Slanders of the blackest dye against his moral character were freely
circulated, and as readily believed. It was the common talk that he was
a thorough reprobate. Nothing was too bad for him. He was "a witch, a
Jesuit, a highwayman, and the like." It was reported that he had "his
misses and his bastards; that he had two wives at once," &c. Such
charges roused all the man in Bunyan. Few passages in his writings show
more passion than that in "Grace Abounding," in which he defends himself
from the "fools or knaves" who were their authors. He "begs belief of no
man, and if they believe him or disbelieve him it is all one to him. But
he would have them know how utterly baseless their accusations are." "My
foes," he writes, "have missed their mark in their open shooting at me. I
am not the man. If all the fornicators and adulterers in England were
hanged by the neck till they be dead, John Bunyan would be still alive. I
know not whether there is such a thing as a woman breathing under the
copes of the whole heaven but by their apparel, their children, or by
common fame, except my wife." He calls not only men, but angels, nay,
even God Himself, to bear testimony to his innocence in this respect. But
though they were so absolutely baseless, nay, the rather because they
were so baseless, the grossness of these charges evidently stung Bunyan
very deeply.

So bitter was the feeling aroused against him by the marvellous success
of his irregular ministry, that his enemies, even before the restoration
of the Church and Crown, endeavoured to put the arm of the law in motion
to restrain him. We learn from the church books that in March, 1658, the
little Bedford church was in trouble for "Brother Bunyan," against whom
an indictment had been laid at the Assizes for "preaching at Eaton
Socon." Of this indictment we hear no more; so it was probably dropped.
But it is an instructive fact that, even during the boasted religious
liberty of the Protectorate, irregular preaching, especially that of the