had found a new world," a veritable "El Dorado,"
stored with the true riches. Bunyan, as he says, after he had listened
awhile and wondered at their words, left them and went about his work
again. But their words went with him. He could not get rid of them. He
saw that though he thought himself a godly man, and his neighbours
thought so too, he wanted the true tokens of godliness. He was convinced
that godliness was the only true happiness, and he could not rest till he
had attained it. So he made it his business to be going again and again
into the company of these good women. He could not stay away, and the
more he talked with them the more uneasy he became--"the more I
questioned my own condition." The salvation of his soul became all in
all to him. His mind "lay fixed on eternity like a horse-leech at the
vein." The Bible became precious to him. He read it with new eyes, "as
I never did before." "I was indeed then never out of the Bible, either
by reading or meditation." The Epistles of St. Paul, which before he
"could not away with," were now "sweet and pleasant" to him. He was
still "crying out to God that he might know the truth and the way to
Heaven and glory." Having no one to guide him in his study of the most
difficult of all books, it is no wonder that he misinterpreted and
misapplied its words in a manner which went far to unsettle his brain. He
read that without faith he could not be saved, and though he did not
clearly know what faith was, it became a question of supreme anxiety to
him to determine whether he had it or not. If not, he was a castaway
indeed, doomed to perish for ever. So he determined to put it to the
test. The Bible told him that faith, "even as a grain of mustard seed,"
would enable its possessor to work miracles. So, as Mr. Froude says,
"not understanding Oriental metaphors," he thought he had here a simple
test which would at once solve the question. One day as he was walking
along the miry road between Elstow and Bedford, which he had so often
paced as a schoolboy, "the temptation came hot upon him" to put the
matter to the proof, by saying to the puddles that were in the horse-pads
"be dry," and to the dry places, "be ye puddles." He was just about to
utter the words when a sudden thought stopped him. Would it not be
better just to go under the hedge and pray that God would enable him?
This pause saved him from a rash venture, which might have landed him in
despa