ertaining. Virtue, _Vir-tus_, manhood,
_hero_hood, is not fair-spoken immaculate regularity; it is first of
all, what the Germans well name it, _Tugend_ (_Taugend_, _dow_-ing, or
_Dough_-tiness), Courage and the Faculty to _do_. This basis of the
matter Cromwell had in him.

One understands moreover how, though he could not speak in Parliament,
he might _preach_, rhapsodic preaching; above all, how he might be
great in extempore prayer. These are the free out-pouring utterances
of what is in the heart: method is not required in them; warmth,
depth, sincerity are all that is required. Cromwell's habit of prayer
is a notable feature of him. All his great enterprises were commenced
with prayer. In dark inextricable-looking difficulties, his Officers
and he used to assemble, and pray alternately, for hours, for days,
till some definite resolution rose among them, some "door of hope," as
they would name it, disclosed itself. Consider that. In tears, in
fervent prayers, and cries to the great God, to have pity on them, to
make His light shine before them. They, armed Soldiers of Christ, as
they felt themselves to be; a little band of Christian Brothers, who
had drawn the sword against a great black devouring world not
Christian, but Mammonish, Devilish,--they cried to God in their
straits, in their extreme need, not to forsake the Cause that was His.
The light which now rose upon them,--how could a human soul, by any
means at all, get better light? Was not the purpose so formed like to
be precisely the best, wisest, the one to be followed without
hesitation any more? To them it was as the shining of Heaven's own
Splendor in the waste-howling darkness; the Pillar of Fire by night,
that was to guide them on their desolate perilous way. _Was_ it not
such? Can a man's soul, to this hour, get guidance by any other method
than intrinsically by that same,--devout prostration of the earnest
struggling soul before the Highest, the Giver of all Light; be such
_prayer_ a spoken, articulate, or be it a voiceless, inarticulate one?
There is no other method. "Hypocrisy"? One begins to be weary of all
that. They who call it so, have no right to speak on such matters.
They never formed a purpose, what one can call a purpose. They went
about balancing expediencies, plausibilities; gathering votes,
advices; they never were alone with the _truth_ of a thing at
all.--Cromwell's prayers were likely to be "eloquent," and much more
than that. His