On the 12th of November 1660, he had promised to meet a little
congregation in a private house at Samsell in Bedfordshire. Before
the hour of meeting he was apprised that a warrant was out to seize
him; but he felt that he owed it to the gospel not to run away at
such a time. Accordingly when the people were assembled with no
weapons but their Bibles, the constable entered and arrested the
preacher. He had only time to speak a few words of counsel and
encouragement to his hearers, "You see we are prevented of our
opportunity to speak and hear the word of God, and are likely to
suffer for the same. But be not discouraged. It is a mercy to
suffer for so good a cause. We might have been apprehended as
thieves or murderers, or for other wickedness; but blessed be God, it
is not so. We suffer as Christians for well doing; and better be the
persecuted than the persecutors." After being taken before a
justice, he was committed to gaol till the ensuing sessions should be
held at Bedford. There an indictment was preferred--"That John
Bunyan, of the town of Bedford, labourer, being a person of such and
such conditions, he hath since such a time devilishly and
perniciously abstained from coming to church to hear divine service;
and is a common upholder of several unlawful meetings and
conventicles, to the great disturbance and distraction of the good
subjects of this kingdom, contrary to the laws of our sovereign lord
the King," &c. Of course he was convicted, and sentenced to
imprisonment, with certification, that if he did not conform within a
given period, he would he banished out of the kingdom.

After Bunyan ceases to be his own biographer, our materials become
exceeding scanty. This is the less to be lamented when we reflect
that the history of his "hidden life" is already told. The processes