etermined, not merely to protect religion and
public morals from insult,--an object for which the civil sword, in
discreet hands, may be beneficially employed,--but to make the people
committed to their rule truly devout. Yet, if they had only reflected on
events which they had themselves witnessed and in which they had
themselves borne a great part, they would have seen what was likely to
be the result of their enterprise. They had lived under a government
which, during a long course of years, did all that could be done, by
lavish bounty and by rigorous punishment, to enforce conformity to the
doctrine and discipline of the Church of England. No person suspected of
hostility to that church had the smallest chance of obtaining favor at
the court of Charles. Avowed dissent was punished by imprisonment, by
ignominious exposure, by cruel mutilations, and by ruinous fines. And
the event had been that the Church had fallen, and had, in its fall,
dragged down with it a monarchy which had stood six hundred years. The
Puritan might have learned, if from nothing else, yet from his own
recent victory, that governments which attempt things beyond their reach
are likely not merely to fail, but to produce an effect directly the
opposite of that which they contemplate as desirable.

All this was overlooked. The saints were to inherit the earth. The
theatres were closed. The fine arts were placed under absurd restraints.
Vices which had never before been even misdemeanors were made capital
felonies. It was solemnly resolved by Parliament "that no person shall
be employed but such as the House shall be satisfied of his real
godliness." The pious assembly had a Bible lying on the table for
reference. If they had consulted it they might have learned that the
wheat and the tares grow together inseparably, and must either be spared
together or rooted up together. To know whether a man was really godly
was impossible. But it was easy to know whether he had a plain dress,
lank hair, no starch in his linen, no gay furniture in his house;
whether he talked through his nose, and showed the whites of his eyes;
whether he named his children Assurance, Tribulation, and
Maher-shalal-hash-baz; whether he avoided Spring Garden when in town,
and abstained from hunting and hawking when in the country; whether he
expounded hard scriptures to his troop of dragoons, and talked in a
committee of ways and means about seeking the Lord. These were tests
which