church the rooks were flying low, and cawing loudly, and the dark heavy clouds, separated at intervals by streaks of light, told of the coming shower; but though, as in duty bound to do, we had given our first attention to the temple, where so important a change had been wrought in Bunyan's mind, we desired to return to the green' and see how time had dealt with the Green-house,' while we recalled to mind the passages in Bunyan's life recording how his life was spent in the self-same spot, when the trees were striplings that now are tending towards decay. Doubtless, the remnant of the cross, which might not in his early days have been converted into a stand for a sun-dial, excited his indignation, after he became a rigid nonconformist; it is now but the wreck of both, and tells neither of faith nor time. Nearer to the village is the Green-house,' or house upon the

green, a large substantial building, now used as a rural school; its massive timbers, its low pointed door-way, and its antique character, prove that it is far older than the days of Bunyan; it might have been one of the barns or milkhouses, or stables, in which the good old Bedford Puritan wept and prayed; he asks of his spiritual children, in his introduction to

Grace Abounding,' Have you forgot the close, the milk-house, the stable, the barn, where God did visit your souls?' After a few drops of large full rain, during which we ascended the creaking stairs, and passed through the low-ceiled rooms, the clouds rolled away, and the rich mellow sunset faded into the soft grey light of

The Green-house

Dissolution, its revenues were valued at 2847. 12s. 114d. The Brass mentioned above, to the memory of Elizabeth Harvey, Abbess of Elstow, (temp. Henry VII.) is remarkable as being the only representation extant of an Anglican Abbess in pontificalibus.

evening. We could imagine the village boys roystering upon the green, and indulging in words of riot which, in after times, the excited and over-wrought imagination of the sensitive Puritan exaggerated into terrible sin. We agree with the poet Southey in his opinion that the heart of the 'glorious dreamer' was never hardened; the self-accusations of such a man are to be received with some distrust, not of his sincerity, but of his sober judgment.' It would seem that he ran headlong into the boisterous vices which prove fatal to so many of the ignorant for want of that necessary and wholesome discipline which it is the duty of government to provide; but he was not led into those sins which infix a deeper stain.

Pious enthusiasts are just as prone in our own day to self-condemnation as was John Bunyan; they plough up their hearts, if we may so express it, and discover sins which the world could never suspect but for their own admissions; as long as this self-knowledge causes a deep and earnest watchfulness over themselves, and renders them charitable, it is in all respects a most merciful dispensation; sometimes it is so uncharitable to its fellow-sinners, that it seems to us a species of self-glory-a Satanic preeminence which fosters pride. Bunyan's great and early sins were sabbathbreaking and swearing, perverting the power of speech-the happiest gift of God-to blasphemy instead of blessing; his strong emotions sought the relief of words, and imprecations continually burst forth until he was brought by divine grace to see the wickedness of sabbath-breaking and evil speaking. Frequently in his boyish life he had remarkable escapes: and his grateful nature could not but recall how, when he forced open the adder's mouth to extract the poison, he received no wound; his affections were all right, and towards his wife he was not only loving, but permitted her to read to, and reason with him, so that he was not so utterly degraded as many would have it, as if to make the shining light of his conversion the more brilliant and marvellous.

He was but nineteen when he married, and if there was no prudence, so called, in a marriage even without humble means, there was in the woman the wisdom which leadeth to salvation.

But we must on, upon our Pilgrimage-leaving 'the green' to walk through the village, after taking our last look at the ancient house where the 'glorious dreamer' may both have rioted and prayed. We could not but

observe, how beautifully and tenderly the light caught up various portions of the trees, darting its beams amid their depths, and leaving much in obscurity: then flinging long spectral shadows on the grass, and imparting a strange unearthly character by its flitting' to the old church tower, which just at the moment tolled out eight in its deep sepulchral voice. Before the chime was finished, the whole character of the place was changed; the 'flitting' light was concentrated into a halo round the grim, grey tower of the venerable pile. There are few traits in the character of Bunyan more engaging than his exquisite relish for the works of Nature; he loved to meet God in the loveliness of his own world, and many times had walked the path on which we trod, perchance, after his spirit had been refreshed and strengthened by a sense of the wondrous beauty and harmony of Nature-and passing thence to the contemplation of the power of Christ's atonement. Those who are read in the outpourings of his heart will remember how, when he had struggled through the Slough of Despond and escaped the chains of Doubting City, after hearing one comforting sermon, he exclaimed, 'I could not tell how to contain myself till I got home, I thought I could have spoken of HIS love, and have told of HIS mercy towards me, even to the very crows that sat upon the ploughed lands before me, had they been capable to have understood me!'

Although the shadows of evening were drawing in more closely, the women were still plying their busy bobbins over their lace cushions, as they sate at their cottage doors; the village is as rambling and as picturesque as a village can be, that has no back-ground; although the cottages must have been nearly all rebuilt since Bunyan's time, some are even now so old as to need repair to prevent their falling to decay;-thus the associations between past and present are astonishingly close, and contribute much to the actual feeling that this is really the Elstow of Bunyan's time.

We must pause at the threshold of his cottage, for though no vestige remains of the actual walls that heard his infant wail when he entered a world of strife and tumult, yet the site, and materials, are undoubtedly the same; for no builder of modern cottages would have bestowed such massive beams on such a structure.

A group of women arose from their lace pillows that we might enter the dwelling of him who, according to an old chronicle, was one of the

men that in those times were enabled of God to adventure farre in showing their detestation of the bishops and their superstitions: he was born within a few feet of where we stood-in 1628; the dates he has immortalised occurred to our memory one by one. He began to preach about the

year 1656, was ordained pastor 21st of October, 1671, and died on the 31st of August, 1688. What a marvellous change in the circumstances of the tinker's child! who struggled into existence beneath so humble a roof, and the termination of HIS life, who triumphed over most bitter

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The research and kindness of Captain Smyth, R.N., have furnished us with a drawing, from the pencil of an eminent divine, who writes thus of the cottage and its locality :

The house he (Bunyan) lived in at Elstow was a favourite haunt of mine, when I was curate of that parish, on account of its historical associations as well as because there were two very old persons living in it who took delight in showing the very forge at which Bunyan worked so they believed, and so did I. It is all gone now, the cottage having been pulled down some ten or twelve years ago. I send you a sketch made from an old drawing of mine done on the spot, under some foreboding fears that the time would not be long before the fate which has now come upon it would befall it.' The old cottage was of far more importance in appearance than the new, the shed at the side being what is so often mentioned as 'the forge'-the word 'forge' leading us to believe that to the tinker's' humble calling might be united that of the 'smith,' a more manly and honourable trade.

persecutions and bequeathed to the world, for all time, a monument such as the Pilgrim's Progress.' The cottage raised upon the ruins of that which he occupied is of the poorest description, with the exception of the beams, which, in their thickness and the lowness of the ceiling, reminded us of the cottage at Chalfont, where Milton sheltered during the plague; it is in nothing remarkable, except, perhaps, being more dilapidated than many of the neighbouring cottages; but if Captain Smyth's communication needed confirmation, it would be in the fact that the cottage presents the appearance of want of care, rather than extreme old age: Mr. Fairholt, as we have said, sketched both; and the cottage as it was, and is, illustrates what we have written. The little garden is dank and tangled; it was overgrown partly by weeds and partly by vegetables, but both were neglected. and prices for lace so

'It was a dear place to live in,' the lace-maker said, low; they all worked at the pillow, but they earned little, work they ever so late or ever so early strangers often came to see the cottage, but the townsfolk did not think much about it.' It is to be hoped the quiet people of quiet Bedford do not deserve this character; for ourselves, we can only say that those it was our good fortune to meet on our pilgrimage shared our enthusiasm. It was wrong to be disappointed that the poor lace-makers did not feel the influence of the sacred ground upon which they dwelt; it was, however, a comfort that they were free from the jargon of sight-showers, and suffered us to muse on what we saw-or did not see; not disturbing the enjoyment of that holy SILENCE which subdues tumultuous feelings by its solemn stillness, and calls up the dearest and purest memories to confirm or disprove those fancies which, though the offspring of facts, are frequently unworthy their descent. Some might count that as the very walls were not those that sheltered Bunyan, we had gained nothing by our pilgrimage— not so had the whole place been desolate we still had trodden the self-same place where most of his days were passed; and we still had to visit the scenes of his imprisonment and his preaching. It is, moreover, a holy and elevating exercise to recall the past and its people, and dwell with them even in their silent tombs and mouldering graves.

When he was on the verge of eighteen he was most signally preserved from death, at the siege of Leicester; but this in nothing changed his life, though, doubtless, the providence took good root in his mind, to bring forth