the work of the ministry among them, and winds up with an account of his
apprehension, examinations, and imprisonment in Bedford gaol. The work
concludes with a report of the conversation between his noble-hearted
wife and Sir Matthew Hale and the other judges at the Midsummer assizes,
narrated in a former chapter, "taken down," he says, "from her own
mouth." The whole story is of such sustained interest that our chief
regret on finishing it is that it stops where it does, and does not go on
much further. Its importance for our knowledge of Bunyan as a man, as
distinguished from an author, and of the circumstances of his life, is
seen by a comparison of our acquaintance with his earlier and with his
later years. When he laid down his pen no one took it up, and beyond two
or three facts, and a few hazy anecdotes we know little or nothing of all
that happened between his final release and his death.

The value of the "Grace Abounding," however, as a work of experimental
religion may be easily over-estimated. It is not many who can study
Bunyan's minute history of the various stages of his spiritual life with
real profit. To some temperaments, especially among the young, the book
is more likely to prove injurious than beneficial; it is calculated
rather to nourish morbid imaginations, and a dangerous habit of
introspection, than to foster the quiet growth of the inner life.
Bunyan's unhappy mode of dealing with the Bible as a collection of texts,
each of Divine authority and declaring a definite meaning entirely
irrespective of its context, by which the words hide the Word, is also
utterly destructive of the true purpose of the Holy Scriptures as a
revelation of God's loving and holy mind and will. Few things are more
touching than the eagerness with which, in his intense self-torture,
Bunyan tried to evade the force of those "fearful and terrible
Scriptures" which appeared to seal his condemnation, and to lay hold of
the promises to the penitent sinner. His tempest-tossed spirit could