The Life of John Bunyan [4]
and other evil
practices, as well as with treating the poor boys "when present"
with a cruelty which must have made them wish that his absences,
long as they were, had been more protracted. Whether this man was
his master or no, it was little that Bunyan learnt at school, and
that little he confesses with shame he soon lost "almost utterly."
He was before long called home to help his father at the Harrowden
forge, where he says he was "brought up in a very mean condition
among a company of poor countrymen." Here, with but little to
elevate or refine his character, the boy contracted many bad
habits, and grew up what Coleridge somewhat too strongly calls "a
bitter blackguard." According to his own remorseful confession, he
was "filled with all unrighteousness," having "from a child" in his
"tender years," "but few equals both for cursing, swearing, lying
and blaspheming the holy name of God." Sins of this kind he
declares became "a second nature to him;" he "delighted in all
transgression against the law of God," and as he advanced in his
teens he became a "notorious sinbreeder," the "very ringleader," he
says, of the village lads "in all manner of vice and ungodliness."
But the unsparing condemnation passed by Bunyan, after his
conversion, on his former self, must not mislead us into supposing
him ever, either as boy or man, to have lived a vicious life. "The
wickedness of the tinker," writes Southey, "has been greatly
overrated, and it is taking the language of self-accusation too
literally to pronounce of John Bunyan that he was at any time
depraved." The justice of this verdict of acquittal is fully
accepted by Coleridge. "Bunyan," he says, "was never in our
received sense of the word 'wicked.' He was chaste, sober, and
honest." He hints at youthful escapades, such, perhaps, as
orchard-robbing, or when a little older, poaching, and the like,
which might have brought him under "the stroke of the laws," and
put him to "open shame before the face of the world." But he
confesses to no crime or profligate habit. We have no reason to
suppose that he was ever drunk, and we have his own most solemn
declaration that he was never guilty of an act of unchastity. "In
our days," to quote Mr. Froude, "a rough tinker who could say as
much for himself after he had grown to manhood, would be regarded
as a model of self-restraint. If in Bedford and the neighbourhood
there was no young man more vicious than Bunyan, the moral standard
of an English town in the seventeenth century must have been higher
than believers in progress will be pleased to allow." How then, it
may be asked, are we to explain the passionate language in which he
expresses his self-abhorrence, which would hardly seem exaggerated
in the mouth of the most profligate and licentious? We are
confident that Bunyan meant what he said. So intensely honest a
nature could not allow his words to go beyond his convictions.
When he speaks of "letting loose the reins to his lusts," and
sinning "with the greatest delight and ease," we know that however
exaggerated they may appear to us, his expressions did not seem to
him overstrained. Dr. Johnson marvelled that St. Paul could call
himself "the chief of sinners," and expressed a doubt whether he
did so honestly. But a highly-strung spiritual nature like that of
the apostle, when suddenly called into exercise after a period of
carelessness, takes a very different estimate of sin from that of
the world, even the decent moral world, in general. It realizes
its own offences, venial as they appear to others, as sins against
infinite love - a love unto death - and in the light of the
sacrifice on Calvary, recognizes the heinousness of its guilt, and
while it doubts not, marvels that it can be pardoned. The
sinfulness of sin - more especially their own sin - is the
intensest of all possible realities to them. No language is too
strong to
practices, as well as with treating the poor boys "when present"
with a cruelty which must have made them wish that his absences,
long as they were, had been more protracted. Whether this man was
his master or no, it was little that Bunyan learnt at school, and
that little he confesses with shame he soon lost "almost utterly."
He was before long called home to help his father at the Harrowden
forge, where he says he was "brought up in a very mean condition
among a company of poor countrymen." Here, with but little to
elevate or refine his character, the boy contracted many bad
habits, and grew up what Coleridge somewhat too strongly calls "a
bitter blackguard." According to his own remorseful confession, he
was "filled with all unrighteousness," having "from a child" in his
"tender years," "but few equals both for cursing, swearing, lying
and blaspheming the holy name of God." Sins of this kind he
declares became "a second nature to him;" he "delighted in all
transgression against the law of God," and as he advanced in his
teens he became a "notorious sinbreeder," the "very ringleader," he
says, of the village lads "in all manner of vice and ungodliness."
But the unsparing condemnation passed by Bunyan, after his
conversion, on his former self, must not mislead us into supposing
him ever, either as boy or man, to have lived a vicious life. "The
wickedness of the tinker," writes Southey, "has been greatly
overrated, and it is taking the language of self-accusation too
literally to pronounce of John Bunyan that he was at any time
depraved." The justice of this verdict of acquittal is fully
accepted by Coleridge. "Bunyan," he says, "was never in our
received sense of the word 'wicked.' He was chaste, sober, and
honest." He hints at youthful escapades, such, perhaps, as
orchard-robbing, or when a little older, poaching, and the like,
which might have brought him under "the stroke of the laws," and
put him to "open shame before the face of the world." But he
confesses to no crime or profligate habit. We have no reason to
suppose that he was ever drunk, and we have his own most solemn
declaration that he was never guilty of an act of unchastity. "In
our days," to quote Mr. Froude, "a rough tinker who could say as
much for himself after he had grown to manhood, would be regarded
as a model of self-restraint. If in Bedford and the neighbourhood
there was no young man more vicious than Bunyan, the moral standard
of an English town in the seventeenth century must have been higher
than believers in progress will be pleased to allow." How then, it
may be asked, are we to explain the passionate language in which he
expresses his self-abhorrence, which would hardly seem exaggerated
in the mouth of the most profligate and licentious? We are
confident that Bunyan meant what he said. So intensely honest a
nature could not allow his words to go beyond his convictions.
When he speaks of "letting loose the reins to his lusts," and
sinning "with the greatest delight and ease," we know that however
exaggerated they may appear to us, his expressions did not seem to
him overstrained. Dr. Johnson marvelled that St. Paul could call
himself "the chief of sinners," and expressed a doubt whether he
did so honestly. But a highly-strung spiritual nature like that of
the apostle, when suddenly called into exercise after a period of
carelessness, takes a very different estimate of sin from that of
the world, even the decent moral world, in general. It realizes
its own offences, venial as they appear to others, as sins against
infinite love - a love unto death - and in the light of the
sacrifice on Calvary, recognizes the heinousness of its guilt, and
while it doubts not, marvels that it can be pardoned. The
sinfulness of sin - more especially their own sin - is the
intensest of all possible realities to them. No language is too
strong to