ures to supply the place of the juvenile amusements which he
had relinquished, he began to apprehend that he lay under some special
malediction; and he was tormented by a succession of fantasies which
seemed likely to drive him to suicide or to Bedlam.

At one time he took it into his head that all persons of Israelite blood
would be saved, and tried to make out that he partook of that blood; but
his hopes were speedily destroyed by his father, who seems to have had
no ambition to be regarded as a Jew.

At another time Bunyan was disturbed by a strange dilemma: "If I have
not faith, I am lost; if I have faith, I can work miracles." He was
tempted to cry to the puddles between Elstow and Bedford, "Be ye dry,"
and to stake his eternal hopes on the event.

Then he took up a notion that the day of grace for Bedford and the
neighbouring villages was past: that all who were to be saved in that
part of England were already converted; and that he had begun to pray
and strive some months too late.

Then he was harassed by doubts whether the Turks were not in the right,
and the Christians in the wrong. Then he was troubled by a maniacal
impulse which prompted him to pray to the trees, to a broom-stick, to
the parish bull. As yet, however, he was only entering the Valley of the
Shadow of Death. Soon the darkness grew thicker. Hideous forms floated
before him. Sounds of cursing and wailing were in his ears. His way ran
through stench and fire, close to the mouth of the bottomless pit. He
began to be haunted by a strange curiosity about the unpardonable sin,
and by a morbid longing to commit it. But the most frightful of all the
forms which his disease took was a propensity to utter blasphemy, and
especially to renounce his share in the benefits of the redemption.
Night and day, in bed, at table, at work, evil spirits, as he imagined,
were repeating close to his ear the words, "Sell him, sell him." He
struck at the hobgoblins; he pushed them from him; but still they were
ever at his side. He cried out in answer to them, hour after hour:
"Never, never; not for thousands of worlds, not for thousands." At
length, worn out by this long agony, he suffered the fatal words to
escape him, "Let him go, if he will." Then his misery became more
fearful than ever. He had done what could not be forgiven. He had
forfeited his part of the great sacrifice. Like Esau, he had sold his
birthright; and there was no longer any place for repentance. "