h their
difficulties, and to trouble ourselves no further about them.

CHAPTER X.

LAST DAYS AND DEATH.

Little remains to be told of Bunyan's concluding years. No friends
preserved his letters. No diaries of his own survive to gratify
curiosity. Men truly eminent think too meanly of themselves or their
work to care much to be personally remembered. He lived for sixteen
years after his release from the gaol, and those years were spent in
the peaceful discharge of his congregational duties, in writing, in
visiting the scattered members of the Baptist communion, or in
preaching in the villages and woods. His outward circumstances were
easy. He had a small but well-provided house in Bedford, into which he
collected rare and valuable pieces of old furniture and plate, and
other articles--presents, probably, from those who admired him. He
visited London annually to preach in the Baptist churches. The
'Pilgrim's Progress' spread his fame over England, over Europe, and
over the American settlements. It was translated into many languages;
and so catholic was its spirit, that it was adapted with a few
alterations for the use even of the Catholics themselves. He
abstained, as he had done steadily throughout his life, from all
interference with politics, and the Government in turn never again
meddled with him. He even received offers of promotion to larger
spheres of action which might have tempted a meaner nature. But he
could never be induced to leave Bedford, and there he quietly stayed
through changes of ministry, Popish plots, and Monmouth rebellions,
while the terror of a restoration of Popery was bringing on the
Revolution; careless of kings and cabinets, and confident that Giant
Pope had lost his power for harm, and thenceforward could only bite
his nails at the passing pilgrims. Once only, after the failure of the
Exclusion Bill, he seems to have feared that violent measures might
again be tried against him. It is even said that he was threatened
with arrest, and it was on this occasion that he made over his
property to his wife. The policy of James II., however, transparently
treacherous though it was, for the time gave security to the
Nonconformist congregations, and in the years which immediately
preceded the final expulsion of the Stuarts, liberty of conscience was
under fewer restrictions than it had been in the most rigorous days of
the Reformation, or under the Long Parliament itself. Thus the anxiety