ry for Bunyan, but his case was beyond remedy.
Bunyan's sin was so peculiar, that it was not of the nature of those
for which He had bled and died, and had not, therefore, been laid to
His charge. To justify Bunyan he must come down and die again, and
that was not to be thought of. 'Oh!' exclaimed the unfortunate victim,
'the unthought-of imaginations, frights, fears, and terrors, that are
effected by a thorough application of guilt (to a spirit) that is
yielded to desperation. This is the man that hath his dwelling among
the tombs.'

Sitting in this humour on a settle in the street at Bedford, he was
pondering over his fearful state. The sun in heaven seemed to grudge
its light to him. 'The stones in the street and the tiles on the
houses did bend themselves against him.' Each crisis in Bunyan's mind
is always framed in the picture of some spot where it occurred. He was
crying 'in the bitterness of his soul, How can God comfort such a
wretch as I am?' As before, in the shop, a voice came in answer, 'This
sin is not unto death.' The first voice had brought him hope which was
almost extinguished; the second was a message of life. The night was
gone, and it was daylight. He had come to the end of the Valley of the
Shadow of Death, and the spectres and the hobgoblins which had
jibbered at him suddenly all vanished. A moment before he had supposed
that he was out of reach of pardon, that he had no right to pray, no
right to repent, or, at least, that neither prayer nor repentance
could profit him. If his sin was not to death, then he was on the same
ground as other sinners. If they might pray, he might pray, and might
look to be forgiven on the same terms. He still saw that his 'selling
Christ' had been 'most barbarous,' but despair was followed by an
extravagance, no less unbounded, of gratitude, when he felt that
Christ would pardon even this.

'Love and affection for Christ,' he says, 'did work at this time such
a strong and hot desire of revengement upon myself for the abuse I had
done to Him, that, to speak as then I thought, had I had a thousand
gallons of blood in my veins, I could freely have spilt it all at the
command of my Lord and Saviour. The tempter told me it was vain to
pray. Yet, thought I, I will pray. But, said the tempter, your sin is
unpardonable. Well, said I, I will pray. It is no boot, said he. Yet,
said I, I will pray: so I went to prayer, and I uttered words to this
effect: Lord, Satan tells me t