He owed his complete liberation to one of the worst acts of one
of the worst governments that England has ever seen. In 1671 the
Cabal was in power. Charles II. had concluded the treaty by
which he bound himself to set up the Roman Catholic religion in
England. The first step which he took towards that end was to
annul, by an unconstitutional exercise of his prerogative, all
the penal statutes against the Roman Catholics; and, in order to
disguise his real design, he annulled at the same time the penal
statutes against Protestant nonconformists. Bunyan was
consequently set at large. In the first warmth of his gratitude
he published a tract in which he compared Charles to that humane
and generous Persian king who, though not himself blest with the
light of the true religion, favoured the chosen people, and
permitted them after years of captivity, to rebuild their beloved
temple. To candid men, who consider how much Bunyan had
suffered, and how little he could guess the secret designs of the
court, the unsuspicious thankfulness with which he accepted the
precious boon of freedom will not appear to require any apology.

Before he left his prison he had begun the book which has made
his name immortal. The history of that book is remarkable. The
author was, as he tells us, writing a treatise, in which he had
occasion to speak of the stages of the Christian progress. He
compared that progress, as many others had compared it, to a
pilgrimage. Soon his quick wit discovered innumerable points of
similarity which had escaped his predecessors. Images came
crowding on his mind faster than he could put them into words,
quagmires and pits, steep hills, dark and horrible glens, soft
vales, sunny pastures, a gloomy castle of which the courtyard was
strewn with the skulls and bones of murdered prisoners, a town