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Archbishop of Canterbury and Primate of all England, to whom Rome had offered a cardinal's hat, restored many of the practices and ceremonies of Popery. THE COMMUNION TABLE WAS REPLACED BY AN ALTAR, RAISED ON SEVERAL STEPS, AT THE EAST END OF THE CHURCH; THE CRUCIFIX, PICTURES, AND TAPERS WERE RESTORED; AND THE OFFICIATING CLERGY, IN GAUDY DRESSES, MADE GENUFLEXIONS BEFORE THE ALTAR, AFTER THE ROMISH CUSTOM."

How strikingly similar are the present attempts to introduce Romanism into the Church of England; and how singular is the rise of that determined, resolute, and unbending spirit that now, in our day, rejects with scorn any advances towards a similar tendency!

"The middle classes," continues our author, "took the alarm. Associations were formed for the propagation of the Gospel; funds were raised to send preachers into various places, where it would be their duty not only to proclaim Jesus Christ, but to combat the popish superstitions under which it was now attempted to reduce the nation.

"Prynne, a very remarkable man, was a barrister of Lincoln's Inn. The first crime that he committed, and for which he lost his ears, was his having published a work entitled 'Histriomastorix;' The Players' Scourge,' directed against all stage plays, masques, dances, and masquerades. The king and queen were fond of masques, and dances, and Henrietta of France often won loud applause in the court theatricals. Prynne was accordingly accused by Laud of sedition. His second crime was a work against the hierarchy of the Church. As he had already lost his ears by the first sentence, the stumps on this occasion were literally sawn off. Dr. Bostwick also was condemned to suffer by this arbitrary court. As he ascended the scaffold on which he was to suffer mutilation, his wife rushed up to him, and kissed the ears he was about to lose. Upon her husband exhorting her not to be frightened, she made answer, Farewell, my dearest; be of good comfort. I am nothing dismayed.' The surrounding crowd manifested their sympathy by loud acclamations. When everything seemed to announce that the Protestants of England would ere long be trampled down by Popery or massacred by the sword, the Huntingdonshire yeoman, who had given the Commons some proof of his eloquence, was about to astonish the army still more by his courage and genius. The fervent orator was now to show himself a skilful general, and to become one of the greatest statesmen of modern times.

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'On the 7th of February, Cromwell contributed £300—a large sum for his fortune-towards the salvation of Protestantism and of England. He then joined the Parliamentary army with his two sons, respectively twenty and sixteen years of age, and shortly after raised two companies of volunteers at Cambridge. On the 23rd

BATTLE CF NASEBY.

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of October, 1642, the battle of Edgehill was fought, the indecisive result of which filled London with alarm. It was, perhaps, on this occasion that Cromwell lost his eldest son. On the 18th of June a skirmish of cavalry took place some few miles from Oxford. Here perished Hampden, Oliver's cousin. There was no officer of the army who braved danger with greater intrepidity than Cromwell. In the very heat of the action he preserved an admirable presence of mind. He led his soldiers up to within a few paces of the enemy, and never allowed them to fire until their shots were sure to take effect. His actions,' said Chateaubriand, had all the effect and rapidity of lightning.' At the same time he maintained the strictest discipline in the army. There was a certain invincibility in his genius, like the new ideas of which he was the champion. Such was Oliver in the midst of battle."

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On the 14th of June the decisive battle of Naseby, so fatal to the Royalists, took place. The king fought desperately, but lost his private cabinet of papers and letters, which was sent to London, where it was carefully examined by the Parliament. In it they found the clearest proofs of his simulation and false dealing. By his deception Charles had forfeited the respect of many who were desirous to maintain the dignity of the throne, and from this period no hope remained.

We next come to the terrible episode of Cromwell and Ireton in disguise at the Blue Boar in Holborn, and their discovery of the king's treacherous letter, concealed in the lining of the saddle:

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"The impatient generals withdrew to a private room, and opened the letter. 'Be quite easy,' wrote the king, as to the concessions I may grant. When the time comes, I shall know very well how to treat these rogues; and instead of a silken garter, I will fit them with a hempen halter.' Ireton and Cromwell looked at each other. This, then, was what they had to expect from Charles. With perfidious hand he himself had rent the compact which united him to England."

The two chiefs left the Blue Boar, and rode hastily back to Windsor. From this time the separation between Charles and the future Protector was complete. Cromwell had desired to save the King, and that, too, at the very moment the latter designed to hang him. "Alas! it was the unfortunate Stuart who was caught in the snare he was laying for others. He that diggeth a pit, shall fall into it; and whoso breaketh a hedge, a serpent shall bite him.' Such is the language of God's word."

The great historian of the Reformation then goes on to speak of the Irish Rebellion, and Cromwell's campaign in

VOL. XLIV.

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Ireland, which are described briefly but graphically; followed by the Scotch campaign, and a powerful outline of the moral and political status of England under the Protector's sway.

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"The superior morality which characterised England, showed itself abroad by incontestible proofs. The English nation, which under the first two Stuarts, foreigners had begun to regard as pusillanimous, suddenly displayed the most striking valour, both by land and sea. His maintaining the honour of the nation in all foreign countries,' says Burnet, gratified the vanity which is very natural to Englishmen. He was so very careful of it, that though he was not a crowned head, yet his ambassadors had all respect paid them, that our kings' ambassadors ever had.' The admiration was general. 'Cromwell,' says an historian, appeared like a blazing star raised up by Providence to exalt this nation to a distinguished pitch of glory, and to strike terror into the rest of Europe.' Cromwell was the great obstacle which, in the 17th century, that epoch of the victories of Rome, opposed the encroachments of Popery. While the Protector made war upon Spain, he was in reality fighting against Rome. This he did in England most effectually by the developement of the evangelical spirit. But he did not confine himself to this nation; he spread the terror of the English name over all Italy, even to Rome itself; the alarmed citizens, every moment expecting the arrival of Blake and his - twenty-four ships, hastily put Civita Vecchia in a state of defence. At the same time, processions were made in the pontifical city, and the host was exposed for forty hours, to avert the judgment of heaven and preserve the patrimony of St. Peter. Cromwell was fighting the great battle against the papacy and royalty of the middle ages; the greatest that history has had to describe since the establishment of Christianity and the struggle of the Reformation. The result of this battle was, the deliverance of the present age and of ages yet to come. Without Cromwell, humanely speaking, liberty would have been lost, not only to England but to Europe.'

And has Europe no lesson to learn from the great Puritan statesman? That politician must be shallow indeed, who does not discern the inevitable result of two systems so diametrically opposed, as false and true Christianity. True religion has ever, by a natural process, produced a corresponding political course of action, moulding alike statemanship and states, into what is open, free, and progressive. False religion, too, has eventuated in its own peculiar policy; narrow, bigoted and repressive. Silence is its dwelling-place, and the tomb its prison. And what was the secret of Cromwell's uniform victories over the brave and high spirited gentry of England? Let us hear the Protector himself, addressing his cousin, the celebrated Hampden: "I raised

CROMWELL'S PRINCIPLE.

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such men as had the fear of God before them, as made some conscience of what they did, and from that day forward they were never beaten." Here was the history of the great victories, won by christian resolution, over all the fire and all the magnificent impulse of the spirit of the medieval chivalry. It was the spirit of the martyr, changed from endurance to action. And here, we would notice an observation that has been made, in connection with a true national army; which during the last three centuries she has never possessed, so unequal have been, and are still, the upper and lower members of the military profession: it is a passage pregnant with prophetic warning of no little forecast.

"The day must come," says the writer, "when the pith of the middle classes will be absorbed into our military system. Nor is it improbable that that period may be accelerated by the banded efforts of despotic Europe against the religious liberties of this country. England may expect collisions abroad, arising from the spirit of religious persecution; nay, she may even have to encounter them at home. Then will men like these-men of the mould of Cromwell's troopers-be the great instrument, by which the fierce aggressive spirit will be kept down, or for ever, ever broken. Then, nay now, let our military authorities beware of any attempt to force the conscience of the christian soldier. That would awake a redoubtable organization, which, having its centre in the Commons and the civil power, would take from the ruling powers their control of that magnificent instrument, never again to be intrusted to them.

"It is difficult for England, even in the full blaze of knowledge, with all the aid of science, of literature, and of civilization, to comprehend fully, the obligations we owe to Cromwell. It was not that he laid down rules applicable to a special object; it was not that he worked out the broad lines of what was best in legislation, commerce, or religion; his was no such fixed and irrevocable scheme. The grand motive power which he rescued from obscurity, was an agency partaking in no degree of such cramped, measured and mechanical appliances. It was not the stately temple that he would rear-it was not the graceful statue that he would exhibit! It was a glorious living principle that he inaugurated in England's realm of intellectuality and manly vigour. It was an ever living teacher, skilled in all the paths of knowledge, and all the recondite love of an imperishable philosophy, It was the germ of immortal life, brought to quicken the dulness of humanity. It was the great teacher sent from God.' Here then, around this divine instructor, were grouped the children of God, the offspring of science, the progeny of literature and of commerce. At the feet of this mighty Gamaliel, sat the aspirants for knowledge, immortality, eternal life. Can we wonder at the progress of pupils under such

a master.

'Do it with all thy might,' said the GREAT MASTER, and it was well done."*

Let us never forget, that it is to the great Puritan that we are, at the present hour, indebted for the victories by which the LAW OF FREEDOM was wrested from Italian despotism, and for ever secured to ourselves and our children.

"Oliver," says D'Aubigné, "accomplished an immense work for his times: and England should now raise to him a monument—a triumphal arch-with this inscription, TO THE FOUNDER OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY."

ART. II.-1. The Handwriting on the Wall: a Story. By EDWIN ATHERSTONE, Author of the " Fall of Nineveh," &c. 3 Vols. London: Richard Bentley. 1858.

2. The Poor Relation: a Novel. By Miss PARDOE, Author of the "Life of Marie de Medicis," &c., &c. 3 Vols. London: Hurst and Blackett.

IN this fiction-loving age it is fortunate, indeed, when those who delight in this kind of reading can meet with two such works as those mentioned at the head of this article—the one gorgeous with oriental splendour, the other rich in practical truths, and adapted to the less dazzling prospect of every-day life in our western isle.

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We shall begin with the "Handwriting on the Wall." The very title thrills us with expectation; for it is impossible not to guess at once to what handwriting it alludes, and on what thunder-shaken wall that handwriting shone. It was a bold idea when the author took pen in hand to write a Story," on a subject which it is impossible, even at this distance of time, to read, or to hear read, without an emotion of awe. But, as if inspired by the very sublimity and difficulty of the theme, the author has risen above the difficulties of the task, and given to the reading world a tale of breathless interest.

Though the story occupies three volumes, yet it narrates only the events of three days. And what three days are those! -the two which precede the fall of Babylon, and the eventful one in which Belshazzar loses his kingdom and his life. Every character in the wondrous drama has an interest of its own; every incident is a link in the chain of those events which

"Caste and Christianity." By Temple Christian Faber. Partridge and Co., Paternoster Row, London.

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