crowded that he had to be lifted to the
pulpit stairs over the congregation's heads." He strove not for
popularity, as could be seen in the one little circumstance when "a
friend complimented him, after service, on 'the sweet sermon' which he
had delivered. 'You need not remind me of that,' he said. 'The devil
told me of it before I was out of the pulpit.'"

"Charles Doe, a distinguished nonconformist, visited him in his
confinement. 'When I was there,' he writes, 'there were about sixty
dissenters besides himself, taken but a little before at a religious
meeting at Kaistor, in the county of Bedford, besides two eminent
dissenting ministers, Mr. Wheeler and Mr. Dun, by which means the
prison was much crowded. Yet, in the midst of all that hurry, I heard
Mr. Bunyan both preach and pray with that mighty spirit of faith and
plerophory of Divine assistance, that he made me stand and wonder.'"

The sweet spirit of a minister is treasured and kept green in the
memory of his flock, no matter how recalcitrant they may be. This is
shown by the reading once a year in Bedford Church of John Gifford's
letter to his parish people, written over two hundred years ago. It
says: "Let no respect of persons be in your comings together. When you
are met as a church, there's neither rich nor poor, bond nor free, in
Jesus Christ. 'Tis not a good practice to be offering places or seats
when those who are rich come in; especially it is a great evil to take
notice of such in time of prayer or the word; then are bowings and
civil observances at such times not of God." It was the "holy Mr.
Gifford" that was often in conference with John Bunyan; "the latter as
the seeking pilgrim, the former the guiding evangelist." With such
men as these the sweet spirit was kept aflame and eventually changed
England and made her the great country she is. But in those licentious
days this sweet spirit shone from its impure surroundings like the
_ignis fatuus_, and 'twas a great, wicked world that Mistress Penwick
stood all alone in that early summer night.

A nightingale sung afar in some bowery of blossom, and for a moment
she listened.

"'Tis an ode to the night he sings, 'tis too clear and high and full
of cadence for a nuptial mass,--nay, nay, I shall not marry to-night,
I will go and see what dear father Constantine wishes and return to
this home that has never seemed so fair to me before;--and my lord is
handsome and so, too, is Sir Julian and I'm fond