quasi-episcopal superintendence, which gained for him the playful title
of "Bishop Bunyan." In his regular circuits,--"visitations" we may not
improperly term them,--we are told that he exerted himself to relieve the
temporal wants of the sufferers under the penal laws,--so soon and so
cruelly revived,--ministered diligently to the sick and afflicted, and
used his influence in reconciling differences between "professors of the
gospel," and thus prevented the scandal of litigation among Christians.
The closing period of Bunyan's life was laborious but happy, spent
"honourably and innocently" in writing, preaching, visiting his
congregations, and planting daughter churches. "Happy," writes Mr.
Froude, "in his work; happy in the sense that his influence was daily
extending--spreading over his own country and to the far-off settlements
of America,--he spent his last years in his own land of Beulah, Doubting
Castle out of sight, and the towers and minarets of Immanuel's Land
growing nearer and clearer as the days went on."

With his time so largely occupied in his spiritual functions, he could
have had but small leisure to devote to his worldly calling. This,
however, one of so honest and independent a spirit is sure not to have
neglected, it was indeed necessary that to a certain extent he should
work for his living. He had a family to maintain. His congregation were
mostly of the poorer sort, unable to contribute much to their pastor's
support. Had it been otherwise, Bunyan was the last man in the world to
make a trade of the gospel, and though never hesitating to avail himself
of the apostolic privilege to "live of the gospel," he, like the apostle
of the Gentiles, would never be ashamed to "work with his own hands,"
that he might "minister to his own necessities," and those of his family.
But from the time of his release he regarded his ministerial work as the
chief work of his life. "When he came abroad," says one who knew him,
"he found his temporal affairs were gone to wreck, and he had as to them
to begin again as if he had newly come into the world. But yet he was
not destitute of friends, who had all along supported him with
necessaries and had been very good to his family, so that by their
assistance getting things a little about him again, he resolved as much
as possible to decline worldly business, and give himself wholly up to
the service of God." The anonymous writer to whom we are indebted for
informa