Bunyan had been bred a tinker, and had served as a private soldier in the parliamentary army.
Early in his life he had been fearfully tortured by remorse for his youthful sins, the worst of which seem, however, to have been such as the world thinks venial.

His keen sensibility and his powerful imagination made his internal conflicts singularly terrible.

He fancied that he was under sentence of reprobation, that he had committed blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, that he had sold Christ, that he was actually possessed by a demon.

Sometimes loud voices from heaven cried out to warn him.

Sometimes fiends whispered impious suggestions in his ear.