Probably most of us are on Bunyan's side now. It might be a good
thing that we should all dwell together in religious unity, but
history shows that people cannot be bribed into brotherhood. They
tried to bully Bunyan; they arrested and imprisoned him--unfairly
even in law, according to Dr. Brown, not unfairly, Mr. Froude
thinks--and he would not be bullied.

What was much more extraordinary, he would not be embittered. In
spite of all, he still called Charles II. "a gracious Prince." When
a subject is in conscience at variance with the law, Bunyan said, he
has but one course--to accept peaceably the punishment which the law
awards. He was never soured, never angered by twelve years of
durance, not exactly in a loathsome dungeon, but in very
uncomfortable quarters. When there came a brief interval of
toleration, he did not occupy himself in brawling, but in preaching,
and looking after the manners and morals of the little "church,"
including one woman who brought disagreeable charges against
"Brother Honeylove." The church decided that there was nothing in
the charges, but somehow the name of Brother Honeylove does not
inspire confidence.

Almost everybody knows the main facts of Bunyan's life. They may
not know that he was of Norman descent (as Dr. Brown seems to
succeed in proving), nor that the Bunyans came over with the
Conqueror, nor that he was a gipsy, as others hold. On Dr. Brown's
showing, Bunyan's ancestors lost their lands in process of time and
change, and Bunyan's father was a tinker. He preferred to call
himself a brazier--his was the rather unexpected trade to which Mr.
Dick proposed apprenticing David Copperfield.