nce urged to leave Bedford and settle in the
metropolis. But to all these solicitations he turned a deaf ear. Bedford
was the home of his deepest affections. It was there the holy words of
the poor women "sitting in the sun," speaking "as if joy did make them
speak," had first "made his heart shake," and shown him that he was still
a stranger to vital godliness. It was there he had been brought out of
darkness into light himself, and there too he had been the means of
imparting the same blessing to others. The very fact of his long
imprisonment had identified him with the town and its inhabitants. There
he had a large and loving congregation, to whom he was bound by the ties
of a common faith and common sufferings. Many of these recognized in
Bunyan their spiritual father; all, save a few "of the baser sort,"
reverenced him as their teacher and guide. No prospect of a wider field
of usefulness, still less of a larger income, could tempt him to desert
his "few sheep in the wilderness." Some of them, it is true, were
wayward sheep, who wounded the heart of their pastor by breaking from the
fold, and displaying very un-lamb-like behaviour. He had sometimes to
realize painfully that no pale is so close but that the enemy will creep
in somewhere and seduce the flock; and that no rules of communion,
however strict, can effectually exclude unworthy members. Brother John
Stanton had to be admonished "for abusing his wife and beating her often
for very light matters" (if the matters had been less light, would the
beating in these days have been thought justifiable?); and Sister Mary
Foskett, for "privately whispering of a horrid scandal, 'without culler
of truth,' against Brother Honeylove." Evil-speaking and backbiting set
brother against brother. Dissensions and heartburnings grieved Bunyan's
spirit. He himself was not always spared. A letter had to be written to
Sister Hawthorn "by way of reproof for her unseemly language against
Brother Scot and the whole Church." John Wildman was had up before the
Church and convicted of being "an abominable liar and slanderer,"
"extraordinary guilty" against "our beloved Brother Bunyan himself." And
though Sister Hawthorn satisfied the Church by "humble acknowledgment of
her miscariag," the bolder misdoer only made matters worse by "a frothy
letter," which left no alternative but a sentence of expulsion. But
though Bunyan's flock contained some whose fleeces were not as whit