after Bunyan's death, by one of Bunyan's most devoted followers, Charles
Doe, the combmaker of London Bridge (who naively tells us how one day
between the stairhead and the middle of the stairs, he resolved that the
best work he could do for God was to get Bunyan's books printed and sell
them--adding, "I have sold about 3,000"), and others, a few years later,
including one of the raciest of his compositions, "The Heavenly Footman,"
bought by Doe of Bunyan's eldest son, and, he says, "put into the World
in Print Word for Word as it came from him to Me."

At the time that death surprised him, Bunyan had gained no small
celebrity in London as a popular preacher, and approached the nearest to
a position of worldly honour. Though we must probably reject the idea
that he ever filled the office of Chaplain to the Lord Mayor of London,
Sir John Shorter, the fact that he is styled "his Lordship's teacher"
proves that there was some relation more than that of simple friendship
between the chief magistrate and the Bedford minister. But the society
of the great was never congenial to him. If they were godly as well as
great, he would not shrink from intercourse, with those of a rank above
his own, but his heart was with his own humble folk at Bedford. Worldly
advancement he rejected for his family as well as for himself. A London
merchant, it is said, offered to take his son Joseph into his house of
business without the customary premium. But the offer was declined with
what we may consider an overstrained independence. "God," he said, "did
not send me to advance my family but to preach the gospel." "An instance
of other-worldliness," writes Dr. Brown, "perhaps more consistent with
the honour of the father than with the prosperity of the son."

Bunyan's end was in keeping with his life. He had ever sought to be a
peacemaker and to reconcile differences, and thus had "hindered many
mishaps and saved many families from ruin." His last effort of the kind