It is very marvellous to observe the number of strange and unexpected combinations that are continually occurring in that moral kaleidoscope we call society. I do not suppose that I am exceptional in coming across these; nor do I use any particular industry in seeking them out. They come to me; all I do is to keep my eyes open, and note the impressions they make on me. I was humbly pursuing my way one Tuesday evening towards the abode of a phrenologist with the honest intention of discovering my craniological condition, when, in passing down Castle Street, Oxford Market, I was made aware that Mr. G. J. Holyoake was there and then to deliver himself on the "Literary Genius of Bunyan." This was one of the incongruous combinations I spoke of; and forthwith I passed into the Co-operative Hall, resolving to defer my visit to the phrenologist. There are some facts of which it is better to remain contentedly ignorant; and I have no doubt my own mental condition belongs to that category. I found the Co-operative Hall a handsome and commodious building; and a very fair audience had gathered to listen to Mr. Holyoake, who is an elderly thin-voiced man, and his delivery was much impeded on the occasion in question by the circumstance of his having a bad cold and cough. After a brief extempore allusion to the fact of the Duke of Bedford having erected a statue to Bunyan, which he regarded as a sort of compensation for his Grace ceasing to subscribe to the races, Mr. Holyoake proceeded to read his treatise, which he had written on several slips of paper--apparently backs of circulars--and laid one by one on a chair as he finished them. The world, he said, is a big place; but people are always forgetting what a variety of humanity it contains. Two hundred years ago, the authorities of Bedford made it very unpleasant for one John Bunyan, because they thought they knew everything, and could not imagine that a common street workman might know more. The trade of a tinker seems an unpromising preparation for a literary career. A tinker in Bedford to-day would not find himself much flattered by the attentions paid him, especially if he happened to be an old gaol-bird as well. So much the more creditable to Bunyan the ascendancy he gained. If he mended pots as well as he made sentences he was the best tinker that ever travelled. Bunyan had no worldly notions. His doctrine was that men were not saved by any good they might do--a doctrine that would ruin the morals of any commercial establishment in a month! He declared himself the "chief of sinners;" but judged by his townsmen he was a stout-hearted, stout-minded, scrupulous man. He was not a pleasant man to know. He had an unrelenting sincerity which often turned into severity. Yet he had much tenderness. He had a soul like a Red Indian's--all tomahawk and truth, until the literary passion came and added humour to it. He demands in his vigorous doggerel:--