When Charles II took the throne, the freedom to worship outside the Church of England ended. By January 1661, preacher John Bunyan was in the county jail. The hardest part was being separated from his wife and four children. He wrote that it felt like “the pulling the flesh from my bones.” He made shoelaces to help support his family. He could have walked out any time by promising not to preach. He refused, telling the magistrates he would rather stay in prison until moss grew on his eyelids than fail to do what God commanded. He stayed about twelve years. During that time he wrote, and from 1667 to 1672 he likely worked mostly on The Pilgrim’s Progress. God used a prison cell to bless millions.
