THE condition of England during the latter part of the seventeenth century has extensively and deservedly attracted the notice of many recent writers. There were, undoubtedly, more just opinions promul gated, more great principles developed, and more moral and political rights established by the Great Rebellion, as some choose to term it, than by any other event of English history. But years elapsed before the nation recovered from the effects of that tremendous explosion of popular fury. Society meanwhile was in a state of terrible commotion. The billows continued to heave and swell long after the storm had passed. During the reign of the first Charles, up to the outbreak of the Great Rebellion, the nation was in a state of the most intense mental excitement, and was daily growing wild with rage. But there still remained unviolated the form, at least, of a regular Establishment. The Government, venerable for its antiquity and its renowned succession of sovereigns, still maintained its place in the reverence of the people, though they detested the tyranny of its present Head. The exasperation of the public mind was indeed fearful. But it was, for a while, smothered under a decent respect for many timehonored forms, which the people were hardly yet prepared utterly to demolish in one tremendous assertion of their rights. It was the calm which precedes the storm. But still it was a calm.

It is the opinion of some who deserve to be heard with respect, that Charles might have retraced his steps from any point in his mad career, previous to the attempted arrest of the five members of the House of Commons. But, thank Heaven, tyrants are seldom men of much judgment or discretion. Their arbitrary usurpation, which, by occasional hollow concessions and shows of respect for the public liberty, might oppress with impunity, generally works its own cure by its reckless violence. Charles, by the act to which we have referred, passed a limit which he afterwards vainly sighed, in the bitterness of his soul, to recross, and rashly exposed himself to a catastrophe

* A part of this article has previously appeared elsewhere in another form.

as irresistible as Destiny, the vengeance of a self-delivered and determined people.

From the confusion which ensued upon the death of the King, there sprang, at the touch of the Protector, a government perfectly adapted to its purpose, respected and obeyed at home, reverenced and dreaded abroad. Never had justice been so impartially administered in England: never had the terror of her name given her such a rank in the scale of nations.

But, though the Protectorate was perfect in its kind, there were many interests which such a government could never control, and which were, consequently, still left in confusion. Such an administration as that of Cromwell is to a long-established government, in a quiet and peaceful community, what martial law is to the ordinary forms of justice. It is certainly much better that a province, to the control of which common judicial measures are inadequate, should be governed by martial law, than by no law at all. But martial law can do little more than suppress such outrageous crimes as would rend to fragments the very frame-work of society. It cannot enter into every private dwelling and restore tranquillity and quiet to its affrighted inmates. It cannot fill the secret abodes of vice with morality and virtue. It cannot surround with sincere worshipers the deserted altar of Religion.

Cromwell did for the English people all that any government could have done. He curbed with a strong hand the spirit of lawlessness engendered by the Civil War. He made England a refuge to the Protestants who were persecuted in almost every other state in Europe. He left his countrymen to worship God after the manner prescribed by their own consciences. But he could not legislate them into personal piety. He could not, in the four years of his Protectorate, completely substitute for the moral desolation which the Civil War had spread over England, the mild and peaceful influence of a spiritual faith.

The Puritans were indeed distinguished by most intensely devotional frames of mind. Beyond almost any other class of men which the world has ever seen, they were absorbed in contemplation of scenes celestial and eternal. But their peculiar faith was not adapted to influence any who were not of their austere and rigorous temperament. The religious notions of the English people were indissolubly connected with the magnificent and impressive ceremonial of the Establishment. But for imposing cathedrals, reverberating with the heavy swell of pealing organs, the Puritans were substituting comfortless and uncomely meeting-houses, squeaking with the nasal twang of their drawling psalm-tunes. For the prelates of the Establishment, learned, accomplished, refined, robed in the graceful folds of their holy vestments, and discoursing in smooth and flowing periods, the Puritans presented their blunt and boorish, strait-coat, Round-head preachers, holding forth in a strange, unearthly dialect, which eschewed all carnal gloss, mysterious tales of desperate conflicts with the arch-enemy, and rapturous visions of the New Jerusalem. Psalm-books took the

place of the Liturgy. The high-days of the Church were scouted as relics of the Babylonish harlot. Refinement and elegance of manners was a sure evidence that the Old Enemy was putting on his garments of light.

The people at large regarded the stern and austere devotion of the Puritans with abhorrence. Even the sincere and charitable inquirers of those times could ascertain but little of the actual character of that wonderful sect. Their grotesque peculiarities, their contempt of human applause, combined, perhaps, with a haughty affectation of singularity and mystery, blinded many a candid observer to their inherent nobleness. Much less could the common populace, who took men as they found them, and who never cared to descend, in their examinations, deeper than to the shape of the coat, the length of the hair, or the style of the speech, rightly apprehend the true character and worth of the Puritans. They looked upon them with mingled wonder and contempt. They knew nothing of the lofty views and the sublime aspirations of these enthusiasts. They could not attend them in their frequent and mysterious wanderings to the other world. They saw them when they returned, and wondered, as men always wonder at the wild and frightful aspect of one who has just emerged from terrible and unknown scenes. But there was no common ground between the Saints and the World, on which their true character could be intelligibly explained. The people could no better have been made to comprehend their wild vagaries than the peasantry of Crotona could have been instructed in the Esoteric mysteries of Pythagoras. It was indeed an age of excitement, nay, even of enthusiasm. But the enthusiasm of men in general was lethargy, when compared with that of the Saints.

Hence the moral and religious influence of the Puritans on the English people was probably small and weak.

Upon a few devoted champions mainly devolved the work of maintaining the remnant of religious faith which had survived the terrible commotions of the nation. We cannot but ascribe it to the benevolent wisdom of Providence, that there flourished, about this epoch, the noblest circle of great and good men which England has ever produced within the compass of a century. We speak not now of the philosophers, the poets, and the men of letters. Milton, Newton, Locke, Boyle, are indeed imperishable names. But their inestimable moral influence on their age was somewhat indirect and incidental. There were in those days a host of worthies, more exclusively devoted to the sacred services of religion. We know not to what age or country we are to look for so splendid a list of Christian divines and pulpit orators, as arose at this most perilous crisis that the most important nation on earth has ever encountered.

They differed somewhat in years, and somewhat in opinion. But it requires no extraordinary sagacity to perceive the overruling hand of Providence, bringing all their noblest efforts to bear upon the same great end. Chillingworth, Taylor, Baxter, Owen, Charnock, Flavel, Hopkins, Leighton, South, were nearly all at utter variance, touching

many points of inferior practical importance. But all, devoting their fine abilities and their almost unlimited acquirements to the moral and religious weal of the nation, exerted an aggregate of influence, which soothed and chastened the turbulent spirit of their countrymen.

It is worthy of notice that, with the exception of Chillingworth, these divines were all living after the Restoration. Though they had seen perilous times of confusion and violence and blood, there were yet darker and more shameful scenes in reserve to test their faith; scenes which every Englishman would gladly tear from the history of his country.

The divines of that day were all eminently devoted to their work. With prodigious stores of learning, with sensibilities keenly alive to the gentler and finer feelings of our nature, and, in the case of many of them, with the most delicate taste, the weight of their fearful responsibilities pressed too heavily upon them to allow of leisure for paying court to the Muses, or of wandering amid the grateful shades of the Academy. It might answer for the divines of after years, pleasantly domiciled in the midst of peace and quiet, to indulge in the delightful pursuits of literature; for Robertson to devote his days to history; for Bentley to criticise the classics; for Paley to speculate upon political philosophy. But, when the whole responsibility of saving the nation from a complete and hopeless profligacy seemed thrown upon the ministers of religion, they were brought to reflect that commentaries on the classics would never save souls, and that, to confirm the souls of believers, one good sermon is of more worth than a score of learned dissertations on ethics or philosophy. With the exception of the mathematical works of Dr. Barrow, it does not appear that any exclusively secular employment was prosecuted, to a considerable extent, by any distinguished English clergyman of that period.

Most of the divines to whom we have referred were attached to the English Church. The regard which, even amid the universal sensuality of the Restoration, was paid to the external forms of the Establishment, secured to them an impunity, and even respect, which the Puritan ministers could by no means obtain. Many of these stern and uncompromising messengers of the truth had been scattered in all directions, when the second Charles ascended the throne. A few remained to waste their scorn and pity on the "reign of the strumpets," and to afford, like Christian and Faithful at Vanity-Fair, a butt for the hooting and jesting of worthless buffoons, not one of whom durst wag his finger at a Saint in the better days of the stern Protector.

But there remained many non-conformists who were not Puritans. There were many Presbyterians, and some Baptists. Of these latter was JOHN BUNYAN, of whom it is the highest praise which can be bestowed to mention his name. He had, as is well known, labored earnestly and successfully among his brethren, during the last few years of the Commonwealth, and the period of anarchy which succeeded. But on the very year when the great national revel of the Restoration commenced, he was violently torn from his labor of love, and soon after, like Luther in the Wartburg, secluded for years, that

his noble mind might hold more intimate communion with itself and with its Maker. Thus, while all England, with scarce an exception, was but a loathsome scene of blasphemy and obscenity, the great Allegorist was quietly tracing the Progress of the Pilgrim to a better world, in a work which can perish only when the language which contains it shall have faded from the memories of men.

All of Bunyan that was not infinitely beyond the reach of any of his friends, was moulded by the Baptists. They could tell him of their own spiritual conflicts, though they could not teach him to portray the terrible scenes of the Grace Abounding. They first taught him the value of his Bible, and their example, undoubtedly, first led him to peruse and reflect upon its sacred pages. But he could never have learned in their school to draw the wonderful imaginings of the Temple Spiritualized. They could tell him of the fiery trials of the way which lay before him. But, when he came to describe the supernatural joys and sorrows of the Pilgrim, he was perfectly aware that he must rely upon his own exertions, nor did he ask assistance from any earthly friend. His brethren could edify him by their exhortations, and induce him to display his own "gifts." But when they heard his words that acted like a spell, they were almost ready to exclaim, like the astonished neighbors of a Greater than he, not this the carpenter's son ? and his brethren and his sisters, are they not with us? whence then hath this man all these things?"

"Is

The character of the English Baptists of that period was well adapted to introduce such a genius as that of Bunyan to its appropriate work. But they wanted such a spirit as could spmpathize with his world-wide charity. Their virtues were many and exalted; their faults few and venial. Their souls were continually exposed to the expansive influence of the Christian faith. They differed on only a single point from many of their brethren, to whom they were bound by the strongest of all ties, the tie of common sufferings for a common cause. But, notwithstanding their liberal and exalting faith, Bunyan was often obliged to rebuke, and sometimes severely, the uncharitableness of his brethren of the close-communion or water-baptism way." It is no small glory to an illiterate tinker of the seventeenth century, that he should have cherished a Christian love more comprehensive than can be found in some of the most enlightened circles of the nineteenth.

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One biographer of Bunyan claims for the Baptists the credit of having introduced the Tinker to the world. However they may have encouraged him in "exposing his gifts" in exhortation, neither they nor any other class of men can claim the honor of having "handed the rustic stranger up to fame." He owed it to nothing but the intense and inexpressible fire of his own genius, that, as he was returning home from the "touching and comforting sermon," he "wished for a pen and ink that he might write." The wish was a natural one, and it was not improbable that there met him then, though dimly, the vision of his future usefulness and deathless fame. He had been encouraged, while yet a youth, to rise, though it was with fear and trem