings and
conventicles, to the great disturbance and distraction of the good
subjects of this realm."
Little do we know what is for our permanent good. Had Bunyan then
been discharged and allowed to enjoy liberty, he no doubt would have
returned to his trade, filling up his intervals of leisure with
field-preaching; his name would not have survived his own
generation, and he could have done little for the religious
improvement of mankind. The prison-doors were shut upon him for
twelve years. Being cut off from the external world, he communed
with his own soul; and inspired by Him who touched Isaiah's hallowed
lips with fire, he composed the noblest of allegories, the merit of
which was first discovered by the lowly, but which is now lauded by
the most refined critics, and which has done more to awaken piety
and to enforce the precepts of Christian morality, than all the
sermons that have been published by all the prelates of the Anglican
church.
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