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Life of Bunyan [Works of the English Puritan divines] By: James Hamilton (1814-1867) |
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by Rev. James Hamilton
Scotch Church, Regent Square, London.
After the pleasant sketches of pens so graceful as Southey's and
Montgomery's; 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... Continue reading book >>
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