Exchange BUNYAN AND HIS TIMES. 3 place of the Liturgy. The high-days of the Church were scouted as relics of the Babylonish harlot. Refinement and elegance of manners was a sure evidence that the Old Enemy was putting on his garments of light. The people at large regarded the stern and austere devotion of the Puritans with abhorrence. Even the sincere and charitable inquirers of those times could ascertain but little of the actual character of that wonderful sect. Their grotesque peculiarities, their contempt of human applause, combined, perhaps, with a haughty affectation of singularity and mystery, blinded many a candid observer to their inherent nobleness. Much less could the common populace, who took men as they found them, and who never cared to descend, in their examinations, deeper than to the shape of the coat, the length of the hair, or the style of the speech, rightly apprehend the true character and worth of the Puritans. They looked upon them with mingled wonder and contempt. They knew nothing of the lofty views and the sublime aspirations of these enthusiasts. They could not attend them in their frequent and mysterious wanderings to the other world. They saw them when they returned, and wondered, as men always wonder at the wild and frightful aspect of one who has just emerged from terrible and unknown scenes. But there was no common ground between the Saints and the World, on which their true character could be intelligibly explained. The people could no better have been made to comprehend their wild vagaries than the peasantry of Crotona could have been instructed in the Esoteric mysteries of Pythagoras. It was indeed an age of excitement, nay, even of enthusiasm. But the enthusiasm of men in general was lethargy, when compared with that of the Saints. Hence the moral and religious influence of the Puritans on the English people was probably small and weak. Upon a few devoted champions mainly devolved the work of maintaining the remnant of religious faith which had survived the terrible commotions of the nation. We cannot but ascribe it to the benevolent wisdom of Providence, that there flourished, about this epoch, the noblest circle of great and good men which England has ever produced within the compass of a century. We speak not now of the philosophers, the poets, and the men of letters. Milton, Newton, Locke, Boyle, are indeed imperishable names. But their inestimable moral influence on their age was somewhat indirect and incidental. There were in those days a host of worthies, more exclusively devoted to the sacred services of religion. We know not to what age or country we are to look for so splendid a list of Christian divines and pulpit orators, as arose at this most perilous crisis that the most important nation on earth has ever encountered. They differed somewhat in years, and somewhat in opinion. But it requires no extraordinary sagacity to perceive the overruling hand of Providence, bringing all their noblest efforts to bear upon the same great end. Chillingworth, Taylor, Baxter, Owen, Charnock, Flavel, Hopkins, Leighton, South, were nearly all at utter variance, touching many points of inferior practical importance. But all, devoting their fine abilities and their almost unlimited acquirements to the moral and religious weal of the nation, exerted an aggregate of influence, which soothed and chastened the turbulent spirit of their countrymen. It is worthy of notice that, with the exception of Chillingworth, these divines were all living after the Restoration. Though they had seen perilous times of confusion and violence and blood, there were yet darker and more shameful scenes in reserve to test their faith; scenes which every Englishman would gladly tear from the history of his country. The divines of that day were all eminently devoted to their work. With prodigious stores of learning, with sensibilities keenly alive to the gentler and finer feelings of our nature, and, in the case of many of them, with the most delicate taste, the weight of their fearful responsibilities pressed too heavily upon them to allow of leisure for paying court to the Muses, or of wandering amid the grateful shades of the Academy. It might answer for the divines of after years, pleasantly domiciled in the midst of peace and quiet, to indulge in the delightful pursuits of literature; for Robertson to devote his days to history; for Bentley to criticise the classics; for Paley to speculate upon political philosophy. But, when the whole responsibility of saving the nation from a complete and hopeless profligacy seemed thrown upon the ministers of religion, they were brought to reflect that commentaries on the classics would never save souls, and that, to confirm the souls of believers, one good sermon is of more worth than a score of learned dissertations on ethics or philosophy. With the exception of the mathematical works of Dr. Barrow, it does not appear that any exclusively secular employment was prosecuted, to a considerable extent, by any distinguished English clergyman of that period. Most of the divines to whom we have referred were attached to the English Church. The regard which, even amid the universal sensuality of the Restoration, was paid to the external forms of the Establishment, secured to them an impunity, and even respect, which the Puritan ministers could by no means obtain. Many of these stern and uncompromising messengers of the truth had been scattered in all directions, when the second Charles ascended the throne. A few remained to waste their scorn and pity on the "reign of the strumpets," and to afford, like Christian and Faithful at Vanity-Fair, a butt for the hooting and jesting of worthless buffoons, not one of whom durst wag his finger at a Saint in the better days of the stern Protector. But there remained many non-conformists who were not Puritans. There were many Presbyterians, and some Baptists. Of these latter was JOHN BUNYAN, of whom it is the highest praise which can be bestowed to mention his name. He had, as is well known, labored earnestly and successfully among his brethren, during the last few years of the Commonwealth, and the period of anarchy which succeeded. But on the very year when the great national revel of the Restoration commenced, he was violently torn from his labor of love, and soon after, like Luther in the Wartburg, secluded for years, that his noble mind might hold more intimate communion with itself and with its Maker. Thus, while all England, with scarce an exception, was but a loathsome scene of blasphemy and obscenity, the great Allegorist was quietly tracing the Progress of the Pilgrim to a better world, in a work which can perish only when the language which contains it shall have faded from the memories of men. All of Bunyan that was not infinitely beyond the reach of any of his friends, was moulded by the Baptists. They could tell him of their own spiritual conflicts, though they could not teach him to portray the terrible scenes of the Grace Abounding. They first taught him the value of his Bible, and their example, undoubtedly, first led him to peruse and reflect upon its sacred pages. But he could never have learned in their school to draw the wonderful imaginings of the Temple Spiritualized. They could tell him of the fiery trials of the way which lay before him. But, when he came to describe the supernatural joys and sorrows of the Pilgrim, he was perfectly aware that he must rely upon his own exertions, nor did he ask assistance from any earthly friend. His brethren could edify him by their exhortations, and induce him to display his own gifts." But when they heard his words that acted like a spell, they were almost ready to exclaim, like the astonished neighbors of a Greater than he, "Is not this the carpenter's son ? and his brethren and his sisters, are they not with us? whence then hath this man all these things?" 66 The character of the English Baptists of that period was well adapted to introduce such a genius as that of Bunyan to its appropriate work. But they wanted such a spirit as could spmpathize with his world-wide charity. Their virtues were many and exalted; their faults few and venial. Their souls were continually exposed to the expansive influence of the Christian faith. They differed on only a single point from many of their brethren, to whom they were bound by the strongest of all ties, the tie of common sufferings for a common cause. But, notwithstanding their liberal and exalting faith, Bunyan was often obliged to rebuke, and sometimes severely, the uncharitableness of his brethren of the close-communion or "water-baptism way." It is no small glory to an illiterate tinker of the seventeenth century, that he should have cherished a Christian love more comprehensive than can be found in some of the most enlightened circles of the nineteenth. One biographer of Bunyan claims for the Baptists the credit of having introduced the Tinker to the world. However they may have encouraged him in "exposing his gifts" in exhortation, neither they nor any other class of men can claim the honor of having "handed the rustic stranger up to fame." He owed it to nothing but the intense and inexpressible fire of his own genius, that, as he was returning home from the "touching and comforting sermon,” he "wished for a pen and ink that he might write." The wish was a natural one, and it was not improbable that there met him then, though dimly, the vision of his future usefulness and deathless fame. He had been encouraged, while yet a youth, to rise, though it was with fear and trem bling, in the midst of the venerable God-fearing men and women of the Church in Bedford. He had seen the big tears falling, as he spoke, from eyes which never wept for trifles. He had seen the rigid hands of many a stern old saint clasped in a rapture of gratitude that God had blessed His young servant. He had heard the groan of repentance from lips which had been seldom parted but with oaths. There arose before his imagination the prospect of addressing the same burning words to hearts which his feeble voice could never reach. He would make a book! He would publish abroad the intense longings of his soul, that light from the other world might meet, as it had himself, the roysterers whom the Holy-Day now found at bellringing, or playing at hockey on the village-green. He would thunder against vice in a voice that should start the drunkard from his cups, and the lecher from his night's debauch. Perhaps his little book might reach the eye of the thoughtless king. If so, his pleasureloving majesty, whether he would hear or forbear, should at least hear plainer names for his sins, and plainer warnings to forsake them, than were wont to be uttered by time-serving bishops and velvet-fingered deans. As Bunyan's character was partly moulded by the Baptists, so his exertions in the sacred desk were mainly confined to them. Nor is it probable that, but for his imprisonment, his labors would ever have been extended beyond their little community. But, though by that disgraceful procedure his own generation was robbed of twelve of the most valuable years of his life, some of those years were given to posterity. We have no reason to complain. But for the certain place where was a den,' the dreamer would never have lain down to sleep.' But it was not in vain that he spent so many years of his life as he did among the Baptists. Before he entered into Bedford jail and gave himself to future generations, his brethren had given him half his spiritual training. Their discipline was needful for the education of his heart. They lived in constant view of the life to come, and had trained their souls to a proud contempt for the interests of time. Their only schools for learning were meditation and prayer. Their only library was the Bible. The only end of their ambition was a golden harp and crown; the only object of their terror an angry glance from the great Eye, which, they felt sure, was beaming in kindness above them. They had learned to despise the splendid rites of the Establishment. They looked with supreme contempt on the lofty and magnificent cathedrals, where hireling prelates led the pompous homage of unhumbled worshipers. They remembered those of old, who wandered in deserts and in mountains, in dens and caves of the earth, of whom the world was not worthy. Conscious that the world was as little worthy of themselves, they turned without reluctance to the solemn shades of a temple not made with hands. They were content to be driven from the haunts of men, while they might be admitted to the immediate presence of the Most High. In the sacred seclusion of the forests they were wont to gather their little company, and there they reverently listened to the Deity speaking in His own works. They knew that a contrite heart is a worthier abode for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, than the most imposing structure that men have ever reared. They worshiped Him in spirit and in truth.' From such a nursery did Bunyan go forth to his work. We have hinted that the school of the Baptists was inadequate to the complete training of his character. It was so, because they could not comprehend, and of course made little allowance for, the wild vagaries of an almost omnipotent imagination. It never entered their minds that, under the rough exterior of their brother, there lay a faculty which was ever extending before him a gorgeous panorama, crowded with all forms of life and beauty, of death and deformity. They saw in the Christian dispensation merely what any humble believer sees in it, a gracious scheme for the salvation of a ruined race. But to Bunyan the whole scene glowed under a new light. The change was like that wrought in Pygmalion's lovely statue by the transformation. If they took delight in contemplation, he was in raptures. If they were in raptures, he was already in the Beautiful City, among the Shining Ones. His sorrow was their agony. His agony they might thank Heaven they never endured. If they felt an inclination to do evil, he could distinctly see the malignant glance of his arch-enemy, gleaming through the beautiful mask: he could feel that iron grasp dragging him down to perdition. If they caught faint glimpses of future bliss, he was in the very midst of Beulah. The dark river shrank to a rill. He heard the voices of the inhabitants of the City: he even walked with them; for in this land the Shining Ones commonly walked, because it was upon the borders of Heaven.' 6 To the vigor of his imagination was, doubtless, partly owing his fondness for the Apocalypse. By most Christians that wonderful vision, with the exceptions of a few brief portions, is read only as a study, with commentaries and Biblical lexicons. Bunyan wanted no assistance but the magic wand of his imagination. While his brethren were quietly reading of the many mansions,' described with such beautiful simplicity by the Great Teacher, he was almost carried away in spirit,' and shown that great city the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God.' Death was to them the thief in the night-to him the grim monster who sat on the pale horse. They thought of the Judgment as the division of the sheep and the goats; he, as the giving up by Death and Hell of the dead that were in them, and the judging of the dead, before the Great White Throne, out of the things written in the books. Let us observe, in passing, that there is a benevolent wisdom exhibited in these various descriptions of the same scenes. As the Scriptures were intended for the refined and the coarse, the wise and the foolish, the learned and the unlearned, so are their sacred teachings presented in a multitude of varied forms, sublime and simple, majestic and familiar. Archbishop Whately has remarked that the framers of the English liturgy paired together words of Latin and Saxon derivation, expressing the same idea, |