behind him. His tongue is very voluble, which, with canting, proves him
a linguist. He is entertained in every place, yet enters no farther than
the door, to avoid suspicion. To conclude, if he escape Tyburn and
Banbury, he dies a beggar."

Truly, but a poor beginning for a pious life was the youth of John
Bunyan. As might have been expected, he was a wild, reckless, swearing
boy, as his father doubtless was before him. "It was my delight," says
he, "to be taken captive by the Devil. I had few equals, both for
cursing and swearing, lying and blaspheming." Yet, in his ignorance and
darkness, his powerful imagination early lent terror to the reproaches of
conscience. He was scared, even in childhood, with dreams of hell and
apparitions of devils. Troubled with fears of eternal fire, and the
malignant demons who fed it in the regions of despair, he says that he
often wished either that there was no hell, or that he had been born a
devil himself, that he might be a tormentor rather than one of the
tormented.

At an early age he appears to have married. His wife was as poor as
himself, for he tells us that they had not so much as a dish or spoon
between them; but she brought with her two books on religious subjects,
the reading of which seems to have had no slight degree of influence on
his mind. He went to church regularly, adored the priest and all things
pertaining to his office, being, as he says, "overrun with superstition."
On one occasion, a sermon was preached against the breach of the Sabbath
by sports or labor, which struck him at the moment as especially designed
for himself; but by the time he had finished his dinner he was prepared
to "shake it out of his mind, and return to his sports and gaming."

"But the same day," he continues, "as I was in the midst of a game of