than ever. He had done what could not be forgiven. He had
forfeited his part of the great sacrifice. Like Esau, he had
sold his birthright; and there was no longer any place for
repentance. "None," he afterwards wrote, "knows the terrors of
those days but myself." He has described his sufferings with
singular energy, simplicity, and pathos. He envied the brutes;
he envied the very stones in the street, and the tiles on the
houses. The sun seemed to withhold its light and warmth from
him. His body, though cast in a sturdy mould, and though still
in the highest vigour of youth, trembled whole days together with
the fear of death and judgment. He fancied that this trembling
was the sign set on the worst reprobates, the sign which God had
put on Cain. The unhappy man's emotion destroyed his power of
digestion. He had such pains that he expected to burst asunder
like Judas, whom he regarded as his prototype.

Neither the books which Bunyan read, nor the advisers whom he
consulted, were likely to do much good in a case like his. His
small library had received a most unseasonable addition, the
account of the lamentable end of Francis Spira. One ancient man
of high repute for piety, whom the sufferer consulted, gave an
opinion which might well have produced fatal consequences. "I am
afraid," said Bunyan, "that I have committed the sin against the
Holy Ghost." "Indeed," said the old fanatic, "I am afraid that
you have."

At length the clouds broke; the light became clearer and clearer;
and the enthusiast, who had imagined that he was branded with the
mark of the first murderer, and destined to the end of the arch
traitor, enjoyed peace and a cheerful confidence in the mercy of