astical temperaments demand something more complete and
consistent. The clergy under the Long Parliament caught partially the
tone of the prevailing spirit. The reading of the 'Book of Sports' had
been interdicted, and from their pulpits they lectured their
congregations on the ungodliness of the Sabbath amusements. But the
congregations were slow to listen, and the sports went on.

One Sunday morning, when Bunyan was at church with his wife, a sermon
was delivered on this subject. It seemed to be especially addressed to
himself, and it much affected him. He shook off the impression, and
after dinner he went as usual to the green. He was on the point of
striking at a ball when the thought rushed across his mind, Wilt thou
leave thy sins and go to Heaven, or have thy sins and go to hell? He
looked up. The reflection of his own emotion was before him in visible
form. He imagined that he saw Christ himself looking down at him from
the sky. But he concluded that it was too late for him to repent. He
was past pardon. He was sure to be damned, and he might as well be
damned for many sins as for few. Sin at all events was pleasant, the
only pleasant thing that he knew, therefore he would take his fill of
it. The sin was the game, and nothing but the game. He continued to
play, but the Puritan sensitiveness had taken hold of him. An
artificial offence had become a real offence when his conscience was
wounded by it. He was reckless and desperate.

'This temptation of the devil,' he says, 'is more usual among poor
creatures than many are aware of. It continued with me about a month
or more; but one day as I was standing at a neighbour's shop-window,
and there cursing and swearing after my wonted manner, there sate
within the woman of the house and heard me, who, though she was a
loose and ungodly wretch, protested that I swore and cursed at such a
rate that she trembled to hear me. I was able to spoil all the youths
in a whole town. At this reproof I was silenced and put to secret
shame, and that too, as I thought, before the God of Heaven. I stood
hanging down my head and wishing that I might be a little child that
my father might learn me to speak without this wicked sin of swearing,
for, thought I, I am so accustomed to it that it is vain to think of a
reformation.'

These words have been sometimes taken as a reflection on Bunyan's own
father, as if he had not sufficiently checked the first symptoms of a
bad habit. If this