y: all this had lain heavy on his
soul. Long years he had looked upon it, in silence, in prayer; seeing no
remedy on Earth; trusting well that a remedy in Heaven's goodness would
come,--that such a course was false, unjust, and could not last forever.
And now behold the dawn of it; after twelve years silent waiting, all
England stirs itself; there is to be once more a Parliament, the Right
will get a voice for itself: inexpressible well-grounded hope has come
again into the Earth. Was not such a Parliament worth being a member of?
Cromwell threw down his ploughs, and hastened thither.

He spoke there,--rugged bursts of earnestness, of a self-seen truth,
where we get a glimpse of them. He worked there; he fought and strove,
like a strong true giant of a man, through cannon-tumult and all
else,--on and on, till the Cause _triumphed_, its once so formidable
enemies all swept from before it, and the dawn of hope had become clear
light of victory and certainty. That _he_ stood there as the strongest
soul of England, the undisputed Hero of all England,--what of this? It
was possible that the Law of Christ's Gospel could now establish itself
in the world! The Theocracy which John Knox in his pulpit might dream of
as a "devout imagination," this practical man, experienced in the whole
chaos of most rough practice, dared to consider as capable of being
_realized_. Those that were highest in Christ's Church, the devoutest
wisest men, were to rule the land: in some considerable degree, it might
be so and should be so. Was it not _true_, God's truth? And if _true_,
was it not then the very thing to do? The strongest practical intellect
in England dared to answer, Yes! This I call a noble true purpose; is it
not, in its own dialect, the noblest that could enter into the heart
of Statesman or man? For a Knox to take it up was something; but for a
Cromwell, with his great sound sense and experience of what our world
_was_,--History, I think, shows it only this once in such a degree.
I account it the culminating point of Protestantism; the most heroic
phasis that "Faith in the Bible" was appointed to exhibit here below.
Fancy it: that it were made manifest to one of us, how we could make the
Right supremely victorious over Wrong, and all that we had longed and
prayed for, as the highest good to England and all lands, an attainable
fact!

Well, I must say, the _vulpine_ intellect, with its knowingness, its
alertness and expertness in "