LEMONADE FROM LEMONS

A “REST OF THE STORY” STORY

By Travis W. Lewis

February 1, 2001

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The date and place was November 28, 1628 in a small village near Bedford, England – about 45 miles northwest of London. A son, John, was born to an itinerant tinker father, one who traveled a route through the region mending pots, kettles, and other utensils. The trade was of very low regard during that period. Nevertheless, by his teenage years, young John was following the same trade. Day after day, even as a teenager, he would push his tinker’s cart from one small village to another — across the fields and streams and through the woods, without ever realizing for what all that time alone and all those experiences were preparing him.

Though his father was determined that young John learn to read and write, his formal education seems to have been limited to what we would call a grammar, or elementary, school. Years later, as a young man, John would write that he was boisterous and “…had but few equals, both for cursing, swearing, lying and blaspheming the holy Name of God.” Even as a young boy, he recounted in his later years, he would be condemned in his mind for some of the sins he committed. When he was sixteen, he enrolled in the English army. During his three-year tenure in the military, and for the first time in his life, John became familiar with regular religious services. Following his military stint, he married in 1648 at the age of 20.

Though the name of John’s lifelong mate has not been preserved, she was obviously of a very religious background. About the only material things that John’s bride would bring along when they married were two used books — The Plain Man’s Pathway To Heaven, and The Practice Of Piety. From the reading of these books, young John began to read the Bible, and his study of the Scriptures soon became a constant practice. Though the date of his actual conversion is not known, we do know that in 1653, five years after his marriage and at the age of 25, he was baptized and became a member of the Open And Particular Baptists.

Soon after joining the church, John discovered his ability for public speaking. He obviously had a gift to speak with simple eloquence and conviction, and as a result, very soon he was drawing vast crowds. In the fields as well as in the streets of small villages and larger cities alike, including the metropolis of London, he was continually honing his skills as he exercised his gifts. His tremendous popularity soon aroused the suspicious attention of the established church, the Church of England, and of the government that had officially condemned and made unlawful the very sort of preaching with which John was being so successful.

This was a time of great political upheaval in England, and anyone that was considered a dissident of the established church was deemed a disturber of the peace. Still in his early thirties, a tribute to John’s influence in 1660 was that he was among the first to be prohibited from holding public meetings. Immediately, he refused to comply, and in November 1660, thirty-two-year-old John was imprisoned, there to remain for the next twelve years. [1]For a while, he was permitted short, periodical furloughs, and what would he do as soon as they released him? Immediately, he would begin to preach again, which prompted the halt of his furloughs. The remainder of his imprisonment would be mostly spent reading and writing. On May 9, 1672, his twelve-year incarceration ended with a pardon from the King, along with the right to preach as pastor of a church in his hometown of Bedford. Needless to say, his family and friends were elated. More importantly however, as he left prison on that spring day in 1672, he carried with him the manuscripts that would eventually immortalize his name.

In February, 1675, less than three years later, another proclamation from the King suppressed all unauthorized church meetings and gatherings outside the established church; furthermore, the proclamation demanded attendance at communion in everyone’s respective parish. Again, John found himself behind prison bars.

Another two and one-half years would elapse before he would taste freedom again. To the surprise of most, and possibly even to John’s own surprise, his release would mark the beginning of his most active years. Just over 11 years later, in mid-August, 1688, being already somewhat ill, he traveled to London by horseback in a drenching rain, which resulted in a vicious fever. He preached on August 19, and twelve days later, on August 31, 1688, within 3 months of his sixtieth birthday, he passed to his reward.

The texts, wrought in the staleness and solitude of English prisons, had been published in 1678, eleven years before his death. Those manuscripts had become the first part of a book that would be considered by most in literary history as the first novel. Most noteworthy, however, the ragged, soiled manuscripts had become the book that, until this day, has been more widely read than any other in history, excepting the Holy Bible. They had become The Pilgrim’s Progress, by John Bunyan. Ω

The photo in the heading of this article is of the author’s wife, Kay, reading on page 79 of Pilgrim’s Progress.

[Footnote]

[1] By the time John was imprisoned, he had a young daughter, Mary, who had been born blind. According to Wendy Lawton’s book, The Tinker’s Daughter, during her father’s imprisonment, Mary would make her way through the streets of Bedford each day, bringing soup to her incarcerated father.