Evangelist

"Much of Bunyan's private history is interwoven throughout the allegory. In fact, it is a spiritual autobiography, recounting his own dangers, doubts, helps, and manifold experiences. 'EVANGELIST' is supposed to mean the good Mr. Gifford, under whose instruction and ministry Bunyan so greatly profited. Mr. Gifford had been a major in the king's army, and a persecutor of those who, like Bunyan, over-stepped the narrow bounds of that unhappy period. He, however, afterwards became a converted man, and was the founder of a church in Bedford, which was subsequently ministered to by Bunyan himself, and has continued its succession of testimony to the present day."[1]