THE THIRD PERIOD.

BUNYAN IS BAPTIZED, AND ENTERS INTO COMMUNION WITH A CHRISTIAN
CHURCH AT BEDFORD--IS SET APART TO FILL THE DEACON'S OFFICE, AND
SENT OUT AS AN ITINERANT PREACHER IN THE NEIGHBOURING VILLAGES.

Man is naturally led to seek the society of his fellow-men.
His personal progress, and the great interests of civilization,
depend upon the nature of his friendly intercourse and his proper
associations. So is it with the Christian, but in a much higher
degree. Not only does he require companions with whom he can enjoy
Christian communion--of sufferings and of pleasures--in seasons of
depressing trials, and in holy elevations--but with whom he may also
form plans to spread the genial influence of Christianity, which
has blessed and so boundlessly enriched his own soul. Christian
fellowship and communion has received the broad seal of heaven.
'The Lord hearkened,' when they that feared him spake often to one
another, 'and a book of remembrance was written before him for them
that feared the Lord' (Mal 3:16).

Bunyan possessed a soul with faculties capable of the highest
enjoyment of the communion of saints in church order. His ideas of
mutual forbearance--that 'in lowliness of mind should each esteem
others better than themselves'--he enforces with very peculiar
power, and, at the same time, with delicate sensibility. After the
pilgrims had been washed by Innocence in the Interpreter's bath,
he sealed them, which 'greatly added to their beauty,' and then
arrayed them in white raiment of fine linen; and 'when the women
were thus adorned, they seemed to be a terror one to the other, for
that they could not see that glory each one on herself which they