THE FAITHFUL HELPMATE. held, and John Bunyan was indicted as a person who " devilishly and perniciously abstained from coming to Church to hear Divine Service, and who was a common upholder of several unlawful meetings and conventicles, to the great disturbance and dis- traction of this kingdom." He was told that if he would not call together an assembly, in order to preach to them, he should be freed ; but to this condition he would by no means assent. They warned him if he did not discontinue his " unlawful meetings," he would be either banished or hanged : a threat which he heard with the utmost equanimity. He defended himself warmly and eloquently ; but his judges listened to his words with unmoved faces, which onlyrelaxed at their own coarse jests. "Who is your God ? Is it Beelzebub ?" enquired one, with an affectation of interest. " Surely, he is pos- sessed with a devil," laughed another. He said, " Show me the place in the Epistles where the Common Prayer Book is written, or one text of Scripture that commands me to read it, and I will use it. But yet, notwithstanding, they that have a mind to use it, they have their liberty ; that is, I would not keep them from it. But, for our own parts, we can pray to God without it. Blessed be His name." The Justices, considering this equiva- lent to a plea of guilty, at once remanded him to jail for three months. " Arbitrary as the laws then were," observes Lord Campbell, " there was no clause in any statute that 17
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