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BUNYAN, JOHN. 



BUNYAN, JOHN. 



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orientalist Sylyestre de Sacy. He had it next in contemplation to go 

 to India, in company with an Englishman, in order to acquire a farther 

 knowledge of Sanscrit; but having in the meantime determined to 

 visit Italy, he met at Rome his friend Braudis, then secretary to the 

 Prussian embassy at Home under Niebuhr. Introduced to Niebuhr, 

 the young scholar found in him a friend capable of appreciating his 

 merits. Abandoning his intention of going to the East, he settled in 

 Rome as Niebuhr's private secretary a situation afterwards exchanged 

 for the higher one of secretary to the embassy. Enjoying the benefit 

 of Xiebuhr's society and advice, he resumed his classical studies with 

 enthusiasm, turning to advantage the facilities afforded him by his 

 residence in Rome. The results of his inquiries into the antiquities 

 and topography of Rome appeared in his ' Beschreibung der Stadt 

 Rom" ('Description of the City of Rome'). He also interested himsell 

 much at this time in the hieroglyphical researches of Champollion ; 

 and he was instrumental in inciting the savans of Berlin to betake 

 themselves to this branch of archaeology, and more particularly in 

 determining towards it the rising talent of the great living /Egyptologist, 

 Dr. Lepsius. At Rome, Bunsen was one of the chief supports of the 

 Archaeological Institute, and indeed acted as its general secretary. The 

 vieit of the king of Prussia to Rome in 1822 made that sovereign 

 acquainted with the abilities of the secretary of hia legation; the 

 present king also then crown-prince made his acquaintance about the 

 same time. The personal esteem which both contracted for Bunsen 

 accounts for his rapid advancement in the Prussian diplomatic service. 

 On Niebuhr's retirement from the embassy at Rome, Bunsen succeeded 

 him, first as charge"-d'affaires and afterwards ns full minister. In this 

 capacity he interested himself much in the Protestant church and 

 Protestant worship at Rome, as well as in his classical and historical 

 studies. A difference between the papal court and that of Prussia on 

 a question of ecclesiastical right in the Prussian states, led to his recall 

 in March iS3S. After a visit to Munich and to England, he was again 

 in November 1S39 in diplomatic service as ambassador to the Swiss 

 Confederacy; and in 1S41 he was appointed Prussian ambassador to 

 England. Retaining this post till 1354, when his peculiar opinions on 

 the proper policy of Prussia in the approaching European crisis led to 

 hia resignation or recall, and having during these thirteen years resided 

 chiefly in London, Chevalier Bunsen became almost a naturalised 

 Englishman ; and indeed two of his sous have settled in England, one 

 as a clergyman in the English church. While discharging with peculiar 

 discretion his duties as Prussian ambassador, he was at the same time 

 widely known in English society as a philologist and a man of letters 

 a representative, in intellectual English circles, of the erudition and 

 scholarly zeal of Germany. The following list of his works, published 

 since 1841, will indicate the grounds of his well-earned celebrity: 

 ' The Liturgy of the Passion-Week, with a Preface,' &c., published at 

 Hamburg in 1841, not translated ; ' The Basilicse of Christian Rome in 

 their Connexion with the Idea and History of Church-Architecture,' 

 Ac., published at Munich in 1843, and not translated; ' The Epistles 

 of Ignatius of Antioch, with Annotations,' and ' Ignatius of Antioch 

 and his Age, Seven Letters to Dr. A. Neander,' both published by the 

 Academy of Hamburg in 1844, and the last we believe translated; 

 ' Die Verfassuug der Kirche der Zukunft,' published at Hamburg in 

 1845, and translated into English in 1847 under the title of 'The 

 Constitution of the Church of the Future ;' ' ^Egyptens Stelle in der 

 Weltgeschichte,' Hamburg, 1845, and the English translation of which, 

 ' Egypt's Place in Universal History,' is perhaps the best known of the 

 author's works ; ' Memoir on the Constitutional Rights of the Duchies 

 of Schleswig and Holstein,' presented to Lord Palmerston, April 1848, 

 and published that year (about which time other papers on German 

 politics were published by the author) ; finally, since 1848, contribu- 

 tions to ' The Life and Letters of B. G. Niebuhr,' published by an 

 English editor in 1852 from the German materials ; and an important 



' Christianity _ . 



vols. 1 and 2 containing ' Hippolytus and his Age, vols. 3 and 4 

 ' Outlines of the Philosophy of Universal History applied to Language 

 and Religion,' and vols. 5, 6, and 7 ' Analecta Ante-Nicsena.' It is as an 

 ^Egyptologist and ecclesiastical historian that Chevalier Bunsen has 

 most widely affected his time. He now lives iu retirement on the 

 Rhine, pursuing hia favourite studies, and often reading or writing 

 at a standing-desk sixteen hours a day. 



BUNYAN, JOHN, was born at Elstow, near Bedford, in 1628. His 

 father, like his ancestors for some generations, was a tinker, and John 

 Bunyan wag brought up to the family occupation. Yet, though, as he 

 long afterwards wrote, his "father's house was of that rank that is 

 meanest and most despised of all the families in the laud," he was not 

 left wholly uneducated, but was taught to read and write "according to 

 the rate of other poor men's children ; " though, as he confesses, he 

 soon almost entirely lost what little he had learneJ. His parents 

 appear to have likewise taken some care in his religious training ; but 

 he abandoned himself while yet a youth to evil habits, and to "all ! 

 manner of youthful vanities," and became so addicted to profane 

 nweariog, that a woman of loose and ungodly life told him that " he 

 was the ungodliest fellow for swearing that ever she heard in all her 

 life," and that he "made her tremble to hear him." This reproof, 

 from such a person, set Mm thinking about his course of life. It was 



Bioo. DIV. VOL. I. 



indeed long before he became thoroughly reformed, but from that 

 time he refrained from the practice of open vice. 



John Bunyan has related, in his ' Grace Abounding,' his ' Law and 

 Works," and his ' Jerusalem Sinner Saved,' more fully and minutely, 

 and with more vigour and force of expression, what, in the old 

 puritan phraseology, would be called his sinful state, his conversion, 

 and his religious experiences, than any other person whose religious 

 history has been read beyond the boundary of the connexion to which 

 he belonged. His strong descriptions therefore of his " corrupt con- 

 dition," and of the terrible mental struggles through which he passed 

 before obtaining spiritual peace, have served to corroborate the opinion 

 somewhat loosely expressed by some of his older biographers respect- 

 ing his early depravity, and even by his most recent one, that devoted 

 student of Bunyau's writings and painstaking collector of all possible 

 information respecting him, Mr. George Offor. There is however no 

 reason to believe that Bunyau was ever a really depraved man in the 

 ordinary acceptation of the term. He appears to have been honest, 

 sober, and, at his worst time, scrupulously free from licentiousness. 

 He married early in life a young woman of a pious family, and with 

 her he was accustomed to read religious books. Before he was nine- 

 teen, several providential escapes (as he deemed them) from a violent 

 death had impressed his mind with anxious thoughts about a future 

 state ; and, finally, conversations with some members of the church of 

 Mr. Gifford, a Baptist minister at Bedford, and with Gifford himself, 

 who had been in early life a major in the royalist army, and of habits 

 more than usually profligate even among the royalist soldiery, who 

 had by the devotion of his wife escaped from prison the night before 

 Ids intended execution for being concerned in a royalist plot, and 

 whose religious career had especially fitted him to deal with the 

 idiosyncracies of the marvellous tinker ; these, and the reading of 

 Luther on the Galatians, completed (but not until he had passed 

 through more than two years and a half of spiritual conflict) the 

 change of heart, and Bunyan became as eminent for his fervent piety 

 as, by his own showing, he had formerly been for his profanity. 



He was received into communion with Mr. Gifford's church by 

 baptism by immersion in 1653. After a year or two of probation he 

 was called upon to take a share in the ministry ; and his preaching, 

 though for the most part in private houses or neighbouring villages, 

 excited general attention, and great numbers of the townsmen flocked 

 to hear him, many being led by it to a change of life. Hia preaching 

 however gave great offence he says " to the doctors and priests of tho 

 country" it was in the days of anti-prelatic supremacy and iu 1657 

 an indictment was preferred against him at the assizes for preaching 

 at Elstow. He escaped without punishment this time however: but 

 he was again indicted shortly after the Restoration, and convicted aa 

 a " common upholder of several unlawful meetings and conventicles, 

 to the great disturbance and distraction of the good subjects of this 

 kingdom." He might have had his liberty if he would have engaged 

 not to preach any more, and during his long imprisonment the offer 

 was several times repeated, but Buuyan was too sincere in his purpose, 

 and too deeply impressed with the reality of his call to the work, to 

 enter into any such engagement. He remained in consequence a 

 prisoner, as he expressed it, for conscience sake, in Bedford jail from 

 1660 to 1672. Prisons were then very different places, and prisoners 

 very differently treated to what they are now, but Bunyan seems on 

 the whole to have met with as much consideration as was compatible 

 with imprisonment at all. From the first he used to preach in the jail, 

 then crowded with persons in custody for attending at a convent! le. 

 For the maintenance of his family he was allowed to make tagged 

 thread laces ; he had the free use of his ' prison library ' the Bible 

 and the Book of Martyrs and of writing materials ; during the later 

 years of his imprisonment he was permitted to go into the town as 

 often as he pleased ; on one occasion he even made a journey to 

 London, though for permitting that the jailer received a severe censure. 

 During these years Bunyan appears to have preached and exhorted 

 pretty nearly as freely as though he had not been a prisoner. In the 

 last year of his imprisonment he was elected pastor of the Baptist 

 church in which Mr. Gifford had presided, and he was able to attend 

 regularly to his ministerial duties. At length, on the 13th of September 

 1672, he was set at liberty. 



Preachiug and making of tagged laces had not bean his only employ- 

 ments in Bedford jail. Before he was taken there he had begun to 

 use his pen, chiefly in controversy with the Quakers ; and his pen 

 Droved an ample solace to him in his cell. Several works, including 

 lis ' Grace Abounding,' and what is next to the ' Pilgrim,' his best 

 mown work, 'The Holy War,' which were eagerly read then, and 

 ong afterwards by his co-religionists, were the result of his enforced 

 retirement from the active pursuit of his calling. But the work 

 which has for ever rendered his imprisonment memorable is the 

 amous 'Pilgrim's Progress from this World to that which is to 

 Come,' of which the first part, though not published till six years after 

 iis release, was unquestionably written in his ' den ' in Bedford jail. 



After his release, Bunyan set about putting his private affairs and 

 the affairs of his church in order. The chapel in which he preached 

 was greatly enlarged in order to accommodate the crowds who 

 gathered to listen to him. He commenced the organisations of branch 

 meetings, and what might be called preaching circuits; and soon 

 acquired such extended authority and influence that he came to be 



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