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