Bunyan’s character and person are thus described by Charles Doe:  “He appeared in countenance to be of a stern and rough temper.  But in his conversation he was mild and affable, not given to loquacity or much discourse in company, unless some urgent occasion required it.  Observing never to boast of himself or his parts, but rather to seem low in his own eyes and submit himself to the judgment of others.  Abhorring lying and swearing, being just, in all that lay in his power, to his word.  Not seeming to revenge injuries; loving to reconcile differences and make friendship with all.  He had a sharp, quick eye, with an excellent discerning of persons, being of good judgment and quick wit.  He was tall of stature, strong-boned, though not corpulent; somewhat of a ruddy face, with sparkling eyes, wearing his hair on his upper lip after the old British fashion.  His hair reddish, but in his later days time had sprinkled it with grey.  His nose well set, but not declining or bending.  His mouth moderately large, his forehead something high, and his habit always plain and modest.  Not puffed up in prosperity, nor shaken in adversity, always holding the golden mean.”

We may add the portrait drawn by one who had been his companion and fellow-sufferer for many years, John Nelson:  “His countenance was grave and sedate, and did so to the life discover the inward frame of his heart, that it was convincing to the beholders and did strike something of awe into them that had nothing of the fear of God.”

The same friend speaks thus of Bunyan’s preaching:  “As a minister of Christ he was laborious in his work of preaching, diligent in his preparation for it, and faithful in dispensing the Word, not sparing reproof whether in the pulpit or no, yet ready to succour the tempted; a son of consolation to the broken-hearted, yet a son of thunder to secure and dead sinners.  His memory was tenacious, it being customary with him to commit his sermons to writing after he had preached them.  A rich anointing of the Spirit was upon him, yet this great saint was always in his own eyes the chiefest of sinners and the least of saints.”

An anecdote is told which, Southey says, “authenticates itself,” that one day when he had preached “with peculiar warmth and enlargement,” one of his hearers remarked “what a sweet sermon he had delivered.”  “Ay,” was Bunyan’s reply, “you have no need to tell me that, for the devil whispered it to me before I was well out of the pulpit.”  As an evidence of the estimation in which Bunyan was held by the highly-educated, it is recorded that Charles the Second expressed his surprise to Dr. Owen that “a learned man such as he could sit and listen to an illiterate tinker.”  “May it please your Majesty,” Owen replied.  “I would gladly give up all my learning if I could preach like that tinker.”