es," "many hundred gross" of which, we are told by one who first
formed his acquaintance in prison, he made during his captivity, for "his
own and his family's necessities." "While his hands were thus busied,"
writes Lord Macaulay, "he had often employment for his mind and for his
lips." "Though a prisoner he was a preacher still." As with St. Paul in
his Roman chains, "the word of God was not bound." The prisoners for
conscience' sake, who like him, from time to time, were cooped up in
Bedford gaol, including several of his brother ministers and some of his
old friends among the leading members of his own little church, furnished
a numerous and sympathetic congregation. At one time a body of some
sixty, who had met for worship at night in a neighbouring wood, were
marched off to gaol, with their minister at their head. But while all
about him was in confusion, his spirit maintained its even calm, and he
could at once speak the words of strength and comfort that were needed.
In the midst of the hurry which so many "newcomers occasioned," writes
the friend to whom we are indebted for the details of his prison life, "I
have heard Mr. Bunyan both preach and pray with that mighty spirit of
faith and plerophory of Divine assistance that has made me stand and
wonder." These sermons addressed to his fellow prisoners supplied, in
many cases, the first outlines of the books which, in rapid succession,
flowed from his pen during the earlier years of his imprisonment,
relieving the otherwise insupportable tedium of his close confinement.
Bunyan himself tells us that this was the case with regard to his "Holy
City," the first idea of which was borne in upon his mind when addressing
"his brethren in the prison chamber," nor can we doubt that the case was
the same with other works of his. To these we shall hereafter return.
Nor was it his fellow prisoners only who profited by his counsels. In
his "Life and Death of Mr. Badman," he gives us a story of a woman who
came to him when he was in prison, to confess how she had robbed her
master, and to ask his help. Hers was probably a representative case.
The time spared from his handicraft, and not employed in religious
counsel and exhortation, was given to study and composition. For this
his confinement secured him the leisure which otherwise he would have
looked for in vain. The few books he possessed he studied indefatigably.
His library was, at least at one period, a very limi