On the 3d of November, 1640, met that famous Parliament which undertook in hopeful earnestness and with surpassing ability and foresight to redress the grievances of the nation. By calling Strafford and Laud to account for their crimes, by abolishing the irregular and illegal courts in which justice had been so cruelly outraged, by reaffirming the articles of the Petition of Right, and by determining not to intrust the control of the military force of the nation in the hands of a king whose repeated acts of perfidy proved that he wanted only the power to take back more than all he had conceded, the friends of freedom soon found themselves exposed to the gloomy horrors of civil war. Cromwell sat in this Parliament as a member for Cambridge Town. Though he did not often speak, yet it is evident from what he did say, as well as from his actions, that he comprehended more clearly and more profoundly the actual condition of the nation in its struggle with tyranny and the remedy which existing evils called for, than the great majority of the distinguished men by whom he was surrounded. Convinced that decisive measures were the wisest and best in such a crisis, he was characteristically bold, energetic and uncompromising. That the Parliament was justifiable in adopting those great measures of resistance to regal despotism, which led to the civil war, is, I trust, too evident to need further proof. Thus far, Cromwell has acted in company with men whose clearness of judgment and purity of motives are not often questioned. The civil war was not brought on by him any more than by Hampden, Pym, and a host of others who had gradually become convinced that they must conquer the tyrant or be crushed and dishonored beneath his arm outstretched for their subjugation. He did not raise the whirlwind. Its furious blasts were shaking the whole realm while he was yet a comparatively obscure and unknown man. At the commencement of hostilities, his position in the Parliamentary army was not such as to create any reasonable expectation that he would become the hero of the war. And there was little probability that "a voice from the whirlwind of battle" would designate him as chosen to occupy the vacant seat of supreme power erected on the ruins of the demolished throne. The Earls of Essex and Manchester, Sir Thomas Fairfax, Hampden, and others had the precedence, and for a considerable time promised to retain it. The man who was to become the first general of the age, had now lived to be more than forty years old without having taken his first lessons in war. He had entered upon the downward slope of active life, and as yet given no signs of an ambition craving military rule. How strange had been his course of preparation for the part he was about to act! In his boyhood, no mimic battles; in his youth, no military school with its science and its discipline; in his manhood, no service abroad under "the great king of far better than they had lived-illustrating the remark that many a person has died admirablu who had lived abominably. One grand defect, however, in the death-scene of Charles, was the absence of all evidence of genuine repentance for those crimes by which he had brought so many calamities upon the nation. Notwithstanding all the force of education and of regal prejudices, he must have known that his perfidy, duplicity, and violence were inexcusably wrong. Macaulay and many other writers friendly to the Church of England, have declared it "absurd" and "ridiculous" to speak of Charles as having died "a martyr" for that Church. It is by many doubted whether that Church was in his view any thing better than a convenient instrument of power, and whether he was even a Protestant except by profession Sweden," or other renowned coinmander, had given him skill or reputation as a player at the terrible game of war. But, says one who knew him intimately and had studied his character profoundly, "he was a soldier disciplined to perfection in the knowledge of himself. He had either extinguished or by habit had learned to subdue the whole host of vain hopes, fears and passions which infest the soul. He first acquired the government of himself and over himself acquired the most signal victories; so that on the first day he took the field against the external enemy, he was a veteran in arms consummately practised in the toils and exigencies of War." His long residence in the country had familiarized and impressed his mind with the simplicity, the freshness, the beauty and the grandeur of rural scenery; and his intercourse with men of all classes, and especially of those classes in which character appears with the least disguise, had made him thoroughly acquainted with the feelings, opinions and social condition of the English people. His course of life had furnished an excellent discipline for his admirable common sense which so uniformly kept him from mistaking fancies for facts and misty clouds for everlasting hills. His familiarity with sacred history, with the principles of God's providential and moral governwent, and with the prophetic descriptions of the knowledge, righteousness, freedom and prosperity of mankind in the days of Zion's glorious enlargement, had given to his views an expansion and to his heart a strength of hope, which no other subjects of thought could have imparted. And his early study of the principles of the Common Law as well as of those inspired Institutes wherein the elements of all law and the true ends of all good government are unfolded, had, in those days of deep excitement and of profound thought, when Laud and Strafford, under the countenance of Charles, were tyrannizing over the nation, wonderfully enlarged and liberalized his mind. His subsequent exhibitions of greatness were indeed the natural result of that self-training and that leisure for meditation on things fitted to expand the soul which had been, to the present hour, peculiarly his. If he had not given his days and nights to the study of the lives of Plutarch's heroes, he had learnt by heart the story of men who, "out of weakness, were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, and turned to flight the armies of the aliens." If he had not glowed over the exploits of Achilles and slept with the Iliad, under his pillow, he had devoted many an hour of intense emotion to the triumphal songs of Miriam and Deborah, of Moses and David. If he had not examined with a critic's eye the pages of Herodotus and Thucydides, of Livy and Tacitus, he had studied the book of Divine Providence and read the story of this world in its grand outlines with the spirit of those men of his day who viewed history as "a mighty drama enacted on the theatre of Infinitude; with suns for lamps and eternity as a back ground, whose Author is God and whose purport and thousand-fold moral lead *See Milton's "Second Defence of the People of England." The reference to this work was accidentally omitted on p. 6. It contains interesting notices of Cromwell, Fleetwood, Lambert and others, and deserves to be read by all those who wish to know in what estimation Cromwell was held by one of the greatest, purest and most independent political writers that England has ever produced. us up to the 'dark with excess of light' to the Throne of God." And if, while gazing upon the bright and awful realities of the unseen world, his soul was excited into a fervency which some men call fanaticism, let it be remembered how grand and thrilling those things are upon which he looked, and that when from above descending, his mind beheld what the world styles great, he was unmoved, for he saw nought but littleness. Thus prepared, at the age of forty-three, he entered the military service of his country, known at first only as Capt. Cromwell of the Eastern Association. The war which the Parliamentarians by skillful and decisive measures might have brought, within a few weeks, to a triumphant termination, was tediously protracted. Essex, Manchester, and others were inefficient. When the second year of the struggle was drawing towards its close, the balance of results was favorable to the king. The great and good Hampden, who, in the cause of liberty, had drawn the sword and thrown away the scabbard, was among the slain; nearly all the strong places in the kingdom were in the hands of the Royalists; and despondency and disaffection were spreading among those who heretofore had sided with Parliament. But during this time, Cromwell had been displaying those qualities which could not fail to raise him rapidly to distinction. His public spirit, his courage, his confidence of success and prompt wisdom in the use of means for its attainment, his inflexible decision,-all combining to give him that overpowering energy for which he was ever remarkable—and his aptitude for collecting together and training for victory a host of highsouled citizen-warriors, filled with the fear of God and raised above all other fear, were not long in making him known throughout the nation as a man of incomparable ability. He soon perceived that the Parliamentarian troops and especially the cavalry were no match for the proud array of noblemen and gentlemen who composed so large a portion of Prince Rupert's formidable body of cavaliers. Immediately after the first great but indecisive battle, he told Hampden that they never could succeed "with a set of poor tapsters and town-apprentice people against men of honor." To cope with men of honor, he declared they must have men of religion. "It is a good notion," said Hampden, "if it can be executed." The subsequent realization of this conception of an army capable of scattering to the winds all opposition,-n realization on which the cause of English liberty was now suspended-was due, under God, solely to the genius, the energy, and the religious character of Cromwell. In the region within and around Lincolnshire-the old home of our Pilgrim and Bostonian fathers-where the famous Eastern Association was acting with so much energy, he commenced the enlistment and the training of his renowned corps of invincibles, known as the Ironsides. "By the vigor of his genius or the excellence of his discipline, adapted, not more to the necessities of war, than to the precepts of Christianity, the good and the brave were from all quarters attracted to his camp, not only as to the best school of military talents, but of piety and virtue. Hence he collected an army as numerous and as well equip ed as any one ever did in so short a time; which was uniformly obedient to his orders and dear to the affections of the citizens; which was formidable to the enemy in the field, but never cruel to those who laid down their arms; which committed no lawless ravages on the persons or the property of the inhabitants; who, when they compared their conduct with the turbulence, the intemperance, the impiety and the debauchery of the Royalists, were wont to salute them as friends and to consider them as guests. They were a stay to the good, a terror to the evil, and the warmest advocates for every exertion of piety and virtue." Those who imagine that these armed defenders of the liberty of conscience and intelligent asserters of the principle that a king whose government is selfish, burdensome and tyrannical, may lawfully be deposed, were led by a wild and ignorant fanaticism, they knew not whither, betray a singular misapprehension of their real character and history.† The great writer just quoted, described them, after their victories were all won and their character fully developed, as "men of exemplary modesty, integrity and courage; whose hearts had not been hardened in cruelty and rendered insensible to pity by the sight of so much ravage and so much death, but whorn it had rather inspired with the love of justice, with a respect for religion and with the feeling of compassion and who were more zealously interested in the preservation of liberty in proportion as they had encountered more perils in its defence." "They are not," says *Milton's "Second Defence." Though Prince Rupert's cavaliers were "all, all honorable men," yet during the civil war he bore the appellation of "the Prince of Plunderers," and it has been said with as much truth as wit, that he "commanded the elixir of the black guardism of three kingdoms." They belonged principally to the sect called Independents. The flippancy with which some at the present day, and in this country, denounce the Independents as "intolerant fanatics," deserves the rebuke of all men who celebrate the landing of the Pilgrims. Even Hume says, "Of all sects, this was the first which, during its prosperity as well as its adversity, always adopted the principle of toleration." Clarendon, (B. X. of his G. R.,) speaking of the Independents in 1648 says, "Liberty of conscience was now become the great charter," and he declares that their clergy (in London) were more learned and rational' than the Presbyterian,' and that though they had not so great congregations of the common people,' yet they infected and were followed by the most substantial and wealthy citizens, and by others of better condition.' Dr. Murdoch, in a note upon Mosheim says, 'The Independents uniformly pleaded for the free toleration of all sects holding the fundamental doctrines of Christianity.' He (Charles I. in 1647) tried to gain over the Independents by promising them free toleration, but they would not accept it for themselves alone.' [What narrow-minded bigots! The admirers of such liberal souls as Charles I., Archbishop Laud and Co., it is to be hoped will gradually learn to spread the mantle of Charity over the intolerance of men whose fame as pioneers in the cause of religious freedom is fast spreading through the world!] The army demanded free toleration for all Protestant' sects. When Cromwell came into power, nothing but the engagement (or oath of allegiance to government) was required of any man to qualify him civilly for any living in the country. Hence many Episcopal divines, as well as those of other denominations, became parish ministers.' To the calumny that the Independents sought to confound all distinctions in society, whether of rank or office, and aimed to bring about a community of goods,' &c, it is perhaps enough to reply that when they had the sway in England, no such levelling system was introduced or desired. Notorious facts refute the charge. The allegation is manifestly the result of an attempt, on the part of hierarchs and monarchists, to set in an odious light the democratic and republican principles, ecclesiastical and political, for which the Independents, both of Old England and New England, were then distinguished. Those who read English History, need to exercise some discrimination. The people of this country know-or ought to know-what were the principles of the men from whoin (according to De Tocqueville, Bancroft, and others, who have been at the pains to examine the subject) we have received our Democratic Republican Institutions. Some writers, like Rapin, (the French Refugee,) have been led into blunders almost ludicrous respecting the Independents, by trusting to the representations of the English and the Scotch Presbyterians, who could not forgive the Independents for foiling the attempt to make Presbyterianism the established religion of England. A few of Rapin's mistakes are corrected by Dr. Murdoch, but not all As shedding light on the attitude of the English and the Scotch Presbyterians towards the Independents, see Hetherington's Hist. of the Westminster Assembly and Dr. Bacon's Life of Baxter, prefixed to Baxter's Select Works. Crom he, "a hireling rout scraped together from the dregs of the people, but for the most part men of the better conditions in life, of families not disgraced, if not ennobled, of fortunes either ample or moderate; and what if some among them are recommended by their poverty ? for it was not the lust of ravage that brought them into the field; it was the calamitous aspect of the times, which, in the most critical circumstances, and often amid the most disastrous turns of fortune, roused them to attempt the deliverance of their country from the fangs of despotism. They were men prepared, not only to debate but to fight; not only to argue in the senate but to engage the enemy in the field." The grand secret of their resistless might before which the gentry of England fled in terror or fell as grass at the touch of the mower's scythe, was their lofty and intelligent religious patriotisin. It was the fear of a known God and the love of a country whose rights they had studied and comprehended and therefore wished to establish, that fired their souls and lent potency to their exertions in the hour of victorious conflict. Europe had never before seen nor has since beheld such an army. I need not stop to speak of the awful ...glories of Marston Moor, where opposing squadrons long since surnamed invincible, were made “as stubble to their swords," nor of the greater triumphs of Naseby, Dunbar and Worcester. Yet war was not their trade nor was it their great leader's vocation. well was not fond of war. The language of his lips and of his conduct was, "Let us by decisive victories bring this civil war to a speedy close " He felt and his army felt that God had called them to battle for liberty of conscience and for deliverance from political despotism. Hence, in the words of Macaulay, "he never fought a battle without gaining a victory. He never gained a victory without annihilating the force opposed to him. Yet his triumphs were not the highest glory of his military system. The respect which his troops paid to property, their attachment to the laws and religion of their country, their submission to the civil power, their temperance, their intelligence, and their industry are without parallel. It was after the Restoration that the spirit which their great leader had infused into them, was most signally displayed. At the command of the established government, a government which had no means of enforcing obedience, fifty thousand soldiers, whose backs no enemy had ever seen either in domestic or in continental war, laid down their arms and retired into the mass of the people; thenceforward to be distinguished only by superior diligence, sobriety, and regularity in the pursuits of peace, from the other members of the community which they had saved." To the very close of the struggle, which terminated in the death of the, dethroned king, Cromwell was content to hold a subordinate rank in the military service of his country. He did indeed exert a paramount influence after the first two years of the war, and breathed the breath of new life and hope into the drooping cause of freedom. He was the originator of those great measures by which leaders, whose indecision and imbecility had almost blighted the hopes of the patriotic, were quietly removed from the command of the Parliamentarian forces, and by which troops baptised with the spirit of victory, were |