representation of this curious relic.[222][223]

Bunyan was thirty-two years of age when taken to prison. He had
suffered the loss of his pious wife, whose conversation and portion
had been so blessed to him. It is not improbable that her peaceful
departure is pictured in Christiana's crossing the river which has
no bridge. She left him with four young children, one of whom very
naturally and most strongly excited his paternal feelings, from
the circumstance of her having been afflicted with blindness. He
had married a second time, a woman of exemplary piety and retiring
modesty; but whose spirit, when roused to seek the release of her
beloved husband, enabled her to stand unabashed, and full of energy
and presence of mind, before judges in their courts, and lords in
their mansions. When her partner was sent to jail, she was in that
peculiar state that called for all his sympathy and his tenderest
care. The shock was too severe for her delicate situation; she became
dangerously ill, and, although her life was spared, all hopes had
fled of her maternal feelings being called into exercise. Thus did
one calamity follow another; still he preserved his integrity.[224]

Bunyan was treated with all the kindness which many of his jailers
dared to show him. In his times, imprisonment and fetters were
generally companions. Thus he says--'When a felon is going to be
tried, his fetters are still making a noise on his heels.'[225] So
the prisoners in the Holy War are represented as being 'brought in
chains to the bar' for trial. 'The prisoners were handled by the
jailer so severely, and loaded so with irons, that they died in the
prison.'[226] In many cases, prisoners for conscience' sake were
treated with such brutality, before the form of trial, as to cause
their death. By Divine mercy, Bunyan was saved from these dreadful