is intellectual faculties.
But the vigor of his bodily constitution had been silently giving way,
through a long course of years, to the ravages of gout. It was at
length thoroughly undermined; and about November 10, 1674, he died
with tranquillity so profound that his attendants were unable to
determine the exact moment of his decease. He was buried, with unusual
marks of honor, in the chancel of St. Giles at Cripplegate.

JOHN BUNYAN

By JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER

(1628-1688)

"Wouldst see
A man i' the clouds, and hear him speak to thee?"

[Illustration: John Bunyan.]

Who has not read "Pilgrim's Progress?" Who has not, in childhood,
followed the wandering Christian on his way to the Celestial City? Who
has not laid at night his young head on the pillow, to paint on the
walls of darkness pictures of the Wicket Gate and the Archers, the
Hill of Difficulty, the Lions and Giants, Doubting Castle and Vanity
Fair, the sunny Delectable Mountains and the Shepherds, the Black
River and the wonderful glory beyond it; and at last fallen asleep, to
dream over the strange story, to hear the sweet welcomings of the
sisters at the House Beautiful, and the song of birds from the window
of that "upper chamber which opened toward the sunrising?" And who,
looking back to the green spots in his childish experiences, does not
bless the good Tinker of Elstow?

And who, that has reperused the story of the Pilgrim at a maturer age,
and felt the plummet of its truth sounding in the deep places of the
soul, has not reason to bless the author for some timely warning or
grateful encouragement? Where is the scholar, the poet, the man of
taste and feeling who does not with Cowper,

"Even in transitory life's late day,
Revere the man whose Pilgrim marks the road
And guides the Progress of the soul to God!"

We have just been reading, with no slight degree of interest, that
simple but wonderful piece of autobiography entitled "Grace Abounding
to the Chief of Sinners," from the pen of the author of "Pilgrim's
Progress." It is the record of a journey more terrible than that of
the ideal Pilgrim; "truth stranger than fiction;" the painful upward
struggling of a spirit from the blackness of despair and blasphemy,
into the high, pure air of Hope and Faith. More earnest words were
never written. It is the entire unveiling of a human heart, the
tearing off of the fig-leaf covering of its sin. Th