Inspired by Him who touched Elijah's hallowed lips with fire, he composed the noblest of allegories." Many of his editors write in a similar vein.

It may, however, be questioned whether this opinion is correct. His imprisonment was by no means rigorous. The materials of the work had all been gathered; he was an author before his trial, and a most voluminous writer after his release; and the completion of this work was not the business of his life during his imprisonment, but the delight of a few leisure hours. The genius of Bunyan was far too robust to be greatly affected by mere outward circumstances, and we can scarcely doubt that in any case the Pilgrim's Progress would have been written.

Of its merits we quote the words of James Montgomery:"It has been the lot of John Bunyan, an unlettered artisan, to do more than one in a hundred millions of human beings, even in civilised society, is usually able to do. He has produced a work of imagination of such decided originality as not only te have commanded public admiration at its first appearance, bu. amidst all changes of time, and style, and modes of thinking, to have maintained its place in the literature of every succeeding age; with the probability that so long as the language in which it is written endures it will not cease to be read by a great number of the youth of all future generations, at that period of life when their minds, their imaginations, and their hearts are most impressible with moral excellence, splendid picture, and religious sentiment. The happy idea of representing his story under the similitude of a dream, enabled him to portray, with all the liveliness of reality, the scenes which passed before him. It makes the reader himself, like the author, a spectator of all that occurs: thus giving him a personal interest in the events, an individual sympathy for the actor and sufferers. It would be difficult to name another work of any kind in our native tongue of which so many editions have been printed; and of which so many readers have lived and died, the character of whose lives and deaths must have been more or less affected by its lessons and examples, its fictions and realities."

Such commendations are not limited to those who, like Montgomery, agreed with Bunyan's theological opinions. Coleridge has written: - "I could not have believed beforehand that Calvinism could be painted in such exquisitely delightful colours. I know of no book, the Bible excepted, as above all comparison, which I, according to my judgment and experience, could so safely recommend, as teaching and embracing the whole saving truth, according to the mind that was in Christ Jesus, as 'The Pilgrim's Progress."

Bunyan obtained his formal release from prison about the close of the year 1672. He had, however, received licence to preach six months earlier, and went out and in to his prison with little supervision. His deliverance has been generally assigned to the intercession of Dr Barlow, Bishop of Lincoln. but it has been satisfactorily shewn that a Quaker, named Richard Carver, who assisted in the escape of Charles II. after the battle of Worcester, used his influence with the King to obtain the release of persons imprisoned for their religious opinions, and that Bunyan shared in the general amnesty which was then offered.

On his release, Bunyan appears to have become a brasier, but ministered also to the Baptist congregation of Bedford, by whom he had been chosen to the pastoral office while yet in prison, and preached with great assiduity and extraordinary popularity throughout the country. The publication of the Pilgrim's Progress, a year or two afterwards, still more extended his reputation. His friend, Charles Doe, writes, "When Mr Bunyan preached in London, if there was but one day's notice given, there would be more people come together to hear him preach than the meeting-house could hold. I have seen him preach, by my computation, to about twelve hundred at a morning lecture, by seven o'clock on a working day, in the dark winter time. I also computed about three thousand that came to hear him on Lord's day at London." When Dr Owen was asked by Charles II. how a man of his learning could sit to hear a tinker preach, he replied, "May it please your Majesty, I would give all my learning in exchange for the tinker's abilities,"

Little remains to be told of the latter period of his life. He was forty-four years of age when released from prison. The first part of the Pilgrim's Progress was published about four years later; the second edition is dated 1678. The eighth edition, containing the last improvements made by the author, appeared in 1682. In the same year appeared the Holy War, a work which, wanting the personal interest which attaches to the Pilgrim's Progress, has not attained the same popularity. The second part of the Pilgrim was completed in 1684. Numerous other works, practical and controversial, occupied his pen to the close of his life, some of which, such as "The Jerusalem Sinner Saved," are of rare merit.

Bunyan was twice married, and had six children by his first wife. It was his second wife who so earnestly pled his cause before Judge Hales. He died in the year 1692, aged sixty-four, of the sweating sickness, when in London. His latter end was peace, his last words being, "Weep not for me, but for yourselves. I go to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will, no doubt, through the mediation of His blessed Son, receive me, though a sinner; when I hope we shall ere long meet to sing the new song and remain everlastingly happy, world without end. Amen." He was buried in Bunhill-fields, London; the resting-place of many of the just.