In the height of his fame, the Commonwealth ended, the Puritans lost their control of political affairs, and Charles II was restored to the throne of England. Soon the separate meetings of the Nonconformists were prohibited, and Bunyan was warned that he must cease his preaching. No one could be more firm, however, in following the dictates of his conscience than this reformed tinker*, and so, although he knew arrest and imprisonment faced him, he arranged to meet his people and deliver to them a farewell address in November, 1660. At that meeting the constables found him and took him away without any resistance on his part. The government was anxious to deal liberally with Bunyan, for his fine character and good influence were both recognized, but the sturdy exhorter declined to stop his preaching and would not give the least assurance that he would not continue to spread his faith. As a consequence he was committed to the Bedford jail, where he was not kept, however, in close confinement for any great part of the time. His family were allowed to visit him, and his friends often came in numbers to listen to his addresses. There was no time when he would not have been liberated if he had merely promised to give up his preaching. At the end of six years he was liberated, but as he began preaching at once, he was rearrested and kept for six years longer, when a general change of governmental policy sent him out into the world at forty-four years of age, free to preach when and where he wished. Bunyan's imprisonment was of great value to him, in one respect at least, for it gave him time to read, reflect and write. That he availed himself of the privilege, his great works testify. After his release he continued his labors among his congregation, in writing, and in visiting other churches. His little blind child, who visited him so often in the jail, died; but the rest of his family lived and did well, and Bunyan must be considered a very happy man during the sixteen years he stayed in his neat little home in Bedford. In August, 1688, he received word that a bad quarrel had taken place between a father and son, acquaintances of Bunyan, who lived at Reading. The old peacemaker went at once to the family and after much persuasion succeeded in reconciling the two and persuading the father not to disinherit the son. But this was the last charitable act of the great preacher, for in returning he was drenched to the skin in a heavy shower of wind and rain, and after a brief illness died at the home of one of his friends in London. THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS INTRODUCTION The Pilgrim's Progress was written while Bunyan was in the Bedford jail, and as the writer says, was written for his own amusement. Christian is Bunyan himself, and the trials and experiences of the former are but the reflections of the temptations and sufferings of the great preacher set forth in wonderfully dramatic and striking form.