sulted, gave an opinion which might well have produced fatal
consequences. "I am afraid," said Bunyan, "that I have committed the sin
against the Holy Ghost." "Indeed," said the old fanatic, "I am afraid that
you have."

At length the clouds broke; the light became clearer and clearer; and the
enthusiast who had imagined that he was branded with the mark of the first
murderer, and destined to the end of the arch-traitor, enjoyed peace and a
cheerful confidence in the mercy of God. Years elapsed, however, before his
nerves, which had been so perilously overstrained, recovered their tone.
When he had joined a Baptist society at Bedford, and was for the first time
admitted to partake of the eucharist, it was with difficulty that he could
refrain from imprecating destruction on his brethren while the cup was
passing from hand to hand. After he had been some time a member of the
congregation he began to preach; and his sermons produced a powerful
effect. He was indeed illiterate; but he spoke to illiterate men. The
severe training through which he had passed had given him such an
experimental knowledge of all the modes of religious melancholy as he could
never have gathered from books; and his vigorous genius, animated by a
fervent spirit of devotion, enabled him not only to exercise a great
influence over the vulgar, but even to extort the half-contemptuous
admiration of scholars. Yet it was long before he ceased to be tormented by
an impulse which urged him to utter words of horrible impiety in the
pulpit.[4] Bunyan was finally relieved from the internal sufferings which
had embittered his life by sharp persecution from without. He had been five
years a preacher when the Restoration put it in the power of the Cavalier
gentlemen and clergymen all over the country to oppress the dissenters. In
November 1660 he was flung into Bedford gaol; and there he remained, with
some intervals of partial and precarious liberty, during twelve years. The
authorities tried to extort from him a promise that he would abstain from
preaching; but he was convinced that he was divinely set apart and
commissioned to be a teacher of righteousness, and he was fully determined
to obey God rather than man. He was brought before several tribunals,
laughed at, caressed, reviled, menaced, but in vain. He was facetiously
told that he was quite right in thinking that he ought not to hide his
gift; but that his real gift was skill in repairing old kettles. He