Had they forgotten the close, the milkhouse, the stable, the barn, where
God visited their souls? Let them remember the Word on which the Lord
had caused them to hope. If they had sinned against light, if they were
tempted to blaspheme, if they were down in despair, let them remember
that it had been so with him, their spiritual father, and that out of
them all the Lord had delivered him." This dedication ends thus: "My
dear children, the milk and honey is beyond this wilderness. God be
merciful to you, and grant you be not slothful to go in to possess the
land."

This remarkable book, as we learn from the title-page, was "written by
his own hand in prison." It was first published by George Larkin in
London, in 1666, the sixth year of his imprisonment, the year of the Fire
of London, about the time that he experienced his first brief release. As
with "The Pilgrim's Progress," the work grew in picturesque detail and
graphic power in the author's hand after its first appearance. The later
editions supply some of the most interesting personal facts contained in
the narrative, which were wanting when it first issued from the press.
His two escapes from drowning, and from the supposed sting of an adder;
his being drawn as a soldier, and his providential deliverance from
death; the graphic account of his difficulty in giving up bell-ringing at
Elstow Church, and dancing on Sundays on Elstow Green--these and other
minor touches which give a life and colour to the story, which we should
be very sorry to lose, are later additions. It is impossible to over-
estimate the value of the "Grace Abounding," both for the facts of
Bunyan's earlier life and for the spiritual experience of which these
facts were, in his eyes only the outward framework. Beginning with his
parentage and boyhood, it carries us down to his marriage and life in the
wayside-cottage at Elstow, his introduction to Mr. Gifford's congregation
at Bedford, his joining that holy brotherhood, and his subsequent call to