"Trying to be a godly man," as Bunyan himself expressed it, was poor work. He tells us that on Sunday mornings he went to the parish church, joined in the singing, and made the responses. Sometimes if he had been more than usually impressed by the sermon, he would return to his cottage home feeling very miserable, but he goes on to say that his Sunday dinner soon drove away all serious thoughts, and in the afternoon he would be found on the village green entering with all the energy of his early manhood into the sports he loved so well.
Yet even there he often felt the striving of the Holy Spirit. On one occasion, when engaged in playing a game, he thought he heard a voice from heaven asking him whether he would leave his sins and go to heaven, or keep his sins and go to hell. He also seemed to see the Lord Jesus Christ looking down upon him with a look so full of love and pity that for a moment his heart was melted. Then would come the whisper of the evil one that for him it was too late; he had sinned too often and too long to dare to hope for forgiveness; he should be eternally lost, and since he must go to hell, he might as well go there for many sins as for few.
As he worked steadily at his trade, he had not much free time during the week, but when Sunday came, though his place in church was seldom if ever empty, later in the day he entered with a keen, almost boyish delight into all the sports and games of the village lads and young men.
Poor Bunyan! He must often have found during those years that "trying to be good" was hard, weary work. He had still to learn God's way of salvation-to learn that
"Till to Jesus' work you cling
By a simple faith,
Doing is a deadly thing;
Doing ends in death."
Very often in those years of wild, reckless daring he would use very bad language and behave more like a madman than a sane person. One day when standing at a neighbor's shop window, swearing, the woman who kept the shop, though she bore anything but a good character in the village, came out and reproved him so sharply, saying that his example was enough to spoil all the youth in the place, that he felt quite ashamed of his conduct and went away silent and downcast.
How could he give up swearing? he asked himself. He resolved to try. The effort must have cost him a great deal, but before many weeks had passed he found that he could speak better, and with more pleasure, without putting an oath before every sentence and another after it. About the same time he began to read the Bible and was soon greatly interested in the historical books. Paul's epistles he admitted he did not get on very well with as he could not understand them.
His outward reformation continued. He thought that perhaps after all he might get to heaven if he could succeed in keeping the ten commandments (a proof that he was still a stranger to the grace of God). Now and then, when he thought he had kept them pretty well, he felt encouraged and almost happy, "but sometimes," he said, "when I had broken one, I would repent, say I was sorry, and begin again."
But it was not long, however, before in the mercy of God he was aroused from his weary, hopeless efforts at law-keeping. Business having one day taken him to Bedford, he overheard the conversation of some godly women who, to his surprise, seemed to be sure, quite sure, that through faith in the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ they had received the forgiveness of sins. They also spoke of the preciousness of Christ and of the delight they found in reading the Word of God and in prayer.
He wrote: "They spoke with such joy, and with such an appearance of grace in all they said, that they were to me as persons who had found a new world." He listened for a while and then passed on, but he could not forget what he had heard. He saw and felt that he needed something that he did not have. He could not, dared not, meet a holy God with no better covering than his own fancied self-righteousness, with no firmer standing ground than his own poor efforts at good works.
The Bible, he says, became a new book to him; every spare moment was given to its study. The epistles of Paul grew day by day more sweet and precious to him, though he had not then accepted salvation as the free gift of God. He was still praying to be forgiven, when he might have been rejoicing in the knowledge that God for Christ's sake had pardoned all his sins.
He did wisely in seeking for Christian counsel and fellowship. The godly women whose conversation had made such an impression upon him were almost the first friends to whom he spoke of his desire to enjoy what he felt sure they possessed, peace with God. They did what they could to help and encourage him, and they introduced him to Mr. Gifford, an earnest Christian who was at that time preaching in Bedford and whose friendship and godly counsel Bunyan enjoyed for many years and always spoke of as a tender mercy from the Lord.
Sleeping or waking, Bunyan felt the reality and importance of eternal things, and his dreams often troubled him, though at other times they encouraged him. Once he dreamed that he saw his Bedford friends enjoying themselves on the sunny side of a high mountain, while he on the other side was shivering in cold darkness and despair.
How he longed to be with them! But a barrier, so high that he could not climb it, seemed to shut him in, a helpless, hopeless prisoner. After what seemed a long time, he thought he saw a gap in the barrier, but it was so small and narrow that it seemed impossible that he could force his way through. He would try, and after many efforts he succeeded and stood with the happy company in the bright, warm sunshine. He awoke comforted, but the gladness was only short-lived and soon gave place to doubts and fears. Perhaps, he thought, he had sinned away the day of grace, and he might as well give up seeking God and get what pleasure he could out of the world. He did not understand that a living, risen Savior was seeking him and that before long the seeking Savior and the long-sought sinner would rejoice together.