itten in the years when he was already growing
old, for those whom he had brought into the fold of religion. From this
autobiography it has usually been supposed that he had led a life of the
wildest debauchery before his Christian days; but the more one examines
the book, and indeed all his books, the less is one inclined to believe
in any such desperate estimate of the sins of his youth. The measure of
sin is the sensitiveness of a man's conscience; and where, as in
Bunyan's case, the conscience is abnormally delicate and subject to
violent reactions, a life which in another man would be a pattern of
innocence and respectability may be regarded as an altogether
blackguardly and vicious one. It was, however evidently a life of strong
and intense worldly interest stepping over the line here and there into
positive wrong-doing, but for the most part blameworthy mainly on
account of its absorption in the passing shows of the hour.

What then was that world which interested Bunyan so intensely, and cost
him so many pangs of conscience? No doubt it was just the life of the
road as he travelled about his business; for though by no means a tinker
in the modern sense of the word, he was an itinerant brazier, whose
business took him constantly to and fro among the many villages of the
district of Bedford. He must have heard in inns and from wayside
companions many a catch of plays and songs, and listened to many a
lively story, or read it in the chap-books which were hawked about the
country then. It must also be remembered that these were the days of
puppet shows. The English drama, as we have already mentioned in
connection with _Faust_, was by no means confined to the boards of
actual theatres where living actors played the parts. Little mimic
stages travelled about the country in all directions reproducing the
plays, very much after the fashion of Punch and Judy; and even the
solemnest of Shakespeare's tragedies were exhibited in this way. There
is no possibility of doubt that Bunyan must have often stood agape at
these exhibitions, and thus have received much of the highest literature
at second hand.

As to how much of it he had actually read, that is a different question.
One is tempted to believe that he must have read George Herbert, but of
this there is no positive proof. We are quite certain about five books,
for which we have his own express statements. His wife brought him as
her dowry the very modest furniture of