It is a rare thing to suffer aright, and to have my spirit in suffering bent against God's enemy, sin. Sin in doctrine, sin in worship, sin in life, and sin in conversation.

Neither the devil, nor men of the world, can kill thy righteousness, or love to it, but by thy own hand; or separate that and thee asunder, without thy own act. Nor will he, that doth indeed suffer for the sake of it, or out of love he bears thereto, be tempted to exchange it, for the good will of the whole world.

I have often thought that the best of Christians are found in the worst times; and I have thought again, that one reason why we are not better is, because God purges us no more : Noah, and Lot, who so holy as they in the time of their afflictions! And yet, who so idle as they in the time of their prosperity ?

Of Death, and Judgment.

As the devil labours by all means to keep out other things that are good, so to keep out of the heart, as much as in him lies, the thoughts of passing out of this life into another world; for he knows if he can but keep them from the serious thoughts of death, he shall the more easily keep them in their sins.

Nothing will make us more earnest in working out the work of our salvation, than a frequent meditation of mortality; nothing hath a greater influence for the taking off our hearts from vanities, and for the begetting in us desires for holiness.

O! sinner, what a condition wilt thou fall into when thou departest this world; if thou depart unconverted thou hadst better have been smothered the first hour thou wast born; thou hadst better have been plucked one limb from the other; thou hadst better have been a dog, a toad, a serpent, than to die unconverted; and this thou wilt find true if thou repent not. A man would be counted a fool to slight a judge before whom he is to have a trial of his whole estate; the trial we are to have before God, is of otherguise importance; it concerns our eternal happiness, or misery, and yet dare we affront him.

The only way for us to escape that terrible judgment, is to be often passing a sentence of condemnation upon ourselves here.

When the sound of the trumpet shall be heard, which shall summon the dead to appear before the tribunal of God, the

righteous shall hasten out of their graves with joy, to meet their Redeemer in the clouds; others shall call to the mountains and hills to fall upon them, to cover them from the sight of their Judge; let us therefore in time be posing ourselves to know which of the two we shall be.

Of the Joys of Heaven.

There is no good in this life, but what is mingled with some evil. Honours perplex, riches disquiet, and pleasures ruin health. But in heaven, we shall find blessings in their purity, without any ingredient to imbitter; with every thing to sweeten it.

O! who is able to conceive the inexpressible, inconceivable joys, that are there? None but they who have tasted of them. Lord, help us to put such a value upon them here, that in order to prepare ourselves for them, we may be willing to forego the loss of all those deluding pleasures here.

How will the heavens echo for joy, when the bride, the Lamb's wife, shall come to dwell with her husband for ever!

Christ is the desire of nations, the joy of angels, the delight of the Father; what solace then must the soul be filled with, that hath the possession of him to all eternity.

O! what acclamations of joy will there be, when all the children of God shall meet together, without fear of being disturbed by the Antichristian and Cainish brood.

Is there not a time coming when the godly may ask the wicked, what profit they have in their pleasure? what comfort in their greatness? and what fruit in all their labour?

If you would be better satisfied, what the beatifical vision means, my request is, that you would live holily, and go and see.

Of the Torments of Hell.

Heaven and salvation is not surely more promised to the godly, than hell and damnation is threatened to, and shall be executed on the wicked.

O! who knows the power of God's wrath? none but damned ones.

Sinners' company are the devil and his angels, tormented in everlasting fire with a curse.

Hell would be a kind of paradise, if it were no worse than the worst of this world.

As different as grief is from joy, as torment from rest, as terror from peace; so different is the state of sinners from that of saints in the world to come."

Chandler & Wilson.

It will occur, I think, to every considerate reader, that all this could hardly have been said by Bunyan, during the short and sharp illness which terminated his life. He was, indeed, both calm and collected throughout; but still, his fever was "violent," and it proved fatal in "ten days." I am compelled, therefore, to regard most of these sayings as his occasional remarks during the whole period of his "sweating distemper," which lasted, Doe says, "some weeks." True, these were "weeks of going about:" but Strudwick's house was evidently Bunyan's home; and thus his sayings would be marked from the first by a family who loved him, when they saw him sinking under unnatural and severe perspirations. It required but little knowledge, and implied no weakness, to regard a distemper of this kind, even in a robust frame, as the forerunner of a speedy death. Thus the Strudwicks would begin to treasure up Bunyan's sayings, from the day they saw that he was no longer a healthy man.

TRADITIONS

CHAPTER XLVI.

AND RELICS OF BUNYAN.

Ir is not because I have now but little room left, that this chapter is short; but because I am jealous of whatever seems apocryphal, in the case of Bunyan. Perhaps, too much so: for I have rejected not a few stories, which were brought under my notice, during my tours of inquiry. The fact is-I have felt deeply the responsibilities of my position; because, when my collections are restored to their several owners, this volume must be the chief guide of future biographers; and I would not, willingly, mislead them, nor tempt them into fruitless researches. There are, however, some traditions, which claim credence; and others which are worth clearing up, in the case of John Bunyan. His tomb, in Bunhill Fields, is one of the latter. There is more uncertainty rests upon that than I can account for. The public take for granted, because a panel of that tomb bears his name, and the date of his death, that the author of the Pilgrim's Progress is underneath. He was interred, however, at first, in the back part of that ground; now known as "Baptist Corner." The tradition (and I think the probability) is, that his friend Mr. Strudwick had “given commandment concerning his bones," that they should be transferred to the present vault, whenever an interment took place in it. Strudwick's own funeral was the first, in 1695; and, from the elegance of the tomb, he seems to have intended it rather for Bunyan than for himself. It does not say, how. ever, that Bunyan is underneath and I know persons of respectability, who affirm that he is not there. One gentleman assures me that the coffin was shown to him in another vault, in quite another quarter of the ground. My friend, Joshua Wilson, Esq., was told, twenty years ago, that Bunyan was not buried in Strudwick's vault. In like manner, some of the undertakers, who have interred in that vault, more than doubt the tradition, and regard the tomb as a cenotaph. On the other hand, the nephew of the late Chaplain of Bunhill Fields informs that his uncle invited him to see Bunyan's coffin in Strud

me,

wick's vault; and the son of the late Manager of the Graves always understood his father to mean, when he said "that Bunyan was not buried there," that it was not his original grave.

Such is the conflicting evidence in regard to this question. The probability is, however, that Bunyan's remains are in the vault of his friend Strudwick. On no other supposition can I account for his name being upon the side-panel of the tomb. Still, there are difficulties surrounding this supposition. The lowermost coffin in Strudwick's vault is of lead; and thus it is most likely his own. Besides, it is allowed that the coffin immediately above it is not a leaden one. Now, as Bunyan was, if not the Chaplain of Sir John Shorter, the Lord Mayor of London, yet his acknowledged "Teacher," as Dr. Southey has proved from Ellis' Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 161; and as there was an elegy on his death published under civic authority, a copy of which is in the possession of John Wilks, Esq.; he was evidently popular enough to obtain a leaden coffin when he died. But there are not two at the bottom of Strudwick's vault. This is acknowledged by those who have seen it, in the course of the present century. This fact bears equally hard, however, upon the coffin in the other vault: for if it be not lead, it could not have lasted till now, so as to be identified. Besides, there is no vault so old as 1688, in the " Baptist Corner" of Bunhill Fields.

I do not willingly disturb the public associations with Bunyan's tomb. Indeed, I regret that my own have been disturbed. It is, however, my duty to state opinion as it now stands; that, in the event of any future discovery, it may be known that we were neither ignorant of, nor indifferent to any thing connected with the memory of John Bunyan. For the sake of foreigners, I would add that his ostensible tomb is 25 E. 26.W. 26. N. 27. S., in Bunhill Fields, according to the present ground-plan. The inscription, so far as it regards him, has been repaired by the present Curator of the Ceme tery, Mr. Upton, at his own expense.

I have spent much time in fruitless endeavours to trace out the descendants of Mr. Strudwick, in order to discover, if pos sible, some of Bunyan's private letters. Charles Doe says that his letters were "many:" I shall not, therefore, believe, soon, that they are all lost. Let others, however, help me in my

researches.

I gossip away on the subject of Bunyan, as if every one