A new source of uneasiness now presented itself in his practice
of bell-ringing, an occupation requiring severe labour, usually
performed on the Lord's-day; and, judging from the general character
of bell-ringers, it has a most injurious effect, both with regard
to morals and religion. A circumstance had recently taken place
which was doubtless interpreted as an instance of Divine judgment
upon Sabbath-breaking. Clark, in his Looking-Glass for Saints
and Sinners, 1657, published the narrative:--'Not long since, in
Bedfordshire, a match at football being appointed on the Sabbath,
in the afternoon whilst two were in the belfry, tolling of a bell
to call the company together, there was suddenly heard a clap
of thunder, and a flash of lightning was seen by some that sat in
the church-porch coming through a dark lane, and flashing in their
faces, which must terrified them, and, passing through the porch
into the belfry, it tripped up his heels that was tolling the bell,
and struck him stark dead; and the other that was with him was so
sorely blasted therewith, that shortly after he died also.'[62] Thus
we find that the church bells ministered to the Book of Sports, to
call the company to Sabbath-breaking. The bell-ringers might come
within the same class as those upon whom the tower at Siloam fell,
still it was a most solemn warning, and accounts for the timidity
of so resolute a man as Bunyan. Although he thought it did not become
his newly-assumed religious character, yet his old propensity drew
him to the church tower. At first he ventured in, but took care to
stand under a main beam, lest the bell should fall and crush him;
afterwards he would stand in the door; then he feared the steeple might
fall; and the terrors of an untimely death, and his newly-acquired
garb of religion, eventually deterred him from this mode
of Sabbath-breaking. His next sacrifice made at the shrine of