of holy writ.

Upon one of his journeys, being upon the road near Cambridge, he
was overtaken by a scholar, who concluded that he was an itinerant
preacher, whether from having heard him, or observing his serious
deportment, or his Bible reading, does not appear, although the
latter was probably the reason. But the student determined to have
a brush with him, and said, 'How dare you preach from the Bible,
seeing you have not the original, being not a scholar?' Then said
Mr. Bunyan, 'Have you the original?' 'Yes, said the scholar.' 'Nay,
but,' said Mr. Bunyan, 'have you the very self-same original copies
that were written by the penmen of the Scriptures, prophets and
apostles?' 'No,' said the scholar, 'but we have the true copies of
these originals.' 'How do you know that?' said Mr. Bunyan. 'How?'
said the scholar. 'Why, we believe what we have is a true copy
of the original.' 'Then,' said Mr. Bunyan, 'so do I believe our
English Bible is a true copy of the original.' Then away rid the
scholar.[198] As neither persecution nor railing, nor temptations,
nor the assaults of Satan, produced any effect upon Bunyan to prevent
his preaching, but rather excited his zeal and energy, means of
a more deadly nature were resorted to, to injure or prevent his
usefulness. As Mr. Gifford said, 'The archers shot sorely at him'
by the most infamous and unfounded slanders, which he thus narrates:--

'When Satan perceived that his thus tempting and assaulting of me
would not answer his design, to wit, to overthrow my ministry, and
make it ineffectual, as to the ends thereof: then he tried another
way, which was to stir up the minds of the ignorant and malicious
to load me with slanders and reproaches. Now, therefore, I may say,
that what the devil could devise, and his instruments invent, was