The Life of John Bunyan [32]
the severity of
his protracted, but by no means harsh imprisonment. Being arrested
by the warrant of a county magistrate for a county offence,
Bunyan's place of incarceration was naturally the county gaol.
There he undoubtedly passed the twelve years of his captivity, and
there the royal warrant for his release found him "a prisoner in
the common gaol for our county of Bedford." But though far
different from the pictures which writers, desirous of exhibiting
the sufferings of the Puritan confessor in the most telling form,
have drawn - if not "a damp and dreary cell" into which "a narrow
chink admits a few scanty rays of light to render visible the
prisoner, pale and emaciated, seated on the humid earth, pursuing
his daily task to earn the morsel which prolongs his existence and
his confinement together," - "the common gaol" of Bedford must have
been a sufficiently strait and unwholesome abode, especially for
one, like the travelling tinker, accustomed to spend the greater
part of his days in the open-air in unrestricted freedom. Prisons
in those days, and indeed long afterwards, were, at their best,
foul, dark, miserable places. A century later Howard found Bedford
gaol, though better than some, in what would now be justly deemed a
disgraceful condition. One who visited Bunyan during his
confinement speaks of it as "an uncomfortable and close prison."
Bunyan however himself, in the narrative of his imprisonment, makes
no complaint of it, nor do we hear of his health having in any way
suffered from the conditions of his confinement, as was the case
with not a few of his fellow-sufferers for the sake of religion in
other English gaols, some of them even unto death. Bad as it must
have been to be a prisoner, as far as his own testimony goes, there
is no evidence that his imprisonment, though varying in its
strictness with his various gaolers, was aggravated by any special
severity; and, as Mr. Froude has said, "it is unlikely that at any
time he was made to suffer any greater hardships than were
absolutely inevitable."
The arrest of one whose work as a preacher had been a blessing to
so many, was not at once tamely acquiesced in by the religious body
to which he belonged. A few days after Bunyan's committal to gaol,
some of "the brethren" applied to Mr. Crompton, a young magistrate
at Elstow, to bail him out, offering the required security for his
appearance at the Quarter Sessions. The magistrate was at first
disposed to accept the bail; but being a young man, new in his
office, and thinking it possible that there might be more against
Bunyan than the "mittimus" expressed, he was afraid of compromising
himself by letting him go at large. His refusal, though it sent
him back to prison, was received by Bunyan with his usual calm
trust in God's overruling providence. "I was not at all daunted,
but rather glad, and saw evidently that the Lord had heard me."
Before he set out for the justice's house, he tells us he had
committed the whole event to God's ordering, with the prayer that
"if he might do more good by being at liberty than in prison," the
bail might be accepted, "but if not, that His will might be done."
In the failure of his friends' good offices he saw an answer to his
prayer, encouraging the hope that the untoward event, which
deprived them of his personal ministrations, "might be an awaking
to the saints in the country," and while "the slender answer of the
justice," which sent him back to his prison, stirred something akin
to contempt, his soul was full of gladness. "Verily I did meet my
God sweetly again, comforting of me, and satisfying of me, that it
was His will and mind that I should be there." The sense that he
was being conformed to the image of his great Master was a stay to
his soul. "This word," he continues, "did drop in upon my heart
with some life, for he knew that 'for envy they had delivered
him.'"
his protracted, but by no means harsh imprisonment. Being arrested
by the warrant of a county magistrate for a county offence,
Bunyan's place of incarceration was naturally the county gaol.
There he undoubtedly passed the twelve years of his captivity, and
there the royal warrant for his release found him "a prisoner in
the common gaol for our county of Bedford." But though far
different from the pictures which writers, desirous of exhibiting
the sufferings of the Puritan confessor in the most telling form,
have drawn - if not "a damp and dreary cell" into which "a narrow
chink admits a few scanty rays of light to render visible the
prisoner, pale and emaciated, seated on the humid earth, pursuing
his daily task to earn the morsel which prolongs his existence and
his confinement together," - "the common gaol" of Bedford must have
been a sufficiently strait and unwholesome abode, especially for
one, like the travelling tinker, accustomed to spend the greater
part of his days in the open-air in unrestricted freedom. Prisons
in those days, and indeed long afterwards, were, at their best,
foul, dark, miserable places. A century later Howard found Bedford
gaol, though better than some, in what would now be justly deemed a
disgraceful condition. One who visited Bunyan during his
confinement speaks of it as "an uncomfortable and close prison."
Bunyan however himself, in the narrative of his imprisonment, makes
no complaint of it, nor do we hear of his health having in any way
suffered from the conditions of his confinement, as was the case
with not a few of his fellow-sufferers for the sake of religion in
other English gaols, some of them even unto death. Bad as it must
have been to be a prisoner, as far as his own testimony goes, there
is no evidence that his imprisonment, though varying in its
strictness with his various gaolers, was aggravated by any special
severity; and, as Mr. Froude has said, "it is unlikely that at any
time he was made to suffer any greater hardships than were
absolutely inevitable."
The arrest of one whose work as a preacher had been a blessing to
so many, was not at once tamely acquiesced in by the religious body
to which he belonged. A few days after Bunyan's committal to gaol,
some of "the brethren" applied to Mr. Crompton, a young magistrate
at Elstow, to bail him out, offering the required security for his
appearance at the Quarter Sessions. The magistrate was at first
disposed to accept the bail; but being a young man, new in his
office, and thinking it possible that there might be more against
Bunyan than the "mittimus" expressed, he was afraid of compromising
himself by letting him go at large. His refusal, though it sent
him back to prison, was received by Bunyan with his usual calm
trust in God's overruling providence. "I was not at all daunted,
but rather glad, and saw evidently that the Lord had heard me."
Before he set out for the justice's house, he tells us he had
committed the whole event to God's ordering, with the prayer that
"if he might do more good by being at liberty than in prison," the
bail might be accepted, "but if not, that His will might be done."
In the failure of his friends' good offices he saw an answer to his
prayer, encouraging the hope that the untoward event, which
deprived them of his personal ministrations, "might be an awaking
to the saints in the country," and while "the slender answer of the
justice," which sent him back to his prison, stirred something akin
to contempt, his soul was full of gladness. "Verily I did meet my
God sweetly again, comforting of me, and satisfying of me, that it
was His will and mind that I should be there." The sense that he
was being conformed to the image of his great Master was a stay to
his soul. "This word," he continues, "did drop in upon my heart
with some life, for he knew that 'for envy they had delivered
him.'"