find a real _speech_ lying
imprisoned in these broken, rude tortuous utterances; a meaning in the
great heart of this inarticulate man! You will, for the first time,
begin to see that he was a man; not an enigmatic chimera, unintelligible
to you, incredible to you. The Histories and Biographies written of this
Cromwell, written in shallow, sceptical generations that could not know
or conceive of a deep, believing man, are far more _obscure_ than
Cromwell's Speeches. You look through them only into the infinite vague
of Black and the Inane. "Heats and jealousies," says Lord Clarendon
himself: "heats and jealousies," mere crabbed whims, theories, and
crotchets; these induced slow, sober, quiet Englishmen to lay down their
ploughs and work; and fly into red fury of confused war against the
best-conditioned of Kings! _Try_ if you can find that true. Scepticism
writing about Belief may have great gifts; but it is really _ultra
vires_ there. It is Blindness laying-down the Laws of Optics.--

Cromwell's third Parliament split on the same rock as his second. Ever
the constitutional Formula: How came _you_ there? Show us some Notary
parchment! Blind pedants:--"Why, surely the same power which makes you
a Parliament, that, and something more, made me a Protector!" If my
Protectorship is nothing, what in the name of wonder is your
Parliamenteership, a reflex and creation of that?--

Parliaments having failed, there remained nothing but the way of
Despotism. Military Dictators, each with his district to _coerce_ the
Royalist and other gainsayers, to govern them, if not by act of
Parliament, then by the sword. Formula shall _not_ carry it, while the
Realty is here! I will go on protecting oppressed Protestants abroad,
appointing just judges, wise managers, at home, cherishing true Gospel
ministers; doing the best I can to make England a Christian England,
greater than old Rome, the Queen of Protestant Christianity; I, since
you will not help me; I while God leaves me life!--Why did he not give
it up; retire into obscurity again, since the Law would not acknowledge
him? cry several. That is where they mistake. For him there was no
giving of it up! Prime Ministers have governed countries, Pitt, Bombal,
Choiseul; and their word was a law while it held: but this Prime
Minister was one that _could not get resigned_. Let him once resign,
Charles Stuart and the Cavaliers waited to kill him; to kill the Cause
_and_ him. Once embarked, the