detecting hypocrites," seems to me a rather
sorry business. We have had but one such Statesman in England; one
man, that I can get sight of, who ever had in the heart of him any such
purpose at all. One man, in the course of fifteen hundred years; and
this was his welcome. He had adherents by the hundred or the ten;
opponents by the million. Had England rallied all round him,--why,
then, England might have been a _Christian_ land! As it is, vulpine
knowingness sits yet at its hopeless problem, "Given a world of Knaves,
to educe an Honesty from their united action;"--how cumbrous a problem,
you may see in Chancery Law-Courts, and some other places! Till at
length, by Heaven's just anger, but also by Heaven's great grace, the
matter begins to stagnate; and this problem is becoming to all men a
_palpably_ hopeless one.--

But with regard to Cromwell and his purposes: Hume, and a multitude
following him, come upon me here with an admission that Cromwell _was_
sincere at first; a sincere "Fanatic" at first, but gradually became a
"Hypocrite" as things opened round him. This of the Fanatic-Hypocrite
is Hume's theory of it; extensively applied since,--to Mahomet and many
others. Think of it seriously, you will find something in it; not much,
not all, very far from all. Sincere hero hearts do not sink in this
miserable manner. The Sun flings forth impurities, gets balefully
incrusted with spots; but it does not quench itself, and become no Sun
at all, but a mass of Darkness! I will venture to say that such never
befell a great deep Cromwell; I think, never. Nature's own lionhearted
Son; Antaeus-like, his strength is got by _touching the Earth_, his
Mother; lift him up from the Earth, lift him up into Hypocrisy, Inanity,
his strength is gone. We will not assert that Cromwell was an immaculate
man; that he fell into no faults, no insincerities among the rest. He
was no dilettante professor of "perfections," "immaculate conducts."
He was a rugged Orson, rending his rough way through actual true
_work_,--_doubtless_ with many a _fall_ therein. Insincerities, faults,
very many faults daily and hourly: it was too well known to him; known
to God and him! The Sun was dimmed many a time; but the Sun had not
himself grown a Dimness. Cromwell's last words, as he lay waiting for
death, are those of a Christian heroic man. Broken prayers to God, that
He would judge him and this Cause, He since man could not, in justice
yet in pity. They a