Litchfield enquirer., 1854-07-27
NiisceiIaqy.
JOHN BUNYAN.

In the edition of Encyclopedia Bri- tannica or Dictionary of Arts, Sciences. and General Literature" we have Tsays the Dublin Nation] a short biography of Bunyan. which in few pages p' p'esents that quaint old worthy as breathing figure. The strength, humor, grace of style, liberty of tone, keenness of pe'cep- tion, and thorough relish for the subject manifest in the whiting of this little nae moir. indicate plainly enough the owner of the signature. T. B. M., by whom the |" Encyclopaedia has been in this case enriched.
 Mr. Macaulay represents vividly. the boy, John Bunyan, bon tinker. with a powerful imagination and keen sensibil> i.y, excited by religious terrors, growing up to tormented youth. Of the iepra> vi,y and profiigacy commonly attributed to him. on his own testimony, as charac- te,istic of his tinker days. so far as such wo,ds have real meaning in our own ears, he is here proved guillless. His four chief sins were dancing, ringing the bells of the parish church, playing at tip. cat and reading the history of Sir Bevis of Southampton. Another sin. indeed. is named, which appears somewhat more real to us, but his habit of swearing was cured by one ieproof. "A rector of the echool of Land,'' Mir. Macaulay observes, twould have held such a young man up. to the whole parish ms model. But Bunyan's notions of good and evil had been learned in very different school ] and he was made miserable by the con- flict between his tastes and his scraples." {"
 At seventeen, Bunyan enlisted in ihe Parliamentary army. and served during ,hecampaign of le45. Then it was that his imag ination became stored with those impressions of the pomp and filcumstance of war, which furnished afterwards so many of his illustrations, and supplied him with his Great-heart, his Captain Boanerges, and his Captain Credence. The campaign over and he went home and married. And then his family again became the prey of the religious excite~ ment and fanaiicism prevalent and his bcIiO'Ss tcMptntiOuSs Nuu ech'hCCuenIiOuS bordered On insanity. As he grew older reason strengthened. and spirit of sound sense got vigor enough 10 subdae or near. ly to subdue the wildness of these fana, sies. He joined Baptist Society at Bed fo,d. and after time began to preach; yet we are told it was long before he ceased to be tormented with an impulse which urged him 10 utter words of hor> rible impiety in the pulpit. With the Restoration there came per secu,ion of Dssenters, and Bunyan's well known imprisonment in Bedford jail last" ed, with some intervals, during twelve years. He was told that if he could give up preaching he would be set free, but not even his strong domestic affections tempted him from the path that seemed 10 him the path of duty. He had seve' raI small children, and among them a blind daughter. whom he loved with pc. cnliar tenderness. !" He could not. he said, bear even to let the wind blow on her; and now she must suffer cold and hunger; she must beg she must be beat en; yet, he added, must, must do il.'"
 That he studied during the imprison> ment the Bible and the Book of Martyrs, and that he there began to writeJ all the