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Rudyard Kipling - "Life's Handicap"

New Philadelphia Book Publisher Highlights Local Talent
Book and Publishing News from Publishers Newswire(tm)

Looking for Child to be on Cover of a New Book, 'The Model Child'
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- The Philadelphia literary world will celebrate the launch of two new players today, April 10th: Kay Square Press, a new publishing company focused on Philadelphia-area artists, their stories, and their art; and Kay Square's first release, 'With the Rich and Mighty: Emlen Etting of Philadelphia' (ISBN: 978-0-9815129-0-7), a critical biography by Kenneth C. Kaleta.

FlatSigned Press Alleges Don Imus Remarks Damage Legacy of President Gerald R. Ford
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Nathan Yungerberg, an accomplished model scout and professional child photographer is launching a nation-wide casting call to find the cover model for his highly anticipated book release, 'The Model Child: A Parents Guide to the Child Modeling Industry' (ISBN: 978-0-9817018-0-6).

Books: The Works of John Bunyan Volume 1

J >> John Bunyan >> The Works of John Bunyan Volume 1




The statutes, by virtue of which this awful sentence was pronounced,
together with the legal form of recantation used by those who were
terrified into conformity, are set forth in a note to the Grace
Abounding.[230] Bunyan was, if not the first, one of the first
Dissenters who were proceeded against after the restoration of
Charles II; and his trial, if such it may be called, was followed
by a wholesale persecution. The king, as head of the Church
of England, wreaked his vengeance upon all classes of Dissenters,
excepting Roman Catholics and Jews.

The reign of Charles II was most disgraceful and disastrous to the
nation, even the king being a pensioner upon the French court. The
Dutch swept the seas, and threatened to burn London; a dreadful
plague depopulated the metropolis--the principal part of which was,
in the following year, with its cathedral, churches, and public
buildings, destroyed by fire; plots and conspiracies alarmed the
people; tyranny was triumphant; even the bodies of the illustrious
dead were exhumed, and treated with worse than savage ferocity;
while a fierce persecution raged throughout the kingdom, which
filled the jails with Dissenters.

In Scotland, the persecution raged with still more deadly violence.
Military, in addition to civil despotism, strove to enforce the
use of the Book of Common Prayer. The heroic achievements and awful
suffering of Scottish Christians saved their descendants from this
yoke of bondage.[231]

A short account of the extent of the sufferings of our pious ancestors
is given in the Introduction to the Pilgrim's Progress[232]--a
narrative which would appear incredible did it not rest upon
unimpeachable authority. It would be difficult to believe the
records of the brutal treatment which the sufferers underwent had
they not been handed down to us in the State Trials, and in public
registers, over which the persecuted had no control. Two instances
will show the extreme peril in which the most learned and pious
men held their lives. John James, the pastor of a Baptist church in
Whitechapel, was charged, upon the evidence of a perjured drunken
vagabond named Tipler, a pipe-maker's journeyman, who was not present
in the meeting, but swore that he heard him utter treasonable words.
Notwithstanding the evidence of some most respectable witnesses,
who were present during the whole service, and distinctly proved
that no such words were used, Mr. James was convicted, and sentenced
to be hung. His distracted wife saw the king, presented a petition,
and implored mercy, when the unfeeling monarch replied, 'O! Mr.
James; he is a sweet gentleman.' Again, on the following morning,
she fell at his feet, beseeching his royal clemency, when he spurned
her from him, saying, 'John James, that rogue, he shall be hanged;
yea, he shall be hanged.' And, in the presence of his weeping
friends, he ascended from the gibbet to the mansions of the blessed.
His real crime was, that he continued to preach after having been
warned not to do so by John Robinson, lieutenant of the Tower,
properly called, by Mr. Crosby,[233] a devouring wolf, upon whose
head the blood of this and other innocent Dissenters will be found.
Another Dissenting minister, learned, pious, loyal, and peaceful,
was, during Bunyan's time, marked for destruction. Thomas Rosewell
was tried before the monster Jeffreys. He was charged, upon the
evidence of two infamous informers, with having doubted the power
of the king to cure the kings' evil, and with saying that they
should overcome their enemies with rams' horns, broken platters, and
a stone in a sling. A number of most respectable witnesses deposed
to their having been present; that no such words were uttered, and
that Mr. Rosewell was eminent for loyalty and devoted attachment to
the Government. Alas! he was a Dissenting teacher of high standing,
of extensive acquirements, and of great earnestness in seeking
the salvation of sinners; and, under the direction of that brutal
judge, the venal jury found him guilty, and he was sentenced to be
hung. This frightful sentence would have been executed but from a
singular interposition of Providence. Sir John Talbot was present
during the trial, and a stranger to Mr. Rosewell; but he was so
struck with the proceedings, that he hastened to the king, related
the facts, and added, 'that he had seen the life of a subject,
who appeared to be a gentleman and a scholar, in danger, upon such
evidence as he would not hang his dog on.' And added, 'Sire, if you
suffer this man to die, we are none of us safe in our own houses.'
At this moment Jeffreys came in, gloating over his prey, exulting
in the innocent blood he was about to shed, when, to his utter
confusion, the king said, 'Mr. Rosewell shall not die'; and his
pardon was issued under the great seal.[234] Every Englishman should
read the state trials of that period, recording the sufferings of
Richard Baxter, William Penn, Sir H. Vane, and many others of our
most pious forefathers; and they must feel that it was a miracle of
mercy that saved the life of Bunyan, and gave him leisure to write
not only his popular allegories, but the most valuable treatises
in the English language upon subjects of the deepest importance.

When he entered the prison, his first and prayerful object was to
levy a tax upon his affliction--to endeavour to draw honey from
the carcass of the lion. His care was to render his imprisonment
subservient to the great design of showing forth the glory of God
by patient submission to His will. Before his commitment, he had
a strong presentiment of his sufferings; his earnest prayer, for
many months, was that he might, with composure, encounter all his
trials, even to an ignominious death. This led him to the solemn
consideration of reckoning himself, his wife, children, health,
enjoyments, all as dying, and in perfect uncertainty, and to live
upon God, his invisible but ever-present Father.

Like an experienced military commander, he wisely advises every
Christian to have a reserve for Christ in case of dire emergency.
'We ought to have a reserve for Christ, to help us at a dead lift.
When profession and confession will not do; when loss of goods and
a prison will not do; when loss of country and of friends will not
do; when nothing else will do, then willingly to lay down our lives
for his name.'[235] In the midst of all these dread uncertainties,
his soul was raised to heavenly contemplations of the future
happiness of the saints of God.

It is deeply impressive to view a man, with gigantic intellect,
involved in the net which was laid to trammel his free spirit,
disregarding his own wisdom; seeking guidance from heaven in earnest
prayer, and in searching the sacred Scriptures; disentangling
himself, and calmly waiting the will of his heavenly Father. Still
he severely felt the infirmities of nature. Parting with his wife
and children, he described as 'the pulling the flesh from the bones.
I saw I was as a man who was pulling down his house upon the head
of his wife and children; yet, thought I, I must do it.'[236] His
feelings were peculiarly excited to his poor blind Mary.[237] 'O!
the thoughts of the hardships my poor blind one might go under, would
break my heart in pieces.' It is one of the governing principles
of human nature, that the most delicate or afflicted child excites
our tenderest feelings. 'I have seen men,' says Bunyan, 'take most
care of, and best provide for those of their children that have
been most infirm and helpless; and our Advocate "shall gather his
lambs with his arms, and carry them in his bosom."'[238] While
in this state of distress, the promise came to his relief--'Leave
thy fatherless children, I will preserve them alive; and let thy
widows trust in me.' He had heard of the miseries of those banished
Christians who had been sold into slavery, and perished with cold
and calamities, lying in ditches like poor, forlorn, desolate sheep.

At the end of three months he became anxious to know what the
enemies of the cross intended to do with him. His sentence was
transportation and death, unless he conformed. To give up or shrink
from his profession of Christ, by embracing the national forms and
submitting his conscience to human laws, he dared not. He resolved
to persevere even at the sacrifice of his life. To add to his distress,
doubts and fears clouded his prospects of futurity; 'Satan,' said
he, 'laid hard at me to beat me out of heart.' At length he came
to the determination to venture his eternal state with Christ,
whether he had present comfort or not. His state of mind he thus
describes--'If God doth not come in (to comfort me) I will leap
off the ladder, even blindfold, into eternity, sink or swim, come
heaven, come hell. Lord Jesus, if thou wilt catch me, do; I will
venture all for thy name.' From this time he felt a good hope and
great consolation.

The clerk of the peace, Mr. Cobb, was sent by the justices to persuade
him to conform, and had a very long and interesting conference
with him in the prison. This shows that the magistrates were well
convinced that he was a leader in nonconformity, who, if brought
over, would afford them a signal triumph. In fact, he was called,
by a beneficed clergyman, 'the most notorious schismatic in all
the county of Bedford.'[239] It is perhaps to the arguments of Cobb
that he refers in his Advice to Sufferers. 'The wife of the bosom
lies at him, saying, O do not cast thyself away; if thou takest
this course, what shall I do? Thou hast said thou lovest me; now
make it manifest by granting this my small request--Do not still
remain in thine integrity. Next to this come the children, which
are like to come to poverty, to beggary, to be undone, for want of
wherewithal to feed, and clothe, and provide for them for time to
come. Now also come kindred, and relations, and acquaintance; some
chide, some cry, some argue, some threaten, some promise, some
flatter, and some do all to befool him for so unadvised an act as
to cast away himself, and to bring his wife and children to beggary
for such a thing as religion. These are sore temptations.'[240]
It was during this period of his imprisonment that the mad attempt
was made, by Venner and his rabble, to overturn the government.
This was pressed upon Bunyan as a reason why he should not hold
meetings for religious exercises, but rely upon his more private
opportunities of exhorting his neighbours. In reply to this,
Mr. Cobb is reminded of Bunyan's well-known loyalty, which would
become useful in proportion to his public teaching. It was a
pleasing interview, which, while it did not for a moment shake his
determination, led him to thank Mr. Cobb for his civil and meek
discourse, and to ejaculate a heartfelt prayer--'O that we might
meet in heaven.'[241] The whole of it is reprinted at the end of
the Grace Abounding, and it shows that God gave him favour even with
his persecutors. It Is not surprising that such a prisoner should
have won the good opinion of his jailer, so that he was permitted
the consolation of seeing his relatives and friends, who ministered
to his comforts.

When the time arrived for the execution of the bitterest part of
his sentence, God, in his providence, interposed to save the life of
his servant. He had familiarized his mind with all the circumstances
of a premature and appalling death; the gibbet, the ladder, the
halter, had lost much of their terrors; he had even studied the
sermon he would then have preached to the concourse of spectators.
At this critical time the king's coronation took place, on April
23, 1661. To garnish this grand ceremony, the king had ordered the
release of numerous prisoners of certain classes, and within that
description of offences was that for which Bunyan was confined.
The proclamation allowed twelve months' time to sue out the pardon
under the great seal, but without this expensive process thousands
of vagabonds and thieves were set at liberty, while, alas, an
offence against the church was not to be pardoned upon such easy
terms. Bunyan and his friends were too simple, honest, and virtuous,
to understand why such a distinction should be made. The assizes
being held in August, he determined to seek his liberty by a petition
to the judges. The court sat at the Swan Inn, and as every incident
in the life of this extraordinary man excites our interest, we
are gratified to have it in our power to exhibit the state of this
celebrated inn at that time.

Having written his petition, and made some fair copies of it, his
modest, timid wife determined to present them to the judges. Her
heroic achievements--for such they deserve to be called--on behalf
of her husband, are admirably narrated by Bunyan, the whole of
which is reprinted in our first volume,[243] and deserves a most
attentive perusal. Want of space prevents us repeating it here, or
even making extracts from it. She had previously traveled to London
with a petition to the House of Lords, and entrusted it to Lord
Barkwood, who conferred with some of the peers upon it, and informed
her that they could not interfere, the king having committed the
release of the prisoners to the judges. When they came the circuit
and the assizes were held at Bedford; Bunyan in vain besought the
local authorities that he might have liberty to appear in person
and plead for his release. This reasonable request was denied,
and, as a last resource, he committed his cause to an affectionate
wife. Several times she appeared before the judges; love to her
husband, a stern sense of duty, a conviction of the gross injustice
practiced upon one to whom she was most tenderly attached, overcame
her delicate, modest, retiring habits, and forced her upon this
strange duty. Well did she support the character of an advocate.
This delicate, courageous, high-minded woman appeared before Judge
Hale, who was much affected with her earnest pleading for one so
dear to her, and whose life was so valuable to his children. It
was the triumph of love, duty, and piety, over bashful timidity.
Her energetic appeals were in vain. She returned to the prison with
a heavy heart, to inform her husband that, while felons, malefactors,
and men guilty of misdemeanours were, without any recantation or
promise of amendment, to be let loose upon society to grace the
coronation, the poor prisoners for conscience' sake were to undergo
their unjust and savage sentences. Or, in plain words, that refusing
to go to church to hear the Common Prayer was an unpardonable
crime, not to be punished in any milder mode than recantation, or
transportation, or the halter. With what bitter feelings must she
have returned to the prison, believing that it would be the tomb
of her beloved husband! How natural for the distressed, insulted
wife to have written harsh things against the judge! She could not
have conceived that, under the stately robes of Hale, there was
a heart affected by Divine love. And when the nobleman afterwards
met the despised tinker and his wife, on terms of perfect equality,
clothed in more glorious robes in the mansions of the blessed, how
inconceivable their surprise! It must have been equally so with
the learned judge, when, in the pure atmosphere of heaven, he found
that the illiterate tinker, harassed by poverty and imprisonment,
produced books, the admiration of the world. As Dr. Cheever eloquently
writes--'How little could he dream, that from that narrow cell in
Bedford jail a glory would shine out, illustrating the grace of
God, and doing more good to man, than all the prelates and judges
of the kingdom would accomplish.'[244]

Bunyan was thus left in a dreary and hopeless state of imprisonment,
in which he continued for somewhat more than twelve years, and it
becomes an interesting inquiry how he spent his time and managed to
employ his great talent in his Master's service. The first object
of his solicitude would be to provide for his family, according to
1 Timothy 5:8. How to supply his house with bare necessaries to
meet the expenses of a wife and four children, must have filled him
with anxiety. The illness, death, and burial of his first beloved
wife, had swept away any little reserve which otherwise might have
accumulated, so that, soon after his imprisonment commenced, before
he could resume any kind of labour, his wife thus pleaded with the
judge for his liberty, 'My lord, I have four small children that
cannot help themselves, of which one is blind, and have nothing
to live upon but the charity of good people.' How inscrutable are
the ways of Providence; the rich reveling in luxury while using
their wealth to corrupt mankind, while this eminent saint, with his
family, were dependent upon charity! As soon as he could get his
tools in order he set to work; and we have the following testimony
to his industry by a fellow-prisoner, Mr. Wilson, the Baptist
minister, and of Charles Doe, who visited him in prison:--'Nor did
he, while he was in prison, spend his time in a supine and careless
manner, nor eat the bread of idleness; for there have I been
witness that his own hands have ministered to his and his family's
necessities, making many hundred gross of long tagged laces, to
fill up the vacancies of his time, which he had learned to do for
that purpose, since he had been in prison. There, also, I surveyed
his library, the least, but yet the best that e'er I saw--the Bible
and the Book of Martyrs.[245] And during his imprisonment (since I
have spoken of his library), he writ several excellent and useful
treatises, particularly The Holy City, Christian Behaviour,
The Resurrection of the Dead, and Grace Abounding to the Chief of
Sinners.'[246] Besides these valuable treatises, Charles Doe states
that, of his own knowledge, in prison Bunyan wrote The Pilgrim's
Progress, the first part, and that he had this from his own mouth.[247]
In addition to the demonstration of this important fact contained
in the introduction to The Pilgrim's Progress, there ought to
have been added, Bunyan's statement made in introducing his second
part:--'Now, having taken up my lodgings in a wood about a mile
off the place': no longer in 'a den,' but sheltered, in a wood, in
a state of comparative, but not of perfect liberty, about a mile
distant from the den in which he wrote his first part. Whether this
may refer to his former cottage at Elstow, of which there is great
doubt, or to the house he occupied in Bedford after his release,
they were equally about a mile from the jail. He certainly means
that the two parts were not written in the same place, nor is
there a shadow of a doubt as to the fact that in prison the great
allegory was conceived and written. Well might Mr. Doe say, 'What
hath the devil or his agents got by putting our great gospel minister
in prison?' They prevented his preaching to a few poor pilgrims in
the villages round Bedford, and it was the means of spreading his
fame, and the knowledge of the gospel, by his writings, throughout
the world. Thus does the wrath of man praise God. In addition to the
works above enumerated, he also published some extremely valuable
tracts, several editions of a work which ought to be read by all
young Christians--A Treatise on the Covenants of the Law and of
Grace; several editions of Sighs from Hell; A Map of Salvation and
Damnation; The Four Last Things, a poem; Mount Ebal and Gerizim,
or, Redemption from the Curse, a poem; Prison Meditations, a poem:
the four last are single sheets, probably sold by his children or
friends to assist him in obtaining his livelihood: Justification
by Faith in Jesus Christ, 4to; Confession of His Faith and Reason
of His Practice. The most remarkable treatise which he published
while in confinement, is on prayer, from the words of the apostle,
'I will pray with the spirit and with the understanding also.' His
attention had been fixed on this subject when his free-born spirit
was roused by the threat of Justice Keeling, 'Take heed of speaking
irreverently of the Book of Common Prayer, for if you do you will
bring great damage upon yourself.'

Bunyan had formed his ideas of prayer from heartfelt experience;
it is the cry of the burthened, sinking sinner, 'Lord save us, we
perish'; or adoration rising from the heart to the throne of grace,
filled with hopes of pardon and immortality. In his estimation, any
form of human invention was an interference with the very nature
of prayer, and with the work of the Holy Spirit, who alone can
inspire our souls with acceptable prayer.

In expressing his views upon this all-important subject, Bunyan was
simply guided by a sense of duty. Fear of the consequences, or of
offending his enemies, never entered his mind. He felt that they
were in the hands of his heavenly Father, and that all their malice
must be over-ruled for good. Notwithstanding his solemn warning
not to speak irreverently of the book, his refusal to use which had
subjected him to severe privations and the fear of a halter, this
Christian hero was not daunted, but gives his opinion of it with
all that freedom and liberty which he considered essential to excite
in his fellow-men inquiries as to its origin and imposition.

It is not my province to enter into the controversy whether in
public worship a form of prayer ought to be used. Let every one
be persuaded in his own mind; but to pass a law denouncing those
that refuse to use a prescribed form as worthy of imprisonment,
transportation, or death, is an attack upon the first principles
of Christianity. To punish those who spoke irreverently of it, was
almost an acknowledgment that it would not bear investigation. To
speak of the book as in his serious judgment it deserved, was not
that mark of sectarianism which Romaine exhibited when he called
the beautiful hymns of Dr. Watts, which are used so much in public
worship among Dissenters, 'Watts' jingle,' and 'Watts' whims!'[248]
No answer appears to have been published to Bunyan's extremely
interesting volume until twelve years after the author's death,
when a reply appeared under the title of Liturgies Vindicated by the
Dissenters, or the Lawfulness of Forms of Prayer proved against John
Bunyan and the Dissenters. 1700. This is a very rare and curious
volume. The author, as usual in such controversies, deals wholesale
in invective, and displays all the ability of a sophist.

The Christian world is indebted to Dr. Cheever for a beautiful
picture of Bunyan's devotional exercise in his cell. 'It is evening;
he finishes his work, to be taken home by his dear blind child.
He reads a portion of Scripture, and, clasping her small hands in
his, kneels on the cold stone floor, and pours out his soul to God;
then, with a parting kiss, dismisses her to her mother. The rude
lamp glimmers on the table; with his Bible, pen, and paper, he writes
as though joy did make him write. His face is lighted as from the
radiant jasper walls of the celestial city. He clasps his hands,
looks upward, and blesses God for his goodness. The last you see
of him--is alone, kneeling on the prison floor; he is alone with
God.'

Charles Doe, who manifested most laudable anxiety to hand down the
works of Bunyan to posterity, bears honourable testimony to his
conduct while in prison. 'It was by making him a visit in prison
that I first saw him, and became acquainted with him; and I must
profess I could not but look upon him to be a man of an excellent
spirit, zealous for his master's honour, and cheerfully committing
all his own concernments unto God's disposal. When I was there,
there were about sixty Dissenters besides himself there, taken but
a little before at a religious meeting at Kaistoe, in the county
of Bedford; besides two eminent Dissenting ministers, Mr. Wheeler
and Mr. Dun (both very well known in Bedfordshire, though long since
with God[249]), by which means the prison was very much crowded;
yet, in the midst of all that hurry which so many new-comers
occasioned, I have heard Mr. Bunyan both preach and pray with that
mighty spirit of faith and plerophory of divine assistance that
has made me stand and wonder.'[250] Here they could sing, without
fear of being overheard; no informers prowling round. The world was
shut out; and, in communion with heaven, they could forget their
sorrows, and have a rich foretaste of the inconceivable glory of
the celestial city. It was under such circumstances that Bunyan
preached one of his most remarkable sermons, afterwards published
under the title of The Holy City or the New Jerusalem, 1665.
'Upon a certain first-day, being together with my brethren in
our prison-chamber, they expected that, according to our custom,
something should be spoken out of the Word for our mutual edification.
I felt myself, it being my turn to speak, so empty, spiritless, and
barren, that I thought I should not have been able to speak among
them so much as five words of truth with life and evidence. At
last I cast mine eye upon this prophecy, when, after considering
awhile, methought I perceived something of that jasper in whose light
you find this holy city descended; wherefore, having got some dim
glimmering thereof, and finding a desire to see farther thereinto,
I with a few groans did carry my meditations to the Lord Jesus for
a blessing, which he did forthwith grant, and helping me to set
before my brethren, we did all eat, and were well refreshed; and
behold, also, that while I was in the distributing of it, it so
increased in my hand, that of the fragments that we left, after we
had well dined, I gathered up this basketful. Wherefore, setting
myself to a more narrow search, through frequent prayer, what first
with doing and then with undoing, and after that with doing again,
I thus did finish it.'[251] To this singular event the religious
public are indebted for one of Bunyan's ablest treatises, full
of the striking sparkles of his extraordinary imagination. It was
a subject peculiarly adapted to display his powers--the advent of
New Jerusalem, her impregnable walls and gates of precious stones,
golden streets, water of life, temple, and the redeemed from all
nations flocking into it.[252]