Page:The Pilgrim's Progress, the Holy War, Grace Abounding Chunk3.djvu/108

108 312. Therefore I bind these lies and slanders to me as an ornament; it belongs to my Christian profession to be vilified, slandered, reproached, and reviled; and since all this is nothing else, as my God and my conscience do hear me witness, I rejoice in reproaches for Christ's sake.

313. I also call all those fools and knaves that have thus made it anything of their business to affirm any of these things aforenamed of me—namely, that I have been naught with other women, or the like. When they have used the utmost of their endeavours, and made the fullest inquiry that they can, to prove against me truly that there is any woman in heaven, or earth, or hell, that can say I have at any time, in any place, by day or night, so much as attempted to be naught with them; and speak I thus to beg mine enemies into a good esteem of me? No, not I; I will in this beg belief of no man. Believe or disbelieve me in this, all is a case to me.

314. My foes have missed their mark in this their shooting at me. I am not the man. I wish that they themselves be guiltless. If all the fornicators and adulterers in England were hanged up by the neck till they be dead,, the object of their envy, would be still alive and well. I know not whether there be such a thing as a woman breathing under the copes of the heavens, but by their apparel, their children, or by common fame, except my wife.

315. And in this I admire the wisdom of God, that he made me shy of women from my first conversion until now. These know, and can also bear me witness, with whom I have been most intimately concerned, that it is a rare thing to see me carry it pleasantly towards a woman: the common salutation of women I abhor; it is odious to me in whomsoever I see it. Their company alone I Cannot away with; I seldom so as touch a woman's hand, for I think these things are not so becoming me. When I have seen good men salute those women that they have visited, or that have visited them, I have made my objection against it; and when they