im to the hawkers. While his hands were thus busied, he had other
employment for his mind and his lips. He gave religious instruction to
his fellow-captives, and formed from among them a little flock, of which
he was himself the pastor. He studied indefatigably the few books which
he possessed. His two chief companions were the Bible and Fox's Book
of Martyrs. His knowledge of the Bible was such that he might have been
called a living concordance; and on the margin of his copy of the Book
of Martyrs are still legible the ill spelt lines of doggrel in which
he expressed his reverence for the brave sufferers, and his implacable
enmity to the mystical Babylon.

At length he began to write; and though it was some time before he
discovered where his strength lay, his writings were not unsuccessful.
They were coarse, indeed; but they showed a keen mother wit, a great
command of the homely mother tongue, an intimate knowledge of the
English Bible, and a vast and dearly-bought spiritual experience. They
therefore, when the corrector of the press had improved the syntax and
the spelling, were well received by the humbler class of Dissenters.

Much of Bunyan's time was spent in controversy. He wrote sharply against
the Quakers, whom he seems always to have held in utter abhorrence. It
is, however, a remarkable fact that he adopted one of their peculiar
fashions: his practice was to write, not November or December, but
eleventh month and twelfth month.

He wrote against the liturgy of the Church of England. No two things,
according to him, had less affinity than the form of prayer and the
spirit of prayer. Those, he said with much point, who have most of the
spirit of prayer are all to be found in gaol; and those who have most
zeal for the form of prayer are all to be found at the alehouse. The
doctrinal articles, on the other hand, he warmly praised, and
defended against some Arminian clergymen who had signed them. The most
acrimonious of all his works is his answer to Edward Fowler, afterwards
Bishop of Gloucester, an excellent man, but not free from the taint of
Pelagianism.

Bunyan had also a dispute with some of the chiefs of the sect to which
he belonged. He doubtless held with perfect sincerity the distinguishing
tenet of that sect; but he did not consider that tenet as one of high
importance, and willingly joined in communion with quiet Presbyterians
and Independents. The sterner Baptists, therefore, loudly pronounced h