To appreciate his feelings fully, we must remember the age in which he lived as the time when everything in the Bible was taken as wholly literal, when people believed that sin was followed by awful punishments in a fiery hell, and when miraculous events were considered common. The young John must have known such occurrences as the following, related by Froude in his Life of Bunyan: "A man commonly called 'Old Tod' came one day into court, in the Summer Assizes at Bedford, to demand justice upon himself as a felon. No one had accused him, but God's judgment was not to be escaped, and he was forced to accuse himself. 'My lord,' said Old Tod to the judge, 'I have been a thief from my childhood. I have been a thief ever since. There has not been a robbery committed these many years, within so many miles of this town, but I have been privy to it.' The judge, after a conference, agreed to indict him for certain felonies which he had acknowledged. He pleaded guilty, implicating his wife along with him, and they were both hanged." Filled with terror by the fearful things he heard and saw, it is no wonder that so sensitive a child was haunted by such nightmares as are described by one of his biographers. [Illustration: JOHN BUNYAN 1628-1688] Once he dreamed that he was in a pleasant place, jovial and rioting, when an earthquake rent the earth, out of which came bloody flames, and the figures of men tossed up in globes of fire, and falling down again with horrible cries and shrieks and execrations, while devils mingled among them, and laughed aloud at their torments. As he stood trembling, the earth sank under him, and a circle of flames embraced him.. But when he fancied he was at the point to perish, one in shining white raiment descended and plucked him out of that dreadful place, while the devils cried after him to take him to the punishment which his sins deserved. Yet he escaped the danger, and leapt for joy when he awoke and found it was a dream. At seventeen, Bunyan was a tall, active lad still wild and reckless, an inventor of tales, who swore to their truth, a great leader in athletic sports, but free from drunkenness and other coarse vices. The Civil War was nearing its end, and martial deeds drew Bunyan to enlist, but his term of service was short and it is not known on which side he served. Soon after this he married an excellent girl, an orphan, who had been brought up religiously and who made an excellent wife for the successful tinker. He was now a regular attendant upon the Established Church, though, as he says, still retaining his wicked life.