also the account of his experiences in prison, should be read in his
own most graphic narrative, in the 'Grace Abounding,' which is one of
the most precious portions of all autobiographic literature. Bunyan was
born and bred, he lived and labored, among the common people, with whom
his sympathies were strong and tender, and by whom he was regarded with
the utmost veneration and affection. He understood them, and they him.
For nearly a century they were almost the only readers of his published
writings. They came to call him Bishop Bunyan. His native genius, his
great human-heartedness and loving-kindness, his burning zeal and
indomitable courage, his racy humor and kindling imagination, all
vitalized by the spiritual force which came upon him through the
encompassing atmosphere of devout Puritanism, were consecrated to the
welfare of his fellow-men. His personal friend, Mr. Doe, describes him
as "tall in stature, strong-boned, of a ruddy face, with sparkling eyes,
nose well set, mouth moderately large, forehead something high, and his
habit always plain and modest." His portrait, painted in 1685, shows a
vigorous, kindly face, with mustachios and imperial, and abundance of
hair falling in long wavy masses about the neck and shoulders,--more
Cavalier-like than Roundhead.

[Illustration: JOHN BUNYAN.]

Bunyan was a voluminous writer, and his works, many of them posthumous,
are said to equal in number the sixty years of his life. But even the
devout and sympathetic critic is compelled to acknowledge the justice of
that verdict of time which has consigned most of them to a virtual
oblivion. The controversial tracts possess no elements of enduring
interest. The doctrinal and spiritual discourses are elaborations of a
system of religious thought which long ago "had its day and ceased to
be." Yet they contain pithy sentences, homely and pat illustrations, and
many a paragraph, rugged or tender, in which one recognizes the stamp of
his genius, and an intimation of his remarkable power as a preacher. The
best of these discourses, 'The Jerusalem Sinner Saved,' 'Come and
Welcome to Jesus Christ,' and 'Light for Them that Sit in Darkness,'
while they sparkle here and there with things unique and precious to the
Bunyan-curious student, would seem dull and tedious to the general
though devout reader. In many a passage we feel, to use his phrase, his
"heart-pulling power," no less than the force and felicity of his most
original imag