mental troubles was an illness. He had a
cough which threatened to turn into consumption. He thought it was all
over with him, and he was fixing his eyes 'on the heavenly Jerusalem
and the innumerable company of angels;' but the danger passed off, and
he became well and strong in mind and body. Notwithstanding his
various miseries, he had not neglected his business, and had indeed
been specially successful. By the time that he was twenty-five years
old he was in a position considerably superior to that in which he was
born. 'God,' says a contemporary biographer, 'had increased his stores
so that he lived in great credit among his neighbours.' On May 13,
1653, Bedfordshire sent an address to Cromwell approving the dismissal
of the Long Parliament, recognising Oliver himself as the Lord's
instrument, and recommending the county magistrates as fit persons to
serve in the Assembly which was to take its place. Among thirty-six
names attached to this document, appear those of Gifford and Bunyan.
This speaks for itself: he must have been at least a householder and a
person of consideration. It was not, however, as a prosperous brazier
that Bunyan was to make his way. He had a gift of speech, which, in
the democratic congregation to which he belonged, could not long
remain hid. Young as he was, he had sounded the depths of spiritual
experience. Like Dante he had been in hell--the popular hell of
English Puritanism--and in 1655 he was called upon to take part in the
'ministry.' He was modest, humble, shrinking. The minister when he
preached was, according to the theory, an instrument uttering the
words not of himself but of the Holy Spirit. A man like Bunyan, who
really believed this, might well be alarmed. After earnest entreaty,
however, 'he made experiment of his powers' in private, and it was at
once evident that, with the thing which these people meant by
inspiration, he was abundantly supplied. No such preacher to the
uneducated English masses was to be found within the four seas. He
says that he had no desire of vain glory; no one who has studied his
character can suppose that he had. He was a man of natural genius,
who believed the Protestant form of Christianity to be completely
true. He knew nothing of philosophy, nothing of history, nothing of
literature. The doubts to which he acknowledged being without their
natural food, had never presented themselves in a form which would
have compelled him to submit to remain unc