This long interval of gloom was at last relieved by a brief sunburst of joy. He heard a sermon on the text, “Behold, thou art fair, my love;” in which the preacher said, that a ransomed soul is precious to the Saviour, even when it appears very worthless to itself,—that Christ loves it when tempted, assaulted, afflicted, and mourning under the hiding of God’s countenance. Bunyan went home musing on the words, till the truth of what the preacher said began to force itself upon his mind; and half incredulous at first, a hesitating hope dawned in upon his spirit. “Then I began to give place to the word, which, with power, did over and over make this joyful sound within my soul—“Thou art my love, thou art my love; and nothing shall separate thee from my love.” And with that my heart was filled full of comfort and hope; and now I could believe that my sins should be forgiven me: yea, I was now so taken with the love and mercy of God, that I remember I could not tell how to contain till I got home. I thought I could have spoken of his love, and have told of his mercy to me, even to the very crows that sat upon the ploughed lands before me, had they been capable to have understood me. Wherefore, I said in my soul, with much gladness, Well, I would I had pen and ink here. I would write this down before I go any farther; for surely I will not forget this forty years hence.” However, as he himself remarks, in less than forty days he had forgotten it all. A flood of new and fierce temptations broke over him, and had it not been for a strong sustaining arm which unseen upheld him, his soul must have sunk in the deep and angry waters. At one time he was almost overwhelmed in a hurricane of blasphemous suggestions, and at another time his faith had wellnigh made shipwreck on the shoals of infidelity or deliberate atheism. But the very reluctance and dismay of his spirit showed that a new nature was in him. “I often, when these temptations have been with force upon me, did compare myself to the case of such a child whom some gipsy hath by force took up in her arms, and is carrying from friend and country; kick sometimes I did, and also shriek and cry; but yet I was bound in the wings of the temptation, and the wind would carry me away.” It was all that he could do to refrain from articulating such words as he imagined would amount to the sin against the Holy Ghost; and for a year together he was haunted with such diabolical suggestions that he was weary of his life, and fain would have changed condition with a horse or a dog. During this dreary term it is no wonder that his heart felt hard. “Though he should have given a thousand pounds for a tear, he could not shed one; and often he had not even the desire to shed one.” Every ordinance was an affliction. He could not listen to a sermon, or take up a religious book, but a crowd of wild and horrid fancies rushed in betwixt the subject and his bewildered mind, he could not assume the