their language has been found to resemble some of the dialects of India. (Bombay Transactions, 1820.) They have no traditions or records concerning their origin; no religion of their own, but they adopt the outward forms of the people among whom they live, whether Christians or Mussulmans. Everywhere they exhibit the same roving habits, a dislike to a fixed settlement and to the arts of husbandry, uncleaness in their food, licentiousness, ignorance and intellectual apathy, a disposition to pilfer, and to impose upon the credulity of others. They seldom commit violent robbery or other heinous crimes, being fearful of punishment. They abound in Wallachia, Moldavia, and Bessarabia; and they are found in Russia as far as Tobolsk. In England they have much diminished of late years in consequence of the inclosure of land and the laws against vagrants." Now, from the above description and account of the gipsies we learn that they are universally looked upon as a "wandering race of people." It has certainly been stated that in Hungary and Transylvania, many of them follow some regular trade, and have fixed habitations; they wash gold from the sand of the rivers, and they work iron or copper; some are carpenters and turners, others are horse-dealers, and even keep wine-shops and public-houses. But where there is one of this description there are hundreds, if not thousands, who do exhibit "roving habits, and a dislike to a fixed settlement.' Maria Theresa, with a view to their permanent settlement, ordered those in her dominions to be taught and instructed in agriculture; but her endeavours were by no means very successful. It seems contrary to their very nature, for we have made enquiries about the gipsies of several foreigners, from different parts of the world, and all declare that they have never met with a gipsy who has settled down; and that they in foreign climes manifest that same roving disposition, which they do in this our land. As neither Charles Doe, nor any other of Bunyan's co-temporaries, state, or lead us to believe, that they were gipsies, or that they had roving habits; and, as we believe that there is no such statement either in the Church records of Bunyan Meeting, or in the register of Elstow Church; and, finally, because Bunyan passed nearly the whole of his life within about a mile of his birth-place, we cannot believe that one drop of gipsy blood was ever circulated through his veins. We are led to the conclusion, therefore, that Bunyan and his father were merely tinkers, and not gipsies. Wherefore, I have not here," says Bunyan, as others, to boast of nobleblood or of any high-born state, according to the flesh; though, all things considered, I magnify the heavenly Majesty, for by this door he brought me into this world to partake of the grace and life that is in Christ by the gospel." Offor, in his "Memoir of John Bunyan," says:-" His father is described as an honest, poor, labouring man, who, like Adam, unparadised, had all the world before him to get his bread in, and was very industrious and careful to maintain his family. In Bunyan's childhood he was for a short period sent to school, to learn reading, but evil associates made sad havock with these unshapen attainments." Bunyan himself says, "To my shame, I confess, I did soon lose that little I had learned, and that most utterly. As for my own natural life, for the time I was without God in the world, it was, indeed, according to the course of this world, and to the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience.' It was my delight to be taken captive by the devil at his will; being filled with all unrighteousness, that from a child I had but few equals, both for cursing, lying, and blaspheming the name of God. "Yea, so settled and rooted was I in these things, that they became as a second nature to me; the which, as I have also with soberness considered since, did so offend the Lord, that even in my childhood he did scare and affrighten me with fearful dreams, and did terrify me with fearful visions. For often, after I have spent this and the other day in sin, I have in my bed been greatly afflicted, while asleep, with the apprehensions of wicked spirits, who still, as I then thought, laboured to draw me away with them, of which I could never be rid. Also, I should at these years be greatly afflicted and troubled with the thoughts of the fearful torments of hell-fire; still fearing, that it would be my lot to be found at last among those who are there bound down with the chains and bonds of darkness, unto the judgment of the great day. "These things, I say, when I was but a child, but nine or ten years old, did so distress my soul, that then in the midst of my many sports and childish vanities, amidst my vain companions, I was often much cast down, and afflicted in my mind therewith, yet could I could not let go my sins. "A while after, these terrible dreams did leave me, which also I soon forgot; for my pleasures did soon cut off the remembrance of them, as if they had never been; wherefore with more greediness, according to the strength of nature, I did still let loose the reins of my lust, and delighted in all transgressions against the law of God; so that, until I came to the state of marriage, I was the very ringleader of all the youth that kept me company, in all manner of vice and ungodliness. 66 Yea, such prevalency had the lusts and fruits of the flesh on this poor soul of mine, that had not a miracle of precious grace prevented, I had not only perished by the stroke of eternal justice, but had also laid myself open even to the stroke of those laws which bring some to disgrace and open shame before the face of the world. But God did not utterly leave me, but followed me still, not with convictions, but judgments; yet such as were mixed with mercy. For once I fell into a creek of the sea, and hardly escaped drowning. Another time I fell out of a boat into Bedford river, but mercy yet preserved me alive; besides, another time, being in the field with one of my companions, it chanced that an adder passed over the highway, so I having a stick in my hand, struck her over the back, and having stunned her, I forced open her mouth with my fingers, by which act, had not God been merciful unto me, I might, by my desperateness, have brought myself to my end. "This also I have taken notice of with thanksgiving. When I was a soldier, I, with others, were drawn out to go to such a place to besiege it; but when I was just ready to go, one of the company desired to go in my room, to which, when I had consented, he took my place, nnd coming to the siege, as he stood sentinel, he was shot in the head with a musket bullet, and died. Here, as I said, were judgments and mercy, but neither of them did awaken my soul to righteousness; wherefore I sinned still, and grew more and more rebellious against God, and careless of my own salvation." * At the siege of Leicester, A.D,, 1645. Bunyan at this time was not more than seventeen years old. †The river Ouse. "It is not known accurately" says the Rev. William Morley Punshon, in his Lecture on John Bunyan, "on which side he served, but the description best answers certainly to Rupert's roystering dragoons." Between the ages of nineteen and twenty, he married a poor young woman, but the child of a godly father, who left her, when he died, two books—“ The Plain Man's Pathway to Heaven," by Arthur Dent, and "The Practice of Piety," a work published in 1619, by Lewis Bayly, bishop of Bangor. These works were his wife's only portion, and they commenced housekeeping, as Bunyan himself declares, as poor as poor might be, not having so much household stuff as a dish or spoon betwixt them both.' He read these books with delight, and listened with pleasure to his wife, whilst she related to him many anecdotes about her father, "telling him what a godly man he was, and how he would reprove and correct vice, both in his house and among his neighbours, and what a strict and holy life he lived in his days, both in word and deeds." And the Holy Spirit blessed these means, and heard the prayers of Bunyan's beloved wife on his behalf. Although these peaceful exercises did not reach his heart to awaken it about his sad and sinful state, yet they did beget within him, as he remarked in a later period of his earthly some desires to reform his vicious life." He determined (if we may use a popular phrase)" to turn over a new leaf," to curb some of his wicked propensities, and to bring about an entire external change. He attended Elstow Church twice a day, and there would very devoutly both say and sing as others did :' he, however, was so overrun with the spirit of superstition, that he "adored, and that with great devotion, even all things (both the high-place, priest, clerk, vestment, service, and what else) belonging to the church; counting all things holy that were therein contained, and especially the priest and clerk most happy, and without doubt greatly blessed, because they were the servants, as he then thought, of God, and were principal in the holy temple to do His work therein." He appears to have been at this time quite insensible of the danger and evil of sin, for he still remained as great a blasphemer and Sabbath-breaker as he had ever been previously. career, 66 66 The parson of Elstow Church, in a sermon one day, treated of the Sabbath-day, and spoke of the evil of breaking the Sabbath, either with labour, sports, or otherwise, in such a way that Bunyan says, "I fell in my conscience under this sermon, thinking and believing that he made that sermon on purpose to show me my evil doing. And at that time I felt what guilt was, though never before, that I can remember; but then I was, for the present, greatly laden therewith, and so went home when the sermon was ended with a great burden upon my spirit." After dinner, he, however, "shook the sermon out of his mind," and returned to his usual sports and gaming on Elstow Green "with great delight." While in the midst of a game of cat, after having struck it one blow from the hole, and was just about to strike it a second time, "a voice did suddenly dart from heaven into his soul, which said, Wilt thou leave thy sins and go to heaven? or have thy sins and go to hell?'" He looked up towards heaven, and with the eyes of his understanding, he fancied that he could see the Lord Jesus Christ looking down upon him, being very sorely displeased and threatening him severely "with some grievous punishment for these and other ungodly practices." Having felt that he had been a great and grievous sinner, and concluded that it was too late to seek for pardon, he resumed his suspended play, and resolved in his mind to go on in sin, thinking that he might as well 'be damned for many sins as be damned for few." ་་ About a month or so after this, as he was standing near a neighbour's shop window, cursing, swearing, and acting the madman, after his wonted manner, the woman who lived in the house, though she was a "very loose and ungodly wretch," protested that he swore and cursed at such a fearful rate that he made her tremble to hear him; "and she told me further," he relates, that I was the ungodliest fellow for swearing that she ever heard in all her life; and that I, by thus doing, was able to spoil all the youth in the whole town, if they came but in my company." This reproof had the desired effect. Bunyan was put to secret shame, and that too, as he thought, before the God of heaven. The tyrannous habit of swearing lost its power over him; but he did not yet know Jesus Christ, neither did he forsake his companions, his sports, and his plays. After this, "I fell," he writes, "to some outward reformation both in my words and life, and did set the commandments before me for my way to heaven;" which commandments he strove with much perse |