When he was twelve years of age, he appears to have been quite singularly influenced by the reading of the _Pilgrim’s Progress_; and late in life, when writing his biography, he briefly, but significantly, attempts to reproduce the intense enjoyment he received—the book evidently caught and coloured his whole imagination. At this time, too, he was very nearly drowned, and while drowning, so far from having any sense of terror, he had no sense nor idea of the things of this world, but that it appeared to him he rushingly emerged out of thick darkness into what appeared to him a glorious city, lustrous and brilliant, the light of which seemed to illuminate the darkness through which he had urged his way. It was as if the city had a floor like glass, and yet he was sure that neither city nor floor had any substance; also he saw people there; the inhabitants arrayed in robes of what seemed the finest substance, but flowing from their necks to their feet; and yet he was sensible too that they had no material substance; they moved, but did not labour as in walking, but glided as if carried along by the wind; and he testifies how he felt a wonderful joy and peace, and he never forgot the impression through life, although soon recalled to the world in which he was to sorrow and suffer so much. It is quite easy to see John Bunyan in all this; but while he was thus pleasantly happy in his visionary or intro-visionary state, a benevolent and tender-hearted Dutchman, who had been among some haymakers in a field on the banks of the river, was striking out after him among the willow-bushes and sedges of the stream, from whence he was brought, body and soul, back to the world again. Such are the glimpses of the childhood of Silas.