The Life of John Bunyan [52]
the world. But yet he was not destitute of
friends, who had all along supported him with necessaries and had
been very good to his family, so that by their assistance getting
things a little about him again, he resolved as much as possible to
decline worldly business, and give himself wholly up to the service
of God." The anonymous writer to whom we are indebted for
information concerning his imprisonment and his subsequent life,
says that Bunyan, "contenting himself with that little God had
bestowed upon him, sequestered himself from all secular employments
to follow that of his call to the ministry." The fact, however,
that in the "deed of gift" of all his property to his wife in 1685,
he still describes himself as a "brazier," puts it beyond all doubt
that though his ministerial duties were his chief concern, he
prudently kept fast hold of his handicraft as a certain means of
support for himself and those dependent on him. On the whole,
Bunyan's outward circumstances were probably easy. His wants were
few and easily supplied. "Having food and raiment" for himself,
his wife, and his children, he was "therewith content." The house
in the parish of St. Cuthbert's which was his home from his release
to his death (unhappily demolished fifty years back), shows the
humble character of his daily life. It was a small cottage, such
as labourers now occupy, with three small rooms on the ground
floor, and a garret with a diminutive dormer window under the high-
pitched tiled roof. Behind stood an outbuilding which served as
his workshop. We have a passing glimpse of this cottage home in
the diary of Thomas Hearne, the Oxford antiquary. One Mr. Bagford,
otherwise unknown to us, had once "walked into the country" on
purpose to see "the study of John Bunyan," and the student who made
it famous. On his arrival the interviewer - as we should now call
him - met with a civil and courteous reception from Bunyan; but he
found the contents of his study hardly larger than those of his
prison cell. They were limited to a Bible, and copies of "The
Pilgrim's Progress," and a few other books, chiefly his own works,
"all lying on a shelf or shelves." Slight as this sketch is, it
puts us more in touch with the immortal dreamer than many longer
and more elaborate paragraphs.
Bunyan's celebrity as a preacher, great before he was shut up in
gaol, was naturally enhanced by the circumstance of his
imprisonment. The barn in Josias Roughead's orchard, where he was
licensed as a preacher, was "so thronged the first time he appeared
there to edify, that many were constrained to stay without; every
one that was of his persuasion striving to partake of his
instructions." Wherever he ministered, sometimes, when troublous
days returned, in woods, and in dells, and other hiding-places, the
announcement that John Bunyan was to preach gathered a large and
attentive auditory, hanging on his lips and drinking from them the
word of life. His fame grew the more he was known and reached its
climax when his work was nearest its end. His biographer Charles
Doe tells us that just before his death, "when Mr. Bunyan preached
in London, if there were but one day's notice given, there would be
more people come together than the meeting-house could hold. I
have seen, by my computation, about twelve hundred at a morning
lecture by seven o'clock on a working day, in the dark winter time.
I also computed about three thousand that came to hear him one
Lord's Day in London, at a town's-end meeting-house, so that half
were fain to go back again for want of room, and then himself was
fain at a back door to be pulled almost over people to get upstairs
to his pulpit." This "town's-end meeting house" has been
identified by some with a quaint straggling long building which
once stood in Queen Street, Southwark, of which there is an
engraving in Wilkinson's "Londina Illustrata." Doe's
friends, who had all along supported him with necessaries and had
been very good to his family, so that by their assistance getting
things a little about him again, he resolved as much as possible to
decline worldly business, and give himself wholly up to the service
of God." The anonymous writer to whom we are indebted for
information concerning his imprisonment and his subsequent life,
says that Bunyan, "contenting himself with that little God had
bestowed upon him, sequestered himself from all secular employments
to follow that of his call to the ministry." The fact, however,
that in the "deed of gift" of all his property to his wife in 1685,
he still describes himself as a "brazier," puts it beyond all doubt
that though his ministerial duties were his chief concern, he
prudently kept fast hold of his handicraft as a certain means of
support for himself and those dependent on him. On the whole,
Bunyan's outward circumstances were probably easy. His wants were
few and easily supplied. "Having food and raiment" for himself,
his wife, and his children, he was "therewith content." The house
in the parish of St. Cuthbert's which was his home from his release
to his death (unhappily demolished fifty years back), shows the
humble character of his daily life. It was a small cottage, such
as labourers now occupy, with three small rooms on the ground
floor, and a garret with a diminutive dormer window under the high-
pitched tiled roof. Behind stood an outbuilding which served as
his workshop. We have a passing glimpse of this cottage home in
the diary of Thomas Hearne, the Oxford antiquary. One Mr. Bagford,
otherwise unknown to us, had once "walked into the country" on
purpose to see "the study of John Bunyan," and the student who made
it famous. On his arrival the interviewer - as we should now call
him - met with a civil and courteous reception from Bunyan; but he
found the contents of his study hardly larger than those of his
prison cell. They were limited to a Bible, and copies of "The
Pilgrim's Progress," and a few other books, chiefly his own works,
"all lying on a shelf or shelves." Slight as this sketch is, it
puts us more in touch with the immortal dreamer than many longer
and more elaborate paragraphs.
Bunyan's celebrity as a preacher, great before he was shut up in
gaol, was naturally enhanced by the circumstance of his
imprisonment. The barn in Josias Roughead's orchard, where he was
licensed as a preacher, was "so thronged the first time he appeared
there to edify, that many were constrained to stay without; every
one that was of his persuasion striving to partake of his
instructions." Wherever he ministered, sometimes, when troublous
days returned, in woods, and in dells, and other hiding-places, the
announcement that John Bunyan was to preach gathered a large and
attentive auditory, hanging on his lips and drinking from them the
word of life. His fame grew the more he was known and reached its
climax when his work was nearest its end. His biographer Charles
Doe tells us that just before his death, "when Mr. Bunyan preached
in London, if there were but one day's notice given, there would be
more people come together than the meeting-house could hold. I
have seen, by my computation, about twelve hundred at a morning
lecture by seven o'clock on a working day, in the dark winter time.
I also computed about three thousand that came to hear him one
Lord's Day in London, at a town's-end meeting-house, so that half
were fain to go back again for want of room, and then himself was
fain at a back door to be pulled almost over people to get upstairs
to his pulpit." This "town's-end meeting house" has been
identified by some with a quaint straggling long building which
once stood in Queen Street, Southwark, of which there is an
engraving in Wilkinson's "Londina Illustrata." Doe's