He had numbered sixty years, and written as many books, when he was released from his abundant labours. A young gentleman, his neighbour, had fallen under his father’s displeasure, and was much concerned at his father’s estrangement as well as at the prospect of being disinherited. He begged Mr Bunyan’s friendly interposition to propitiate his father, and prepare the way for his return to parental favour and affection. The kind-hearted man undertook the task, and having successfully achieved it, was returning from Reading to London on horseback, when he was thoroughly drenched with excessive rains. He arrived cold and wet at the house of Mr Strudwick, a grocer on Snow Hill. Here he was seized with fits of shivering, which passed off in violent fever, and after ten days’ sickness, on the 31st of August 1688, his pilgrimage ended, and he went in by the gate into the city. * * * * * As the most appropriate introduction to the following selections from the practical writings of Bunyan, we would chose this rapid history of the MAN, with a few remarks on the THEOLOGIAN and the AUTHOR. I. Bunyan’s theological merits we rank very high. No one can turn over his pages without noticing the abundance of his Scriptural quotations; and these quotations no one can examine without perceiving how minutely he had studied, and how deeply he had pondered, the word of God. But it is possible to be very _textual_, and yet by no means very scriptural. A man may heave an exact acquaintance with the literal Bible, and yet entirely miss the great Bible message. He may possess a dexterous command of detached passages and insulated sentences, and yet be entirely ignorant of that peculiar scheme which forms the great gospel revelation. But this was Bunyan’s peculiar excellence. He was even better acquainted with the Gospel as the scheme of God, than he was familiar with the Bible-text; and the consequence is, that though he is sometimes irrelevant in his references, and fanciful in interpreting particular passages, his doctrine is almost always according to the analogy of faith. The doctrine of a free and instant justification by the imputed righteousness of Christ, none even of the Puritans could state with more Luther-like boldness, nor defend with an affection more worthy of Paul. In his last and best days, Coleridge wrote, “I know of no book, the Bible excepted, as above all comparison, which I, according to my judgment and experience, could so safely recommend as teaching and enforcing the whole saving truth, according to the mind that was in Christ Jesus, as the Pilgrim’s Progress. It is in my conviction the best _Summa Theologiæ Evangelicæ_ ever produced by a writer not miraculously inspired.” {30a} Without questioning this verdict, we would include in the encomium some of his other writings, which possibly Coleridge never saw. Such as the Tracts contained in this volume. {30b} They exhibit Gospel-truths in so