John Bunyan
And the Poor Women of Bedford

By
Alexander Whyte

What is that wonderful thing we call genius? And what is that other wonderful thing we call style? For when John Bunyan touches any subject whatsoever with his genius and with his style, the thing he so touches is at once made both classical and immortal. As here. We read these few simple-looking lines about those three or four poor women, and we at once know them far better than if we had lived next door to them all our days. We overhear and we understand every syllable of their Godly conversation far better than if we had sat on the same doorstep beside them.

The husbands of those four poor women were away at their work, their children were off to school, there beds were all made, and their floors were all swept, and they all came out as if one spirit had moved them, and they met and sat down on a doorstep to enjoy for a little the forenoon sun. And they plunged immediately into their inexhaustible and ever-fresh subject: God and their own souls. And even when the young tinker came along with his satchel of tools on his shoulder and stopped and leaned against the doorpost, beside them they did not much mind him, but went on with the things of God that so possessed them, I have been thinking a great deal about that great night in the third of John, said one; and she went on to tell some of her thoughts to the other three. And as she went on, they young tinker standing beside her had never before heard that there was a third of John. Not one syllable did he understand more than if she had been speaking in Hebrew. Another said that all the time when was doing up the house that morning her scripture had been a passage out of Paul. “But God,” she repeated out of Paul, “who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ.” And then one, who had a sweet trembling voice made her contribution to the conversation in a few selected verses out of the 51st Psalm. “Therefore,” says Bunyan, “I should often make it my business to be going again and again into the company of these poor people, for I could not stay away. And the more I went amongst them the more I did question my condition.”

Another day as he was again passing by, behold the same poor women were again occupied with the same things of God. “Since last we met,” said one, “my constant song has been that faith is the gift of God.” And another answered her with the man who said, “Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief.” And then the third woman took her New Testament out of her pocket - it was so old that it was ready to fall piece from piece if she did but turn it over. But she soon found the epistle she was looking for, and she read it until the Apostle himself could not have read it better … “By these things,” adds Bunyan, “my mind was now so turned that it lay like a horse-leech at the vein, and was still crying give, give. Yea, my mind was now so fixed on eternity, and on the things of the kingdom of heaven, that neither pleasures, nor profits, nor persuasions, nor threats could loosen it, or make it let go its hold.”

From this page of John Bunyan we learn this: what and where is the true Church of Christ on the earth. The true test of a true church is its fruit. Those three or four poor women were the true tests and the true seals of a true church of Christ in Bedford … Do you have any such poor women in your church? How many such do you know in your Church? Do you know one? What is her name and what is her address? In what street is her doorstep? Send me her name, for I fear she is very lonely. And I would like to introduce her to one or two women like herself whom I have discovered, and with whom she could hold a conversation now and then about the deep things of God.

“Upon a day the good providence of God did cast me to Bedford, to work on my calling.” Now, have you any such providential day in your autobiography? When was it? Where was it? How did it come about? And how did it end? Was it your overhearing a godly conversation like Bunyan? That was indeed a good providence. That was one of the very best providences that was ever cast upon him.