THE FAITHFUL HELPMATE. was the Christian leader, and trusted expounder of the Word of God, not the apparently incorrigible Sabbath-breaker. He travelled in the adjacent villages, both in pursuance of his trade as repairer of pots and pans, and as an itinerant preacher ; his influence was now something magical, and of his power in touching the soul some very singular anecdotes are related. Once, in a country village in Cambridgeshire, as he was about to address a crowd of persons who had congregated together for the purpose in the churchyard, a Cambridge scholar, who was a little excited by wine, came up, and en- quired what was the meaning of that concourse of people, it being a week day ? On being told that " John Bunyan, a tinker, was to preach there," he gave a boy twopence to hold his horse, saying, with an ironical smile, " I am resolved to hear the tinker prate, then ;" and " so went into the church to hear him. .But God met with him there by his ministry, so that he came out much changed, and, would, by his good will, hear none but the tinker for a long time after, becoming a very eminent preacher in that country afterwards." But John Bunyan did not pursue his course with- out meeting with calumny. He was often loaded with slanders, by those who feared his influence; it was rumoured that he was a wizard, a Jesuit, a high- wayman; and he was even persecuted, for in 1657, the year preceding his marriage with Elizabeth, he had been indicted for preaching at Eaton, though no 11
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