Orleans independent standard. [volume] (Irasburgh, Vt.) 1856-1871, 1856-05-30
From Macsuley's History.
SKETCH OF JOHN gUNYAN:

From Maespley's History.
SKETCH OF JOHN EUNYAN.
Bunyan had been bred tinker, and
had serY ed as a private soldier in the
Parliamentary army. Early in his life
he had been fearfully torturedby remorse
for his youthful sins, the worz of which
seems, however, to have been such as the
world thinks venial. His ken sensbih-
ty and his powerful Imagination made
his internal conflicts singularly terrible.
He fancied he was under. sentence of re-
probation-that he had sold Ch-ist-that
be was actually possessed byt demon,
sometimes loud voices from heaven cried
out to warn him. Sometimes fends
whispered impious suggestions in his ear.
He saw visions of distant mounains-tops,
on which the sun shone brightly but from
which he was separated by waste of
snow. He felt the devil behind him,
pulling his clothes. He though that the
brand of Cain had been set tpon him.
He feared he was about to break asunder
ike Judas. His mental agony dsordered
his health. One day he shook Ike man
in the palsy. On another day be felt a
fire within his breast. 1t is difficult to
understand how he survived suffering so
intense and so long continued.
AT length the clouds broke. From the
depths of depair the penitent passed to a
state of serene felicity. An irresistible
impulse now urged him to impan to 9TH
ers the blessings of which he was himself
possessed. He Joined the Baptists and
became a preacher and writer. His ed
neation had been that of mechanic
He knew no language but the English,
as it was spoken by the common people.
He had studied no great model COMPOSE
ton, with the exception-an important
exception undoubtedly-of our noble
translator of the Bible. His spelling
was bad. He frequently transgressed
the rules Of grammar. Yet the native
force of genius, and his experimental
knowledge of all the religious passions,
from despair to eestacy, amply supplied
in him the want of learning. His rude
oratory reused and melted hearers who
listened without interest to the labored
Idiseonrses of great logicians and Hebra-
its. His works were widely circulated
lamong the humber classes. One Of them,
Pilgrims Progress, was, in his own life
time, translated into several foreign Ian
guages. 1t was, however, scarcely known
to the learned and polite, and had been
during near a century, the delight of pious
cottagers and artisans before it was pub
liely commended by any man Of high liter.
ary eminence.
At length critics condescended to In
Equire where the secret of so wide and 81
durable a popularity lay. They wer'
compelled to own that the ignorant mul
titude had judged more correctly than th'
learned, and that the despised little bool
was really masterpiece. Bunyan is 5,
decidedly the first Of alIegorists as De
mosthenes is the first of orators or Shak
: speare the first of dramatists. OF the al
legorists have shown equal ingenuity, bu
no other has been able to touch the heart
and to make distractions Of terror, or pity
and of love.
1t may be doubted whether any Eng
, lish dissenter had suffered more severel
under the penal laws than John Bunyar
: fOf the twenty-seYen years which ha
: elapsed since the Restoration, he Ia
5 passed twelve in confinement. He stil
persisted in preaching. bat, that he migl
: preach, he was under the necessity of dis
guising himself ike carter. He wa
often introduced into meeting throug
: back doors, with a smock frock on hi
back and a whip in bis hand.