th a certain vague and
solemn voice of prophecy.

"In such spirit goes Oliver to the wars--a god-intoxicated man, as
Novalis elsewhere phrases it. I have asked myself, if any where in
modern European history, or even in ancient Asiatic, there was found a
man practising this mean world's affairs with a heart more filled by the
idea of the Highest? Bathed in the eternal splendours--it is so he walks
our dim earth: this man is one of few. He is projected with a terrible
force out of the Eternities, and in the Times and their arenas there is
nothing that can withstand him. It is great; to us it is tragic; a thing
that should strike us dumb! My brave one, thy noble prophecy _is_
divine; older than Hebrew David; old as the origin of man; and shall,
though in wider ways than those supposed, be fulfilled."--(P. 172.)

We feel no disposition to follow Cromwell to the Scottish wars, though
"bathed in the eternal splendours." We hardly know of any thing in
history to our taste more odious than this war between the Scottish
Covenanter and the English Puritan; the one praying clamorously for
victory against "a blaspheming general and a sectarian army;" the other
animating his battle with a psalm, and charging with a "Lord, arise! and
let thy enemies be scattered," or some such exclamation. Both generals,
in the intervals of actual war, sermonise each other, and with much the
same spirit that they fight. Their diplomacy is a tangled preachment,
and texts are their war-cries. Meanwhile, both are fighting for the
gospel of Christ! only one will have it _with_, the other _without_ the
covenant! Such "eternal splendours" are not inviting to us. We will step
on at once to the battle of Worcester, which concluded both the Scottish
war, and all hopes for the present of the royalist party.

This last of his battles and his victories dismisses the great Puritan
from the wars. It is a striking despatch he writes from the field of
Worcester. He is still the unmitigated Puritan; he still preaches to
Speaker Lenthall, but he preaches somewhat more dogmatically. There is
an air of authority in the sermon. We all know that godly exhortation
may be made to express almost every shade of human passion; as what son
and what wife has not felt who has lived under the dominion and
discourse of one of these "rulers in Israel." The Parliament felt, no
doubt, the difference between the sermons of their general and those of
their chaplain.

Cromwell and t