Old Portraits and Modern Sketches; Personal Sketches and Tributes; Historical Papers | Page 8

his case, Satan would thrust the curse of Esau in his
face, and wrest the good word from him. The blessed promise "Him
that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out" was the chief
instrumentality in restoring his lost peace. He says of it: "If ever Satan
and I did strive for any word of God in all my life, it was for this good
word of Christ; he at one end, and I at the other. Oh, what work we
made! It was for this in John, I say, that we did so tug and strive; he
pulled, and I pulled, but, God be praised! I overcame him; I got
sweetness from it. Oh, many a pull hath my heart had with Satan for
this blessed sixth chapter of John!" Who does not here call to mind the
struggle between Christian and Apollyon in the valley!
That was no fancy sketch; it was the narrative of the author's own
grapple with the Spirit of Evil. Like his ideal Christian, he "conquered
through Him that loved him." Love wrought the victory the Scripture of
Forgiveness overcame that of Hatred.
He never afterwards relapsed into that state of religious melancholy
from which he so hardly escaped. He speaks of his deliverance as the
waking out of a troublesome dream. His painful experience was not lost
upon him; for it gave him, ever after, a tender sympathy for the weak,
the sinful, the ignorant, and desponding. In some measure, he had been
"touched with the feeling of their infirmities." He could feel for those in
the bonds of sin and despair, as bound with them. Hence his power as a
preacher; hence the wonderful adaptation of his great allegory to all the
variety of spiritual conditions. Like Fearing, he had lain a month in the
Slough of Despond, and had played, like him, the long melancholy bass

of spiritual heaviness. With Feeble-mind, he had fallen into the hands
of Slay-good, of the nature of Man-eaters: and had limped along his
difficult way upon the crutches of Ready-to-halt. Who better than
himself could describe the condition of Despondency, and his daughter
Much-afraid, in the dungeon of Doubting Castle? Had he not also fallen
among thieves, like Little-faith?
His account of his entering upon the solemn duties of a preacher of the
Gospel is at once curious and instructive. He deals honestly with
himself, exposing all his various moods, weaknesses, doubts, and
temptations. "I preached," he says, "what I felt; for the terrors of the
law and the guilt of transgression lay heavy on my conscience. I have
been as one sent to them from the dead. I went, myself in chains, to
preach to them in chains; and carried that fire in my conscience which I
persuaded them to beware of." At times, when he stood up to preach,
blasphemies and evil doubts rushed into his mind, and he felt a strong
desire to utter them aloud to his congregation; and at other seasons,
when he was about to apply to the sinner some searching and fearful
text of Scripture, he was tempted to withhold it, on the ground that it
condemned himself also; but, withstanding the suggestion of the
Tempter, to use his own simile, he bowed himself like Samson to
condemn sin wherever he found it, though he brought guilt and
condemnation upon himself thereby, choosing rather to die with the
Philistines than to deny the truth.
Foreseeing the consequences of exposing himself to the operation of
the penal laws by holding conventicles and preaching, he was deeply
afflicted at the thought of the suffering and destitution to which his
wife and children might be exposed by his death or imprisonment.
Nothing can be more touching than his simple and earnest words on
this point. They show how warm and deep were him human affections,
and what a tender and loving heart he laid as a sacrifice on the altar of
duty.
"I found myself a man compassed with infirmities; the parting with my
wife and poor children hath often been to me in this place as the pulling
the flesh from the bones; and also it brought to my mind the many

hardships, miseries, and wants, that my poor family was like to meet
with, should I be taken from them, especially my poor blind child, who
lay nearer my heart than all beside. Oh, the thoughts of the hardships I
thought my poor blind one might go under would break my heart to
pieces.
"Poor child! thought I, what sorrow art thou like to have for thy portion
in this world! thou must be beaten, must beg, suffer hunger, cold,
nakedness, and a thousand calamities, though I cannot now endure the
wind should blow upon thee. But yet,