attentive perusal. Want of space prevents us repeating it here, or
even making extracts from it. She had previously traveled to London
with a petition to the House of Lords, and entrusted it to Lord
Barkwood, who conferred with some of the peers upon it, and informed
her that they could not interfere, the king having committed the
release of the prisoners to the judges. When they came the circuit
and the assizes were held at Bedford; Bunyan in vain besought the
local authorities that he might have liberty to appear in person
and plead for his release. This reasonable request was denied,
and, as a last resource, he committed his cause to an affectionate
wife. Several times she appeared before the judges; love to her
husband, a stern sense of duty, a conviction of the gross injustice
practiced upon one to whom she was most tenderly attached, overcame
her delicate, modest, retiring habits, and forced her upon this
strange duty. Well did she support the character of an advocate.
This delicate, courageous, high-minded woman appeared before Judge
Hale, who was much affected with her earnest pleading for one so
dear to her, and whose life was so valuable to his children. It
was the triumph of love, duty, and piety, over bashful timidity.
Her energetic appeals were in vain. She returned to the prison with
a heavy heart, to inform her husband that, while felons, malefactors,
and men guilty of misdemeanours were, without any recantation or
promise of amendment, to be let loose upon society to grace the
coronation, the poor prisoners for conscience' sake were to undergo
their unjust and savage sentences. Or, in plain words, that refusing
to go to church to hear the Common Prayer was an unpardonable
crime, not to be punished in any milder mode than recantation, or
transportation, or the halter. With what bitter feelings must she
have returned to the prison, believing that it would be the tomb
of her beloved husband! How natural for the distressed, insulted