Lyricist: John Bunyan

From HymnsWithoutWords

John Bunyan (1628 - 1688) was an English writer born at Elstow, near Bedford, in 1628. He is best remembered as the author of the "Pilgrim's Progress".

The Bunyan family had been settled in in the Bedford area from the thirteenth century and Thomas Bunyan, his father, was a "brazier", or tinker. John was brought up to the same trade, but after his mother's death in 1644, enlisted as a soldier, most likely as part of Cromwell's New Model Army which fought against King Charles I in the English Civil war. Demobilised just two years later in 1646 the experience made a lasting impression.

In the following period, Bunyan married and is known to have read religious treatise and discussed religion with his wife. He went through a terrible spiritual struggle, which when speaking of himself afterwards, he describes himself as the worst of sinners; but the only wickedness in which he is known to have indulged is "swearing, lying, and blaspheming", and from coarser vices he seems to have been free. The fury of his spiritual struggle, and the darkness of his own description of himself, both were due to the strength and depth of his own nature. At last it ended. Those who wish to know how Bunyan came to the light should read his own wonderful story of it.

In 1653 he joined Mr. Gifford's unofficial church in Bedford, which then worshipped in St. John's Church and began to gather a reputation as a preacher. At the time of the Restoration of the Monarchy (Charles II) Gifford was dead, and the was back in the hands of the Established Church. On November 12, 1660, Bunyan was arrested for unlicensed preaching; and being again arrested in 1661, and refusing to abstain, he was kept in prison with one short interval until 1672, when he was released at the Declaration of Indulgence. Bunyan wrote and published several books of meditations whilst in prison, and one of the most remarkable auto biographies ever written, Grace Abounding (1666)

In 1672, on his release, Bunyan was chosen minister of the community at Bedford with whom he worshipped, and a barn in Mill Lane was licensed for their meeting-place. He seems to have been imprisoned again, in the winter of 1675-6 and in prison compsed the "Pilgrim's Progress" (published in 1678). The book at once leapt into fame and has been republished ever since with translations into more than seventy languages. In 1685 the Second Part, dealing with Christiana and her family, was published. In 1688 he travelled to London, died, and he was buried in Bunhill Fields.

Of all Bunyan's books, only two are still commonly read, and these will be read as long as the memory of England survives: the "Pilgrim's Progress" and the "Holy War". Both are allegories and are so true to human nature, so full of pictures of life and character, that children enjoy them as stories without understanding, while their elders admire them for other qualities as well.