John Bunyan (1628–1688), the son of a Bedfordshire tinker, received only a meager education before adopting his father's trade. From 1644 to 1646, Bunyan served in the Parliamentary army. After his marriage in 1648, he turned his thoughts to religion. Bunyan experienced a period of spiritual struggle, after which he converted in 1653 and joined the Baptist church at Bedford. Like many other men and women in his day, Bunyan answered the "call" to preach. The Anglican Church viewed the lay preachers as dissenters and sought to persecute and silence them. For his refusal to obey royal bans on nonconformist preaching, Bunyan was imprisoned from 1660 to 1672. While in prison, he wrote his spiritual autobiography, Grace Abounding to the Chief of the Sinners, which uses the details of his early life to reveal the purposes of divine Providence. After his release from prison, Bunyan became minister of the Bedford nonconformist church. Again imprisoned in 1675, he wrote The Pilgrim's Progress, his most celebrated work. Prompted by the success of his allegory, Bunyan published in 1684 Part II of The Pilgrim's Progress, but it never captured the popularity of Bunyan's original tale.