Part 1 (1/2)
Old Portraits
by John Greenleaf Whittier
OLD PORTRAITS AND MODERN SKETCHES
Inscribed as follohen first collected in book-forton, D C, these sketches, inally appeared in the columns of the paper under his editorial supervision, are, in their present form, offered as a token of the esteem and confidence which years of political and literary communion have justified and confirmed, on the part of his friend and associate, THE AUTHOR
JOHN BUNYAN
”Wouldst see A man I' the clouds, and hear hiress? Who has not, in childhood, followed the wandering Christian on his way to the Celestial City? Who has not laid at night his young head on the pillow, to paint on the walls of darkness pictures of the Wicket Gate and the Archers, the Hill of Difficulty, the Lions and Giants, Doubting Castle and Vanity Fair, the sunny Delectable Mountains and the Shepherds, the Black River and the wonderful glory beyond it; and at last fallen asleep, to dreas of the sisters at the House Beautiful, and the song of birds from theof that ”upper cha back to the green spots in his childish experiences, does not bless the good Tinker of Elstow?
And who, that has reperused the story of the Pilgri in the deep places of the soul, has not reason to bless the author for soement? Where is the scholar, the poet, the , who does not, with Cowper,
”Even in transitory life's late day, Revere the ress of the soul to God!”
We have just been reading, with no slight degree of interest, that siraphy, entitled Grace abounding to the Chief of Sinners, froress It is the record of a journey er than fiction;” the painful upward struggling of a spirit froh, pure air of Hope and Faith More earnest words were never written It is the entire unveiling of a hu of its sin The voice which speaks to us froes seems not so much that of a denizen of the world in which we live, as of a soul at the last solemn confessional Shorn of all ornament, simple and direct as the contrition and prayer of childhood, when for the first time the Spectre of Sin stands by its bedside, the style is that of a ratification, careless of the world's opinion, and only desirous to convey to others, in all truthfulness and sincerity, the lesson of his inward trials, telory to Hih all, and enabled hirim, to leave behind the Valley of the Shadow of Death, the snares of the Enchanted Ground, and the terrors of Doubting Castle, and to reach the land of Beulah, where the air eet and pleasant, and the birds sang and the flowers sprang up around hihtness of the not distant Heaven In the introductory pages he says ”he could have dipped into a style higher than this in which I have discoursed, and could have adorned all things more than here I have see me; neither did I play when I sunk, as it were, into a bottos of hell took hold onof the as it was”
This book, as well as Pilgrined especially for the comfort and edification of his ”children, whoet in faith by his h taken fro, as it were, between the teeth of the lions of the wilderness,” he once again, as before, from the top of Shemer and Hermon, so now, from the lion's den and the mountain of leopards, would look after then with fatherly care and desires for their everlasting welfare ”If,” said he, ”you have sinned against light; if you are tempted to blasphehts against you; or if Heaven is hidden from your eyes, remember it was so with your father But out of all the Lord delivered ives no dates; be affords scarcely a clue to his localities; of the hbors and contemporaries, of all he saw and heard of the world about hilimpse, here and there, in his narrative It is the story of his inward life only that he relates What had time and place to do with one who trembled alith the awful consciousness of an immortal nature, and about whom fell alternately the shadows of hell and the splendors of heaven? We gather, indeed, from his record, that he was not an idle on-looker in the tile for freedo the praying sworders and psal pikemen, the Greathearts and Holdfasts whoory; but the only allusion which he makes to this portion of his experience is by way of illustration of the goodness of God in preserving him on occasions of peril
He was born at Elstow, in Bedfordshi+re, in 1628; and, to use his oords, his ”father's house was of that rank which is the meanest and most despised of all the families of the land” His father was a tinker, and the son followed the saht him into association with the lowest and lish society
The estimation in which the tinker and his occupation were held, in the seventeenth century, may be learned from the quaint and humorous description of Sir Thomas Overbury ”The tinker,” saith he, ”is ain one place; he seee, and so necessity a virtue; he is a gallant, for he carries all his wealth upon his back; or a philosopher, for he bears all his substance with hi, to which his ha tune, proves that he was the first founder of the kettle- drum; where the best ale is, there stands his music most upon crotchets
The companion of his travel is some foul, sun-burnt quean, that, since the terrible statute, has recanted gypsyisland, with his bag and baggage; his conversation is irreprovable, for he is alwaysHe observes truly the statutes, and therefore had rather steal than beg He is so strong an ene one hole he would rather make three than ork; and when he hath done, he throws the wallet of his faults behind hi, proves hiuist 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 Asboy, as his father doubtless was before hiht,” says he, ”to be taken captive by the Devil I had few equals, both for cursing and swearing, lying and blaspheination 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 ions of despair, he says that he often wished either that there was no hell, or that he had been born a devil hiht be a tore he appears to have married His as as poor as himself, for he tells us that they had not so ht with her two books on religious subjects, the reading of which seeree of influence on his ularly, adored the priest and all things pertaining to his office, being, as he says, ”overrun with superstition”
On one occasion, a serainst the breach of the Sabbath by sports or labor, which struck hined for himself; but by the time he had finished his dinner he was prepared to ”shake it out of his ”
”But the saa struck it one blow from the hole, just as I was about to strike it a second time, a voice did suddenly dart from Heaven into o to heaven, or have thy sins and go to hell?' At this, I was put to an exceeding round, I looked up to Heaven, and it was as if I had, with the eyes of , seen the Lord Jesus look down uponvery hotly displeased with rievous punishment for those and other unGodly practices
”I had no sooner thus conceived in my mind, but suddenly this conclusion fastened on ain before rievous sinner, and that it was now too late for iveof it, and fearing lest it should be so, I feltit was too late; and therefore I resolved in ht I, if the case be thus, my state is surely miserable; miserable if I leave my sins, and but miserable if I follow theood be damned for riestions of the Giant to Christian, in the dungeon of Doubting Castle
”I returned,” he says, ”desperately to ain; and I well remember, that presently this kind of despair did so possess my soul, that I was persuaded I could never attain to other coone already, so that on that I reat desire to take ht taste the sweetness of it; and I made as much haste as I could to fill my belly with its delicates, lest I should die before I had s, I protest before God, I lie not, neither do I fraly, and with all ood Lord, whose ressions”
One day, while standing in the street, cursing and blasphe, he met with a reproof which startled hi tinker was standing, herself, as he remarks, ”a very loose, unGodly wretch,” protested that his horrible profanity made her tre she had ever heard, and able to spoil all the youth of the toho came in his company Struck by this wholly unexpected rebuke, he at once abandoned the practice of swearing; although previously he tells us that ”he had never kno to speak, unless he put an oath before and another behind”
The good nae was now a tehbors,” he says, ”were aious profaneness to so like a an to praise, to commend, and to speak well of me, both to my face and behind my back Noas, as they said, becoht honest man But oh! when I understood those were their words and opinions ofbut a poor painted hypocrite, yet I loved to be talked of as one that was truly Godly I was proud of my Godliness, and, indeed, I did all I did either to be seen of or well spoken of by men; and thus I continued for about a twelveination at this period is seen in the following relation of his abandonment of one of his favorite sports
”Now, you ing, but ht such practice was but vain, and therefore forced o to the steeple-house and look on, though I durst not ring; but I thought this did not becoion neither; yet I forced an to think, 'How if one of the bells should fall?' Then I chose to stand under a main beam, that lay overthwart the steeple, froht stand sure; but then I thought again, should the bell fall with a swing, it ht kill me for all this beaht I, I ah; for if a bell should then fall, I can slip out behind these thick walls, and so be preserved notwithstanding