He had not long been a member of the church when he was called to exercise its actual ministry. Gifford was gone to his everlasting rest; and as a substitute for his labours, it was put upon a few of the brethren to speak the word of exhortation to the rest. Of these Bunyan was one. At first he did not venture farther than to address his friends in their more private meetings, or to follow up, with a brief application, the sermons delivered by others in their village-preaching. But these exercises having afforded the utmost satisfaction to his judicious though warm-hearted hearers, he was urged forward to more public services. These he was too humble to covet, and too earnest to refuse. Though his education was sufficiently rude, God had given him from the first a strong athletic mind and a glowing heart,—that downright logic and teeming fancy, whose bold strokes and burning images heat the Saxon temper to the welding point, and make the popular orator of our English multitude. Then his low original and rough wild history, however much they might have subjected him to scorn had he exchanged the leathern apron for a silken one, or scrambled from the hedge-side into the high-places of the church, entailed no suspicion, and awakened much surprise, when the Bedford townsmen saw their blaspheming neighbour a new man, and in a way so disinterested preaching the faith which he once destroyed. The town turned out to hear, and though there was some mockery, many were deeply moved. His own account of it is:—“At first I could not believe that God should speak by me to the heart of any man, still counting myself unworthy; yet those who were thus touched, would love me, and have a particular respect for me; and though I did put it from me, that they should be awakened by me, still they would confess it and affirm it before the saints of God . . . Wherefore, seeing them in both their words and deeds to be so constant, and also in their hearts so earnestly pressing after the knowledge of Jesus Christ, rejoicing that ever God did send me where they were, then I began to conclude it might be so, that God had owned in his work such a foolish one as I; and then came that word of God to my heart with such sweet refreshment: ‘The blessing of them that were ready to perish is come upon me; yea, I caused the widow’s heart to sing for joy.’ At this, therefore, I rejoiced; yea, the tears of those whom God had awakened by my preaching would be both solace and encouragement to me. I thought on those sayings, ‘Who is he that maketh me glad, but the same that is made sorry by me!’ And again, ‘Though I be not an apostle to others, yet doubtless I am unto you: for the seal of my apostleship are ye in the Lord.’”