It may be a great city preacher;
it may be a humble American or Irish revivalist; it may be _The Pilgrim's
Progress_, or _The Cardiphonia_, or the _Serious Call_--whoever or
whatever it was that first arrested and awakened and turned us into the
way of life, they all our days stand in a place by themselves in our
grateful heart. And John Gifford has been immortalised by John Bunyan,
both in his _Grace Abounding_ and in his _Pilgrim's Progress_. In his
_Grace Abounding_, as we have just seen, and in _The Pilgrim_, Gifford
has his portrait painted in holy oil on the wall of the Interpreter's
house, and again in eloquent pen and ink in the person of Evangelist.
John Gifford had himself made a narrow escape out of the City of
Destruction, and John Bunyan had, by Gifford's assistance, made the same
escape also. The scene, therefore, both within that city and outside the
gate of it, was so fixed in Bunyan's mind and memory that no part of his
memorable book is more memorably put than just its opening page. Bunyan
himself is the man in rags, and Gifford is the evangelist who comes to
console and to conduct him.
Pages:
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29