it was lawful for him to do good to a few, it must be equally
lawful to do good to many. He had a gift, which he was bound to use.
If it was sinful for men to meet together to exhort one another to
follow Christ, he should sin still.

He was compelling the Court to punish him, whether they wished it or
not. He describes the scene as if the choice had rested with the
magistrates to convict him or to let him go. If he was bound to do his
duty, they were equally bound to do theirs. They took his answers as a
plea of guilty to the indictment, and Justice Keelin, who was
chairman, pronounced his sentence in the terms of the Act. He was to
go to prison for three months; if, at the end of three months, he
still refused to conform, he was to be transported; and if he came
back without license he would be hanged. Bunyan merely answered, 'If
I were out of prison to-day, I would preach, the Gospel again
to-morrow.' More might have followed, but the gaoler led him away.

There were three gaols in Bedford, and no evidence has been found to
show in which of the three Bunyan was confined. Two of them, the
county gaol and the town gaol, were large roomy buildings. Tradition
has chosen the third, a small lock-up, fourteen feet square, which
stood over the river between the central arches of the old bridge; and
as it appears from the story that he had at times fifty or sixty
fellow-prisoners, and as he admits himself that he was treated at
first with exceptional kindness, it may be inferred that tradition, in
selecting the prison on the bridge, was merely desiring to exhibit the
sufferings of the Nonconformist martyr in a sensational form, and that
he was never in this prison at all. When it was pulled down in 1811 a
gold ring was found in the rubbish, with the initials 'J. B.' upon it.
This is one of the 'trifles light as air' which carry conviction to
the 'jealous' only, and is too slight a foundation on which to assert
a fact so inherently improbable.

When the three months were over, the course of law would have brought
him again to the bar, when he would have had to choose between
conformity and exile. There was still the same desire to avoid
extremities, and as the day approached, the clerk of the peace was
sent to persuade him into some kind of compliance. Various
insurrections had broken out since his arrest, and must have shown
him, if he could have reflected, that there was real reason for the
temporary enforcement of the Ac