With characteristic diligence Bunyan set to work in prison making shoe laces, and so earned a living for his family.  His imprisonment lasted for nearly twelve years; but he saw his family frequently, and was for some time a regular preacher in the Baptist church in Bedford.  Occasionally he even went about late at night, holding the proscribed meetings and increasing his hold upon the common people.  The best result of this imprisonment was that it gave Bunyan long hours for the working of his peculiar mind and for study of his two only books, the King James Bible and Foxe’s Book of Martyrs.  The result of his study and meditation was The Pilgrim’s Progress, which was probably written in prison, but which for some reason he did not publish till long after his release.

The years which followed are the most interesting part of Bunyan’s strange career.  The publication of Pilgrim’s Progress in 1678 made him the most popular writer, as he was already the most popular preacher, in England.  Books, tracts, sermons, nearly sixty works in all, came from his pen; and when one remembers his ignorance, his painfully slow writing, and his activity as an itinerant preacher, one can only marvel.  His evangelistic journeys carried him often as far as London, and wherever he went crowds thronged to hear him.  Scholars, bishops, statesmen went in secret to listen among the laborers, and came away wondering and silent.  At Southwark the largest building could not contain the multitude of his hearers; and when he preached in London, thousands would gather in the cold dusk of the winter morning, before work began, and listen until he had made an end of speaking.  “Bishop Bunyan” he was soon called on account of his missionary journeys and his enormous influence.

What we most admire in the midst of all this activity is his perfect mental balance, his charity and humor in the strife of many sects.  He was badgered for years by petty enemies, and he arouses our enthusiasm by his tolerance, his self-control, and especially by his sincerity.  To the very end he retained that simple modesty which no success could spoil.  Once when he had preached with unusual power some of his friends waited after the service to congratulate him, telling him what a “sweet sermon” he had delivered.  “Aye,” said Bunyan, “you need not remind me; the devil told me that before I was out of the pulpit.”

For sixteen years this wonderful activity continued without interruption.  Then, one day when riding through a cold storm on a labor of love, to reconcile a stubborn man with his own stubborn son, he caught a severe cold and appeared, ill and suffering but rejoicing in his success, at the house of a friend in Reading.  He died there a few days later, and was laid away in Bunhill Fields burial ground, London, which has been ever since a campo santo to the faithful.

WORKS OF BUNYAN.  The world’s literature has three great allegories,—­Spenser’s Faery Queen, Dante’s Divina Commedia, and Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress.  The first appeals to poets, the second to scholars, the third to people of every age and condition.  Here is a brief outline of the famous work: