* * * I cannot express with what longing I cried
to Christ to call me. I saw such glory in a converted state that I
could not be contented without a share therein. Had I had a whole world
it had all gone ten thousand times over for this, that my soul might
have been in a converted state." After Bunyan's conversion he says of
his conscience: "As to the act of sinning, I was never more tender than
now. I durst not take up a pin or a stick, though but so big as a
straw, for my conscience now was sore, and would smart at every touch.
I could not tell how to speak my words for fear I should misplace
them."
A man so sensitive to supernatural impressions could realize them as
completely as the actual experiences of his daily life. Such, in fact,
they were. With a conscience so tender, and a longing so intense for
what he considered a condition of grace, Bunyan described the journey
of Christian with the minuteness and fidelity of one who had trod the
same path. The sketch of the pilgrim, which opens the work, stamps
Christian at once an individual.
As I walked through the wilderness of this world, I lighted on a
certain place where was a den; and I laid me down in that place to
sleep; and as I slept, I dreamed a dream. I dreamed, and behold, I
saw a man clothed with rags, standing in a certain place, with his
face from his own house, a Book in his hand, and a great burden
upon his back.
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