shrieks, and execrations, while some devils that were with them laughed aloud at their torment; and while he stood trembling at this sight, he thought the earth sunk under him, and a circle of flame enclosed him; but when he fancied he was just at the point to perish, one in white shining raiment descended and plucked him out of that dreadful place, while devils cried after him to leave him with them, to take the just punishment his sins had deserved; yet he escaped the danger, and leaped for joy when he awoke and found it but a dream. Many others, somewhat to the same purpose, I might mention, as he at sundry times related them; but, not to be tedious, these for a taste may suffice.”*

Such visions could not fail to make a strong impression on a mind so excitable as Bunyan's, and it is not unlikely that they suggested to him, in after years, the idea of representing the story of his pilgrim "under the similitude of a dream."

The immediate moral effect produced by these dreams was, however, both small and transient; and when, after awhile, they left him, and his apprehensions of future punishment wore off, he

*It is highly probable that the dream which Bunyan put into the mouth of the man in the chamber at the "Interpreter's house," is, with perhaps some variations, a relation of one of his own youthful visions.

let loose to the reins of his vicious habits, and followed after sin with more greediness than ever. He says of himself, "In these days the thoughts of religion were very grievous to me; I could neither endure it myself, nor that any other should; so that when I have seen some read in those books that concerned Christian piety, it would be as it were a prison to me. Then I said unto God, Depart from me, for I desire not the knowledge of thy ways.' I was now void of all good consideration; heaven and hell were both out of sight and mind; and as for saving and damning, they were least in my thoughts. Yea, such prevalency had the lusts of the flesh on this poor soul of mine, that had not a miracle of 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 world.

"But this I well remember, that though I could myself sin with the greatest delight and ease, and also take pleasure in the vileness of my companions, yet, even then, if I had at any time seen wicked things by those who professed godliness, it would make my spirit tremble. As once above all the rest, when I was in the height of my vanity, yet hearing one swear, that

was reckoned a religious man, it had so great a stroke upon my spirit that it made my heart ache.

"But God did not utterly leave me, but fol lowed me still, not with convictions, but with 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 stick, and plucked her sting out with my fingers; by which act, had not God been merciful unto me, I might, by my desperateness, have brought myself to my end.

66

'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."

Some of Bunyan's biographers are exceedingly anxious to convey the impression that he was not, in the days of his folly, so bad as he represents himself to have been. This is especially the case with Dr. Southey, who says, "The wickedness of the tinker has been greatly

overcharged; and it is taking the language of self-accusation too literally, to pronounce of John Bunyan that he was at any time depraved.His self-accusations are to be received with some distrust, not of his sincerity, but of his sober judgment. The worst of what he was in his worst days is to be expressed in a single word, for which we have no synonyme, and the full meaning of which no circumlocution can convey,-in a word, he had been a blackguard:

The very head and front of his offending
Hath this extent, no more.'

Such he might have been expected to be by his birth, breeding, and vocation; scarcely indeed by possibility could he have been otherwise; but he was never a vicious man. The practice of profane swearing was the worst, if not the only sin to which he was ever addicted."

We are surprised that this passage should have been written in the face of Bunyan's express declaration that he "had but few equals," not only for "cursing and swearing," but also for lying; and the well-known fact that he was an open and notorious sabbath breaker; for unsound as are the laureate's opinions on some of the cardinal doctrines of Christianity, it cannot be that his code of morals is so loose as not to include lying and sabbath breaking in its catalogue of vices.

We can discover in what Bunyan relates of himself, before his conversion, no appearance of a desire to exaggerate his wickedness; his language is evidently that of a man who was conscious he was writing the words of truth and soberness. It is true that he was never, in the gross sense of the word, licentious; neither does he charge himself with this sin; on the contrary he zealously and characteristically defends himself from its imputation. That he did, however, in the vices to which he was addicted, acquire a bad pre-eminence among his fellow-sinners, is not only certain from his own declarations, but was also to have been expected from his bold and ardent temperament, and the natural energy of his character, which were such that he was not likely to content himself with mediocrity in anything, good or bad, that he engaged in. We give full credence, therefore, to Bunyan's account of his youthful depravity; and instead of endeavouring to palliate his misconduct, we would rather adore the riches of His grace, who, from such a depth of mental and moral degradation, raised him up to become one of the brightest luminaries of the Christian. church.