They followed up the interest already awakened in Bunyan's heart. They were in earnest to serve their Lord. They introduced Bunyan to their minister, the Rev. John Gifford. This Free Church was founded in Bedford in 1650, with twelve members. "Now the principle upon which they thus entered into fellowship one with another, and upon which they did afterwards receive those that were added to their body and fellowship, was _faith in Christ and holiness in life_, without respect to this or that circumstance or opinion in outward and circumstantial things." The Rev. John Gifford is usually spoken of as a Baptist, though Dr. Brown finds no proof for or against. In Gifford's last letter to his church, written just before his death, he appeals to them not to divide the church on such matters as "baptism, laying on of hands, anointing with oil, psalms, or any externals." Bunyan himself, in a work written in 1673, "Differences in Judgment about Water Baptism no Bar to Communion," implies that he believes in immersion, but his children were baptized in their infancy. Mr. Gifford had been a young major in the king's army, was defeated, and with eleven others condemned to the gallows. On the night before he was to be executed, his sister visited him in prison. The guards were asleep, and his fellow-prisoners were drunk. She urged him to escape to the fields. He did so, and for three days hid himself in a ditch, and lived on water. Coming to Bedford, he practised as a physician, but continued his bad habits, drinking and losing heavily through gambling. In the midst of such a course of life he happened one day to take up a book written by an eminent scholar and Puritan preacher, the Rev. Robert Bolton, born at Blackburn, Lancashire, 1572. It was probably the volume entitled, "The Four Last Things, and Directions for Walking with God," published in 1626. Mr. Bolton died in 1631, with these words upon his lips: "By the wonderful mercies of God, I am as full of comfort as my heart can hold, and feel nothing in my soul but Christ, with whom I heartily desire to be." Mr. Bolton's book was the means of the conversion of Gifford, who, in turn, led Bunyan into the light, and, consequently, to the writing of that wonderful book, "The Pilgrim's Progress," in which Gifford is supposed to be the Evangelist, who points out to Pilgrim the wicket gate. Who shall measure the power of a good book! For months, even years, Bunyan passed through the struggles which Pilgrim found in his difficult journey. He has glowingly depicted these in his "Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners." Sometimes he was in the depths of despair, because he felt that his sins had been too great to be forgiven. Then he feared that he was not one of the elect, or that he had committed the unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost. Then doubts about the Bible and God took possession of him, till, under the mental strain, his health became affected, and consumption seemed imminent.