fact the necessary
effects of it. The intensity of their feelings on one subject made
them tranquil on every other. One overpowering sentiment had subjected
to itself pity and hatred, ambition and fear. Death had lost its
terrors and pleasure its charms. They had their smiles and their
tears, their raptures and their sorrows, but not for the things of
this world. Enthusiasm had made them stoics, had cleared their minds
from every vulgar passion and prejudice, and raised them above the
influence of danger and of corruption. It sometimes might lead them to
pursue unwise ends, but never to choose unwise means. They went
through the world, like Sir Artegal's iron man Talus with his flail,
crushing and trampling down oppressors, mingling with human beings,
but having neither part nor lot in human infirmities, insensible to
fatigue, to pleasure, and to pain, not to be pierced by any weapon,
nor to be withstood by any barrier.

Such we believe to have been the character of the Puritans. We
perceive the absurdity of their manners. We dislike the sullen gloom
of their domestic habits. We acknowledge that the tone of their minds
was often injured by straining after things too high for mortal reach;
and we know that, in spite of their hatred of popery, they too often
fell into the worst vices of that bad system, intolerance and
extravagant austerity, that they had their anchorites and their
crusades, their Dunstans and their De Montforts, their Dominics and
their Escobars. Yet, when all circumstances are taken into
consideration, we do not hesitate to pronounce them a brave, a wise,
an honest, and a useful body.

II

CROMWELL'S ARMY[57]

The army which now became supreme in the state was an army very
different from any that has since been seen among us. At present the
pay of the common soldier is not such as can seduce any but the
humblest class of English laborers from their calling. A barrier
almost impassable separates him from the commissioned officer. The
great majority of those who rise high in the service rise by purchase.
So numerous and extensive are the remote dependencies of England,
that every man who enlists in the line must expect to pass many years
in exile, and some years in climates unfavorable to the health and
vigor of the European race. The army of the Long Parliament was raised
for home service. The pay of the private soldier was much above the
wages earned by the great body of the people; and,