Gifford at once, and openly, threw in his
lot with the extremest Puritans in the Puritan town of Bedford. Nor
could Gifford's talents be hid; till from one thing to another, we find
the former Royalist and dissolute Cavalier actually the parish minister
of Bedford in Cromwell's so evangelical but otherwise so elastic
establishment.

At this point we open John Bunyan's _Grace Abounding to the Chief of
Sinners_, and we read this classical passage:--'Upon a day the good
providence of God did cast me to Bedford to work in my calling: and in
one of the streets of that town I came where there were three or four
poor women sitting at the door in the sun and talking about the things of
God. But I may say I heard, but I understood not, for they were far
above and out of my reach . . . About this time I began to break my mind
to those poor people in Bedford, and to tell them of my condition, which,
when they had heard, they told Mr. Gifford of me, who himself also took
occasion to talk with me, and was willing to be well persuaded of me
though I think on too little grounds. But he invited me to his house,
where I should hear him confer with others about the dealings of God with
their souls, from all which I still received more conviction, and from
that time began to see something of the vanity and inner wretchedness of
my own heart, for as yet I knew no great matter therein . . . At that
time also I sat under the ministry of holy Mr. Gifford, whose doctrine,
by the grace of God, was much for my stability.' And so on in that
inimitable narrative.

The first minister whose words were truly blessed of God for our
awakening and conversion has always a place of his own in our hearts. We
all have some minister, some revivalist, some faithful friend, or some
good book in a warm place in our heart. It may be a great city preacher;
it may be a humble American or Irish revivalist; it may be _The Pilgrim's
Progress_, or _The Cardiphonia_, or the _Serious Call_--whoever or
whatever it was that first arrested and awakened and turned us into the
way of life, they all our days stand in a place by themselves in our
grateful heart. And John Gifford has been immortalised by John Bunyan,
both in his _Grace Abounding_ and in his _Pilgrim's Progress_. In his
_Grace Abounding_, as we have just seen, and in _The Pilgrim_, Gifford
has his portrait painted in holy oil on the wall of the Interpreter's
house, and again in eloquent pen and ink in t