g God have fought them out of their bondage
under the regal power, so men fearing God do now rule them in the fear
of God. . . . Own your call, for it is of God: indeed it is marvellous,
and it hath been unprojected. . . . Never was a supreme power under such
a way of owning God and being owned by Him." A spirit yet more
enthusiastic appeared in the proceedings of the Convention itself.

[Sidenote: Its work.]

The resignation of their powers by Cromwell and the Council into its
hands left it the one supreme authority; but by the instrument which
convoked it provision had been made that this authority should be
transferred in fifteen months to another assembly elected according to
its directions. Its work was, in fact, to be that of a constituent
assembly, paving the way for a Parliament on a really national basis.
But the Convention put the largest construction on its commission, and
boldly undertook the whole task of constitutional reform. Committees
were appointed to consider the needs of the Church and the nation. The
spirit of economy and honesty which pervaded the assembly appeared in
its redress of the extravagance which prevailed in the civil service,
and of the inequality of taxation. With a remarkable energy it undertook
a host of reforms, for whose execution England has had to wait to our
own day. The Long Parliament had shrunk from any reform of the Court of
Chancery, where twenty-three thousand cases were waiting unheard. The
Convention proposed its abolition. The work of compiling a single code
of laws, begun under the Long Parliament by a committee with Sir Matthew
Hale at its head, was again pushed forward. The frenzied alarm which
these bold measures aroused among the lawyer class was soon backed by
that of the clergy, who saw their wealth menaced by the establishment of
civil marriage and by proposals to substitute the free contributions of
congregations for the payment of tithes. The landed proprietors too rose
against a scheme for the abolition of lay-patronage, which was favoured
by the Convention, and predicted an age of confiscation. The "Barebones
Parliament," as the assembly was styled in derision, was charged with a
design to ruin property, the Church, and the law, with enmity to
knowledge, and a blind and ignorant fanaticism.

[Sidenote: Close of the Convention.]

Cromwell himself shared the general uneasiness at its proceedings. His
mind was that of an administrator rather than that of a st