he Bible he read his
own condemnation. The weight which pressed him down was the sense of
his unworthiness. What was he that God should care for him? He fancied
that he heard God saying to the angels, 'This poor, simple wretch doth
hanker after me, as if I had nothing to do with my mercy but to bestow
it on such as he. Poor fool, how art thou deceived! It is not for such
as thee to have favour with the Highest.'

Miserable as he was, he clung to his misery as the one link which
connected him with the object of his longings. If he had no hope of
heaven, he was at least distracted that he must lose it. He was afraid
of dying, yet he was still more afraid of continuing to live; lest the
impression should wear away through time, and occupation and other
interests should turn his heart away to the world, and thus his wounds
might cease to pain him.

Readers of the 'Pilgrim's Progress' sometimes ask with wonder, why,
after Christian had been received into the narrow gate, and had been
set forward upon his way, so many trials and dangers still lay before
him. The answer is simply that Christian was a pilgrim, that the
journey of life still lay before him, and at every step temptations
would meet him in new, unexpected shapes. St. Anthony in his hermitage
was beset by as many fiends as had ever troubled him when in the
world. Man's spiritual existence is like the flight of a bird in the
air; he is sustained only by effort, and when he ceases to exert
himself he falls. There are intervals, however, of comparative calm,
and to one of these the storm-tossed Bunyan was now approaching. He
had passed through the Slough of Despond. He had gone astray after Mr.
Legality, and the rocks had almost overwhelmed him. Evangelist now
found him and put him right again, and he was to be allowed a
breathing space at the Interpreter's house. As he was at his ordinary
daily work his mind was restlessly busy. Verses of Scripture came into
his head, sweet while present, but like Peter's sheet caught up again
into heaven. We may have heard all our lives of Christ. Words and
ideas with which we have been familiar from childhood are trodden into
paths as barren as sand. Suddenly, we know not how, the meaning
flashes upon us. The seed has found its way into some corner of our
minds where it can germinate. The shell breaks, the cotyledons open,
and the plant of faith is alive. So it was now to be with Bunyan.

'One day,' he says, 'as I was travelling