magination. No one questioned it,
save a few speculative philosophers in their closets. The statesman in
the House of Commons, the judge on the Bench, the peasant in a midland
village, interpreted literally by this rule the phenomena which they
experienced or saw. They not only believed that God had miraculously
governed the Israelites, but they believed that as directly and
immediately He governed England in the seventeenth century. They not
only believed that there had been a witch at Endor, but they believed
that there were witches in their own villages, who had made compacts
with the devil himself. They believed that the devil still literally
walked the earth like a roaring lion: that he and the evil angels were
perpetually labouring to destroy the souls of men; and that God was
equally busy overthrowing the devil's work, and bringing sin and
crimes to eventual punishment.

In this light the common events of life were actually looked at and
understood, and the air was filled with anecdotes so told as to
illustrate the belief. These stories and these experiences were
Bunyan's early mental food. One of them, which had deeply impressed
the imagination of the Midland counties, was the story of 'Old Tod.'
This man came one day into court, in the Summer Assizes at Bedford,
'all in a dung sweat,' to demand justice upon himself as a felon. No
one had accused him, but God's judgment was not to be escaped, and he
was forced to accuse himself. 'My Lord,' said Old Tod to the judge, 'I
have been a thief from my childhood. I have been a thief ever since.
There has not been a robbery committed these many years, within so
many miles of this town, but I have been privy to it.' The judge,
after a conference, agreed to indict him of certain felonies which he
had acknowledged. He pleaded guilty, implicating his wife along with
him, and they were both hanged.

An intense belief in the moral government of the world creates what it
insists upon. Horror at sin forces the sinner to confess it, and makes
others eager to punish it. 'God's revenge against murder and adultery'
becomes thus an actual fact, and justifies the conviction in which it
rises. Bunyan was specially attentive to accounts of judgments upon
swearing, to which he was himself addicted. He tells a story of a man
at Wimbledon, who, after uttering some strange blasphemy, was struck
with sickness, and died cursing. Another such scene he probably
witnessed himself,[1] and never