THE OF BUNYAN. LIFE OF CHAPTER I. BUNYAN'S BOYHOOD. A STRANGER, who admires and loves Bunyan, approaches Bedford as a poet or a divine would enter Smyrna; the former thinking only of Homer, and the latter only of Polycarp; and both trying how vividly they can realize the image of their favorite, amidst the scenes once consecrated by his presence, and still enshrined by his memory. It is no difficult thing, I suppose, for a real poet, if he believes Herodotus, to imagine the rocks of Smyrna vocal yet with the harp of Homer; nor for a real Christian, if he credits Eusebius, to mistake the evening sun-light upon them for the last glimmerings of Polycarp's martyr-pile. Even I felt no difficulty, on entering Bedford, and walking around it, to associate every thing with Bunyan, or to enshrine any thing with his Pilgrim. The town, indeed, did not seem to me "the City of Destruction;" and the bridge was too good, and the water too clear, to allow the river to be regarded as "the Slough of Despond;" but it was hardly possible not to see Christian in every poor man who carried a burden, and Christiana in every poor woman who carried a market-bas 1 |