In his third book, published in 1658, at “the King’s Head, in the Old Bailey,” a few days before Oliver Cromwell’s death, Bunyan left the thorny domain of polemics, for that of Christian exhortation, in which his chief work was to be done.  This work was an exposition of the parable of “the Rich Man and Lazarus,” bearing the horror-striking title, “A Few Sighs from Hell, or the Groans of a Damned Soul.”  In this work, as its title would suggest, Bunyan, accepting the literal accuracy of the parable as a description of the realities of the world beyond the grave, gives full scope to his vivid imagination in portraying the condition of the lost.  It contains some touches of racy humour, especially in the similes, and is written in the nervous homespun English of which he was master.  Its popularity is shown by its having gone through nine editions in the author’s lifetime.  To take an example or two of its style:  dealing with the excuses people make for not hearing the Gospel, “O, saith one, I dare not for my master, my brother, my landlord; I shall lose his favour, his house of work, and so decay my calling.  O, saith another, I would willingly go in this way but for my father; he chides me and tells me he will not stand my friend when I come to want; I shall never enjoy a pennyworth of his goods; he will disinherit me—­And I dare not, saith another, for my husband, for he will be a-railing, and tells me he will turn me out of doors, he will beat me and cut off my legs;” and then turning from the hindered to the hinderers:  “Oh, what red lines will there be against all those rich ungodly landlords that so keep under their poor tenants that they dare not go out to hear the word for fear that their rent should be raised or they turned out of their houses.  Think on this, you drunken proud rich, and scornful landlords; think on this, you madbrained blasphemous husbands, that are against the godly and chaste conversation of your wives; also you that hold your servants so hard to it that you will not spare them time to hear the Word, unless it will be where and when your lusts will let you.”  He bids the ungodly consider that “the profits, pleasures, and vanities of the world” will one day “give thee the slip, and leave thee in the sands and the brambles of all that thou hast done.”  The careless man lies “like the smith’s dog at the foot of the anvil, though the fire sparks flee in his face.”  The rich man remembers how he once despised Lazarus, “scrubbed beggarly Lazarus.  What, shall I dishonour my fair sumptuous and gay house with such a scabbed creephedge as he?  The Lazaruses are not allowed to warn them of the wrath to come, because they are not gentlemen, because they cannot with Pontius Pilate speak Hebrew, Greek, and Latin.  Nay, they must not, shall not, speak to them, and all because of this.”