faith and love.
Every Scripture narrative, which, by falsifying some circumstances,
could be made to answer their purpose, was presented to her remembrance.
The murder, adultery, and acceptance of David; the liberality of Solomon
to the church; the preservation of Rahab the harlot from the general
massacre of her people, on account of her saving faith; the supposed
profligacy of Magdalen's early life, atoned for by her sitting passive
at the feet of her Lord.--All these instances were produced to prove the
false and scandalous tenet, that a course of sin was a better
preparative to conversion than a life of comparative innocence.
Arguments were bandied from tongue to tongue; each one cavilled at the
assertions of the other, yet all united in the purpose of pacifying an
alarmed conscience, and changing despair into ill-founded confidence.
The groans of Lady Bellingham, the consternation of her attendants, the
fierce disputes of her ghostly assistants, occasionally suspended by
ejaculations and hymns, exhibited a scene of distracting confusion, in
which it would have been impossible for the firmest mind to have
preserved its recollection. Lady Bellingham was soon induced to say that
she knew she had once been in a state of grace, and this acknowledgement
was welcomed as her pass-port to heaven[1]. She was informed that her
salvation was unalienable; that grace could neither be resisted nor
forfeited, and that though the saints might appear to sin, yet their
offences were not imputable to them.

This pious conflict (for in an age when fanaticism and hypocrisy were
misnamed religion, these solemn mockeries passed for charitable
assistance to the dying,) was interrupted by the presence of Monthault,
now become the favourite and confidant of a chief leader of the
fanatical party. This renegade-Loyalist had served Cromwell with
conspicuous bravery in the Irish wars, and once, when a division of the
army was thrown into great danger, by the retreat of the forlorn hope,
before it had accomplished its purpose, he rushed forward, killed the
commanding officer with his own hand, and seizing the colours, led them
back, undismayed, by a grove of pikes and a shower of missile weapons.
With desperate but successful valour he carried the redoubt and escaped
with life. All this passed under the immediate observation of Cromwell,
whose retentive memory never forgot any signal action, and whose
discriminating policy generally placed the ma