The Life of John Bunyan [5]
describe it. We may not unreasonably ask whether this
estimate, however exaggerated it may appear to those who are
strangers to these spiritual experiences, is altogether a mistaken
one?
The spiritual instinct was very early awakened in Bunyan. While
still a child "but nine or ten years old," he tells us he was
racked with convictions of sin, and haunted with religious fears.
He was scared with "fearful dreams," and "dreadful visions," and
haunted in his sleep with "apprehensions of devils and wicked
spirits" coming to carry him away, which made his bed a place of
terrors. The thought of the Day of Judgment and of the torments of
the lost, often came as a dark cloud over his mind in the midst of
his boyish sports, and made him tremble. But though these fevered
visions embittered his enjoyment while they lasted, they were but
transient, and after a while they entirely ceased "as if they had
never been," and he gave himself up without restraint to the
youthful pleasures in which his ardent nature made him ever the
ringleader. The "thoughts of religion" became very grievous to
him. He could not endure even to see others read pious books; "it
would be as a prison to me." The awful realities of eternity which
had once been so crushing to his spirit were "both out of sight and
mind." He said to God, "depart from me." According to the later
morbid estimate which stigmatized as sinful what were little more
than the wild acts of a roystering dare-devil young fellow, full of
animal spirits and with an unusually active imagination, he "could
sin with the greatest delight and ease, and take pleasure in the
vileness of his companions." But that the sense of religion was
not wholly dead in him even then, and that while discarding its
restraints he had an inward reverence for it, is shown by the
horror he experienced if those who had a reputation for godliness
dishonoured their profession. "Once," he says, "when I was at the
height of my vanity, hearing one to swear who was reckoned for a
religious man, it had so great a stroke upon my spirit that it made
my heart to ache."
This undercurrent of religious feeling was deepened by providential
escapes from accidents which threatened his life - "judgments mixed
with mercy" he terms them, - which made him feel that he was not
utterly forsaken of God. Twice he narrowly escaped drowning; once
in "Bedford river" - the Ouse; once in "a creek of the sea," his
tinkering rounds having, perhaps, carried him as far northward as
the tidal inlets of the Wash in the neighbourhood of Spalding or
Lynn, or to the estuaries of the Stour and Orwell to the east. At
another time, in his wild contempt of danger, he tore out, while
his companions looked on with admiration, what he mistakenly
supposed to be an adder's sting.
These providential deliverances bring us to that incident in his
brief career as a soldier which his anonymous biographer tells us
"made so deep an impression upon him that he would never mention
it, which he often did, without thanksgiving to God." But for this
occurrence, indeed, we should have probably never known that he had
ever served in the army at all. The story is best told in his own
provokingly brief words - "When I was a soldier I with others were
drawn out to go to such a place to besiege it. But when I was just
ready to go, one of the company desired to go in my room; to which
when I consented, he took my place, and coming to the siege, as he
stood sentinel, he was shot in the head with a musket bullet and
died." Here, as is so often the case in Bunyan's autobiography, we
have reason to lament the complete absence of details. This is
characteristic of the man. The religious import of the occurrences
he records constituted their only value in his eyes; their temporal
setting, which imparts their chief interest to us, was of no
account to him. He gives us not the slightest
estimate, however exaggerated it may appear to those who are
strangers to these spiritual experiences, is altogether a mistaken
one?
The spiritual instinct was very early awakened in Bunyan. While
still a child "but nine or ten years old," he tells us he was
racked with convictions of sin, and haunted with religious fears.
He was scared with "fearful dreams," and "dreadful visions," and
haunted in his sleep with "apprehensions of devils and wicked
spirits" coming to carry him away, which made his bed a place of
terrors. The thought of the Day of Judgment and of the torments of
the lost, often came as a dark cloud over his mind in the midst of
his boyish sports, and made him tremble. But though these fevered
visions embittered his enjoyment while they lasted, they were but
transient, and after a while they entirely ceased "as if they had
never been," and he gave himself up without restraint to the
youthful pleasures in which his ardent nature made him ever the
ringleader. The "thoughts of religion" became very grievous to
him. He could not endure even to see others read pious books; "it
would be as a prison to me." The awful realities of eternity which
had once been so crushing to his spirit were "both out of sight and
mind." He said to God, "depart from me." According to the later
morbid estimate which stigmatized as sinful what were little more
than the wild acts of a roystering dare-devil young fellow, full of
animal spirits and with an unusually active imagination, he "could
sin with the greatest delight and ease, and take pleasure in the
vileness of his companions." But that the sense of religion was
not wholly dead in him even then, and that while discarding its
restraints he had an inward reverence for it, is shown by the
horror he experienced if those who had a reputation for godliness
dishonoured their profession. "Once," he says, "when I was at the
height of my vanity, hearing one to swear who was reckoned for a
religious man, it had so great a stroke upon my spirit that it made
my heart to ache."
This undercurrent of religious feeling was deepened by providential
escapes from accidents which threatened his life - "judgments mixed
with mercy" he terms them, - which made him feel that he was not
utterly forsaken of God. Twice he narrowly escaped drowning; once
in "Bedford river" - the Ouse; once in "a creek of the sea," his
tinkering rounds having, perhaps, carried him as far northward as
the tidal inlets of the Wash in the neighbourhood of Spalding or
Lynn, or to the estuaries of the Stour and Orwell to the east. At
another time, in his wild contempt of danger, he tore out, while
his companions looked on with admiration, what he mistakenly
supposed to be an adder's sting.
These providential deliverances bring us to that incident in his
brief career as a soldier which his anonymous biographer tells us
"made so deep an impression upon him that he would never mention
it, which he often did, without thanksgiving to God." But for this
occurrence, indeed, we should have probably never known that he had
ever served in the army at all. The story is best told in his own
provokingly brief words - "When I was a soldier I with others were
drawn out to go to such a place to besiege it. But when I was just
ready to go, one of the company desired to go in my room; to which
when I consented, he took my place, and coming to the siege, as he
stood sentinel, he was shot in the head with a musket bullet and
died." Here, as is so often the case in Bunyan's autobiography, we
have reason to lament the complete absence of details. This is
characteristic of the man. The religious import of the occurrences
he records constituted their only value in his eyes; their temporal
setting, which imparts their chief interest to us, was of no
account to him. He gives us not the slightest