Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 3.djvu/591

] their pulpits of one of the most extraordinary men of modern times—John Bunyan, whose "Pilgrim's Progress" continues to delight all classes of men, and will continue so long as the world stands.

John Bunyan and his Blind Child at the Gate of Bedford Gaol.

Bunyan, who was a tinker by trade, was serving in the parliamentary array at Leicester, at the time of the battle of Naseby; and when Charles I. fled to that town, he was ordered out as a sentinel, and his life was saved by another soldier volunteering to take his duty for some cause, who was shot at his post. Bunyan was soon thrown into prison for daring to preach under that liberal monarch, Charles II., as Mr. Hallam paints him, and lay in gaol twelve years and a half, solely because he had a conscience of his own; and was only liberated on the declaration of indulgence by James II. A Mr. Smyth, a clergyman of the church of England, who adopted their faith, was the first to open a chapel for the baptists in London, and, encouraged by his example, others were soon opened, and the views of the denomination soon spread over England and Wales, in later times to be eloquently expounded by Robert Robinson and Robert Hall.

But the most remarkable appearance of a religious body was that of the society of Friends, or, as they soon came to be nick-named, Quakers. We have introduced a short notice of the founder of this sect in defending him against the calumnies of Macaulay. George Fox was born at Drayton, in Leicestershire, in 1624. His father was a weaver, and George was apprenticed to a shoemaker, who also had a little farm. He informs us in his own journal that he preferred the farming, and chiefly devoted himself to it. When he was about nineteen he became deeply impressed with a