gipsy." "Kick sometimes I did, and also shriek and cry, but yet I was as
bound in the wings of the temptation, and the wind would carry me away."
He wished himself "a dog or a toad," for they "had no soul to be lost as
his was like to be;" and again a hopeless callousness seemed to settle
upon him. "If I would have given a thousand pounds for a tear I could
not shed one; no, nor sometimes scarce desire to shed one." And yet he
was all the while bewailing this hardness of heart, in which he thought
himself singular. "This much sunk me. I thought my condition was alone;
but how to get out of, or get rid of, these things I could not." Again
the very ground of his faith was shaken. "Was the Bible true, or was it
not rather a fable and cunning story?" All thought "their own religion
true. Might not the Turks have as good Scriptures to prove their Mahomet
Saviour as Christians had for Christ? What if all we believed in should
be but 'a think-so' too?" So powerful and so real were his illusions
that he had hard work to keep himself from praying to things about him,
to "a bush, a bull, a besom, or the like," or even to Satan himself. He
heard voices behind him crying out that Satan desired to have him, and
that "so loud and plain that he would turn his head to see who was
calling him;" when on his knees in prayer he fancied he felt the foul
fiend pull his clothes from behind, bidding him "break off, make haste;
you have prayed enough."

This "horror of great darkness" was not always upon him. Bunyan had his
intervals of "sunshine-weather" when Giant Despair's fits came on him,
and the giant "lost the use of his hand." Texts of Scripture would give
him a "sweet glance," and flood his soul with comfort. But these
intervals of happiness were but short-lived. They were but "hints,
touches, and short visits," sweet when present, but "like Peter's sheet,
suddenly caught up again into heaven." But, though transient, they
helped the burdened Pilgrim onward. So vivid was the impression