ELIZABETH BUNYAN, struggle had racked his whole being that he became really religious. He awakened from his false idea of his own sanctified life, but then he fell into a state of alternate desperation and dejection, de- claring that " the thoughts of religion were very grievious" to him ; and for two years and a half he suffered intensely, -it was like passing through a fiery furnace,-before he knew and felt the blessed solace of a Saviour's redeeming love. Then it was like coming from darkness and chains into light and liberty ; and he never relapsed. Six children were born,-John, Thomas, Joseph, Mary, Elizabeth, and Sarah. Poor little Mary, born in 1650 (two years after the marriage of her parents), was blind ; and tenderly was she cherished by both father and mother, round whose very heart- strings she entwined herself. The exemplary, pure -minded wife, was called by her Heavenly Father, and left John with four help- less children, two having died. How long he mourned for her loss we are not told ; but in 1658, he married again. His second choice was worthy of his first. He was now a highly popular preacher, having succeeded the leading minister, Mr. Gifford, among the Baptists of Elstow, to which sect he had attached himself. His wife, Elizabeth, was a partaker of his own spirit ; a pious, affectionate girl. She regarded him with a different, though, scarcely, perhaps, a stronger love than his first wife had entertained for him ; for to her he 10
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