tion concerning his imprisonment and his subsequent life, says
that Bunyan, "contenting himself with that little God had bestowed upon
him, sequestered himself from all secular employments to follow that of
his call to the ministry." The fact, however, that in the "deed of gift"
of all his property to his wife in 1685, he still describes himself as a
"brazier," puts it beyond all doubt that though his ministerial duties
were his chief concern, he prudently kept fast hold of his handicraft as
a certain means of support for himself and those dependent on him. On
the whole, Bunyan's outward circumstances were probably easy. His wants
were few and easily supplied. "Having food and raiment" for himself, his
wife, and his children, he was "therewith content." The house in the
parish of St. Cuthbert's which was his home from his release to his death
(unhappily demolished fifty years back), shows the humble character of
his daily life. It was a small cottage, such as labourers now occupy,
with three small rooms on the ground floor, and a garret with a
diminutive dormer window under the high-pitched tiled roof. Behind stood
an outbuilding which served as his workshop. We have a passing glimpse
of this cottage home in the diary of Thomas Hearne, the Oxford antiquary.
One Mr. Bagford, otherwise unknown to us, had once "walked into the
country" on purpose to see "the study of John Bunyan," and the student
who made it famous. On his arrival the interviewer--as we should now
call him--met with a civil and courteous reception from Bunyan; but he
found the contents of his study hardly larger than those of his prison
cell. They were limited to a Bible, and copies of "The Pilgrim's
Progress," and a few other books, chiefly his own works, "all lying on a
shelf or shelves." Slight as this sketch is, it puts us more in touch
with the immortal dreamer than many longer and more elaborate paragraphs.

Bunyan's celebrity as a preacher, great before he was shut up in gaol,
was naturally enhanced by the circumstance of his imprisonment. The barn
in Josias Roughead's orchard, where he was licensed as a preacher, was
"so thronged the first time he appeared there to edify, that many were
constrained to stay without; every one that was of his persuasion
striving to partake of his instructions." Wherever he ministered,
sometimes, when troublous days returned, in woods, and in dells, and
other hiding-places, the announcement that John Bunyan