I was of a low and inconsiderable generation, my father's house being of that rank that is meanest and most despised of all famihes in the land. ' I never went ' to school, to Aristotle or Plato, but was brought up in my feither's house in a very mean condition, among a company of poor countrymen. ' Neveiiiheless, I bless God that by this door He brought me into the world to partake of the grace and life that is by Christ in His Gospel. ' This is the account given of himself and his origin by a man whose writings have for two centuries affected the spiritual opinions of the English race in every part of the world more powerfully than any book or books, except the Bible. John Bimyan was bom at Elstow, a village near Bedford, in the year 1628.
