o gaol had driven Howe into banishment; and,
soon after Baxter had been let out of the King's Bench prison, Howe
returned from Utrecht to England. It was expected at Whitehall that Howe
would exert in favour of the court all the authority which he possessed
over his brethren. The King himself condescended to ask the help of the
subject whom he had oppressed. Howe appears to have hesitated: but the
influence of the Hampdens, with whom he was on terms of close intimacy,
kept him steady to the cause of the constitution. A meeting of
Presbyterian ministers was held at his house, to consider the state of
affairs, and to determine on the course to be adopted. There was great
anxiety at the palace to know the result. Two royal messengers were in
attendance during the discussion. They carried back the unwelcome news
that Howe had declared himself decidedly adverse to the dispensing
power, and that he had, after long debate, carried with him the majority
of the assembly. [253]

To the names of Baxter and Howe must be added the name of a man far
below them in station and in acquired knowledge, but in virtue their
equal, and in genius their superior, John Bunyan. Bunyan had been bred
a tinker, and had served as a private soldier in the parliamentary army.
Early in his life he had been fearfully tortured by remorse for his
youthful sins, the worst of which seem, however, to have been such
as the world thinks venial. His keen sensibility and his powerful
imagination made his internal conflicts singularly terrible. He fancied
that he was under sentence of reprobation, that he had committed
blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, that he had sold Christ, that he was
actually possessed by a demon. Sometimes loud voices from heaven cried
out to warn him. Sometimes fiends whispered impious suggestions in his
ear. He saw visions of distant mountain tops, on which the sun shone
brightly, but from which he was separated by a waste of snow. He felt
the Devil behind him pulling his clothes. He thought that the brand of
Cain had been set upon him. He feared that he was about to burst asunder
like Judas. His mental agony disordered his health. One day he shook
like a man in the palsy. On another day he felt a fire within his
breast. It is difficult to understand how he survived sufferings so
intense, and so long continued. At length the clouds broke. From the
depths of despair, the penitent passed to a state of serene felicity. An
irresistible impuls