ELIZABETIi BUNYAN, called Bentinck, where the pulpit which he used is still preserved with sedulous care ; and he fre- quently preached in a deep valley, near Preston, at Bendish, five miles fromHitchin, in Bedfordshire, in a malt-house, from which the pulpit was afterwards removed. Once in every year he visited London, bat whether Elizabeth ever accompanied him on these journeys is nowhere mentioned. During these visits, he was in the habit of preaching at a meeting- house in Southwark, situated on or near the site of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, in Zoar Street, leading fromGravel Lane to Essex Street. Crowds flocked to hear himwhenever his intention to preach was an- nounced; and almost invariably the building would be filled " to suffocation." Three thousand persons have assembled, upon such occasions, even in remote parts of the town ; and upwards of one thousand at seven o'clock in the dark, cold winter mornings, when sometimes, of a Sunday morning, " half were fda to go back again for want of room, and then himself was fain at a back door to be pulled almost over people to get upstairs to his pulpit." Among his hearers were to be found alike the learned and the illiterate. It was well known that the learned Dr. John Owen, when he had the opportunity, embraced it with pleasure, and " sat at the feet of the unlearned, but eloquent tinker." King Charles, hearing of this, asked the eminent D.D. " how a man of his great erudition could sit to hear a tinker preach." " May it please your Majesty," replied the Doctor, with emphasis, " if I could possess the 36
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