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INTRODUCTION.
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hints which we get of the intensity of his preaching might well justify such pride. He had been preaching five years when, in November, 1660, he was arrested under the edict of Charles II. for the suppression of the Dissenters, and thrown into Bedford jail. Here he remained, with inter- vals of partial liberty, for twelve years, earning a meagre support for his family by the manufacture of tags for boot- laces, expounding the Scriptures to his little flock of fellow- prisoners, studying indefatigably the few books he possessed, chiefly the Bible and Fox's Book of Martyrs, and writing many works of a religious and controversial character. At any moment during this long imprisonment, Bunyan could have gained his release by a simple promise not to preach in public. Such a promise he would not and could not give. After a few years, however, his confinement was less strict, and in 1672 he was set at liberty by the decree of toleration. He spent the rest of his life in dignity and honor. Although he still nominally kept up his tink- er's trade, he gave the greater part of his time to his pas- torate at Bedford. His fame as a preacher spread rapidly, and was strongly supplemented, after the publication of The Pilgrim's Progress and The Holy War, by his fame as a writer. He made a yearly trip to London, where he preached to large congregations. He came to be known throughout a large part of England by the half-jesting, half-affectionate title of " Bishop Bunyan." His death oc- curred in 1688, from a fever which he caught while riding in the rain to intercede for a son with an angry father. It was fitting that such an act of practical charity should close the life history of a man like Bunyan, — a man who may stand as a type of much that is most sterling in Anglo-Saxon character. The sketch which a contemporary has left of the man, with his tall, large-boned frame, his reddish hair sprinkled with gray, his stern countenance softened by a ruddy flush and lightened by sparkling eyes, his modest habit and gentle manner, makes us feel more