him ill accused him of licentious amours, he called on God
and the angels to attest his purity. No woman, he said, in heaven, earth or
hell, could charge him with having ever made any improper advances to her.
Not only had he been strictly faithful to his wife; but he had, even before
his marriage, been perfectly spotless. It does not appear from his own
confessions, or from the railings of his enemies, that he ever was drunk in
his life. One bad habit he contracted, that of using profane language; but
he tells us that a single reproof cured him so effectually that he never
offended again. The worst that can be laid to his charge is that he had a
great liking for some diversions, quite harmless in themselves, but
condemned by the rigid precisians among whom he lived, and for whose
opinion he had a great respect. The four chief sins of which he was guilty
were dancing, ringing the bells of the parish church, playing at tipcat and
reading the history of Sir Bevis of Southampton. A rector of the school of
Laud would have held such a young man up to the whole parish as a model.
But Bunyan's notions of good and evil had been learned in a very different
school; and he was made miserable by the conflict between his tastes and
his scruples.

When he was about seventeen the ordinary course of his life was interrupted
by an event which gave a lasting colour to his thoughts. He enlisted in the
Parliamentary army,[2] and served during the Decisive campaign of 1645. All
that we know of his military career is, that, at the siege of some town,[3]
one of his comrades, who had marched with the besieging army instead of
him, was killed by a shot. Bunyan ever after considered himself as having
been saved from death by the special interference of Providence. It may be
observed that his imagination was strongly impressed by the glimpse which
he had caught of the pomp of war. To the last he loved to draw his
illustrations of sacred things from camps and fortresses, from guns, drums,
trumpets, flags of truce, and regiments arrayed each under its own banner.
His Greatheart, his Captain Boanerges and his Captain Credence are
evidently portraits, of which the originals were among those martial saints
who fought and expounded in Fairfax's army.

In 1646 Bunyan returned home and married about two years later. His wife
had some pious relations, and brought him as her only portion some pious
books. His mind, excitable by nature, very imperfectly disc