in power and influence, second to no man in England, he addressed the following to one of his daughters," Your friends at Ely are well; your sister Claypole is, I trust in mercy, exercised with some perplexed thoughts; she sees her own vanity and carnal mind; bewailing it, she seeks after, as I hope also, what will satisfy,-and thus to be a seeker is to be of the best sect next to a finder, and such an one shall every faithful, humble seeker be at the end. Dear heart, press on; let not husband, let not any thing cool thy affections after Christ; that which is best worth in thy husband is that of the image of Christ he bears; look on that and love it best, and all the rest for that."

A few years after this his letters are dated from Whitehall, the royal palace; he has become Lord Protector of England, and the most powerful Sovereigns of Europe court his friendship or dread his frown; yet his letters betray no trace of the deteriorating effect of supreme power. The following lines to Fleetwood, Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, his son-in-law, exhibit the same Cromwell whom we found twenty years before, farming his own small estate on the banks of the Ouse: "My dear Charles,-The wretched jealousies that are amongst us, and the spirit of calumny, turn all into gall and wormwood. My heart is for the people of God, that the Lord knows, and will in due time manifest, yet hence are my wounds. Use the bearer, Mr Brewster, kindly; let him be near you; indeed he is a very able, holy man, trust me you will find him so. Dear Charles, my love to you and to my dear Bridget, who is a joy to my heart for what I hear of the Lord in her; bid her be cheerful and rejoice in the Lord once and again; if she knows the covenant she cannot but be so; for that transaction is, without her, sure and stedfast between the Father and the Mediator in his blood; therefore, leaning upon the Son, or looking to him, thirsting after him, we are his seed, and the covenant is sure to all the seed.

Readers of history are familiar with the usual style in which sovereigns and ministers of state address the commanders of fleets and armies-here is a brief specimen of the Lord Protector Cromwell's style :

SIR,

To Vice Admiral Goodson at Jamaica.

You will see by the enclosed what I have writ to Major General Fortescue. It is not to be denied but that the Lord hath greatly humbled us in that sad loss sustained at Hispaniola; and we doubt not we have provoked the Lord, and it is good for us to know and be abased for the same; yet would he not have us to despond, but I trust give us leave to make mention of his name and of his righteousness, when we cannot make mention of our own. The Lord himself hath a controversy with your enemies, even with that system of which the Roman Babylon is the great underpropper; in that respect we fight the Lord's battles; the Lord, therefore, strengthen you with faith, and cleanse you from all evil, and doubt not but he is able, and I trust as willing, to give you as signal success as he gave your enemies against you, only the covenant fear of the Lord be with you.

OLIVER, Protector.

The throne of Cromwell was however an uneasy seat-the nation was

full of discontented spirits, and the affections of a large portion of England and in Scotland were fixed on Charles, the son of the late King. Expelled from Britain he had found an asylum on the continent; and that our readers may see how he was fitting himself for the royal duties he was afterwards called to perform, and how well qualified he was to wield that sceptre which so many wished to wrest from the hands of the Protector and transfer to his, we present the following extract. It is from a letter to his aunt, the Queen of Bohemia.

MADAME,

Cologne, 6th August 1654.

I am now beginning this letter in my sister's chamber. I shall only tell your Majesty that we are now thinking how to pass our time, and in the first place of dancing, in which we find two difficulties, the one for want of the fiddlers, the other for somebody both to teach and assist at the dancing the new dances; and I have got my sister to send for Silvius, as one that is able to perform both; for the fideldedies my Lord Taafe does promise to be their convoy, and in the meantime we must content ourselves with those that make no difference between a hymn and a CHARLES R.

corranto.

This is the same Charles who, only three years before, had taken and subscribed the National Covenant, and the Solemn League and Covenant, at Spey, June 23. 1650, and at Scoon, Jan. 1. 1651, and to place whom on the throne the best blood in Scotland was shed at Dunbar and elsewhere. After reading the above extracts, few exercising the judgment of charity will be disposed to doubt that the Christianity of Cromwell was both genuine and fervent, and that, viewed as a Christian and a soldier, he may be held to merit all the praises which have lately been showered on his memory; but it is a far less pleasing task to scrutinise his claims to the character of a reformer and a statesman. Truth demands the statement that he neither saw the true nature of the moral disease of his country, nor could he comprehend methods of cure when it was most lucidly presented to his view. He was persuaded, perhaps, that the government of the church by archbishops, bishops, and their dependent train, was unscriptural and pernicious, but that it should have a government, he seems to have laboured under a helpless incapacity to perceive. The lofty conception of Alexander Henderson, arranged and expounded by the divines at Westminster, was much too grand in its dimensions to find admission into his understanding. Like Luther he was a master of the art of demolition, but the constructive talent of Calvin and Knox was not his; and his conduct in this whole matter, while it reflects on his understanding, lends also weight to the charge of a deficient integrity, which has been brought against him, and which, we fear, can never be altogether repelled. We have seen that he appended his name to the Solemn League; but it cannot be shown that he ever made one honest endeavour to carry out the ends of that engagement. It was treated with a decent respect so long as the Presbyterian armies of Scotland were needed to gain victories for the English Parliament, and then it was with little ceremony laid aside, if not treated with something more than contempt. Notwithstanding, therefore, the high eulogies of Dr Merle D'Aubigne, the impartial reader of the history

of this period will find himself compelled to admit that Cromwell did but little for the reformation of the Church of England. Much was done during his reign by eminent men in England, whom he encouraged and protected, and had he survived until, through their efforts, the massse had been taught and evangelised, much might have been gained; but he did not see that a protective bulwark of associated self-government was essential to secure the Church alike from the intrusion of false doctrine and of a miscellaneous and immoral membership; and, therefore, when his own strong arm was withdrawn, the Evangelic Church, although, perhaps, at the time containing the major part of the people of England, fell utterly helpless into the hands of a corrupt, but united minority. The systems of Calvin and Knox, though these men possessed far inferior influence to Cromwell, stand to this day. His, if a system it could be called, fell into instant and irretrievable ruin.

Neither can the character of Cromwell, as a constitutional ruler, sustain a strict examination: he ruled by the sword; he did so when there was no proved necessity to fall back on that last resource to which even intelligent and honest patriotism may, perhaps, at sometimes have been compelled to have recourse. We regret that our limits do not allow us to present any outline whatever of the evidence of this, though it presses to have utterance, it is sufficient to say, that that same House of Commons, which, with his cordial concurrence, invited the aid of Scotland against Charles I.-which summoned the Assembly of Divines-which with himself subscribed the Solemn League and Covenant, which, down to the period of his unconstitutional interference, displayed an honest purpose to place the liberties and religion of England on a firm and substantial foundation,—that Parliament, so soon as its views came to differ from his own, and from the independent and disorderly sentiments of the other leaders of the army, he first " purged," as it was called, by forcibly ejecting many of its most eminent members, and then finding that the Presbyterian leaven still pervaded the remnant, he pronounced its dissolution in the face of a law which he had himself assisted to pass, and which put the power of dissolution exclusively into its own hands. That he acted according to his light in all this, we may believe if we pleasethere may be diversities of view on this point-but if he did, all we have to say is, the light that was in him was darkness.

We are compelled to omit many subjects of deep interest to a Scottish reader. Cromwell's management in Scotland after the battle of Dunbar

is one.

For information in regard to this we refer the reader to the "History of the Church of Scotland during the Commonwealth," by the Rev. James Beattie. We cannot conclude without adverting to a practice of Cromwell's, which has, we think, been misunderstood that of intermingling with his addresses averments of the honesty of his purposes, and solemn appeals to the searcher of hearts. The frequency of these has been considered as going far to prove a conscious want of sincerity. This inference would require to be entertained with caution, otherwise the deep sincerity of Paul would not escape suspicion, nor that of our venerated Reformer, John Knox; see Life of Knox, 5th Edition, pages 46, 71, 72, 73, 77, 113, and elsewhere often. The briefest notice of Cromwell would be incomplete if it did not advert

to his participation in the trial and execution of the King. The two oracles to which we have been listening, Mr Carlyle and Dr Merle D'Augbigne differ in their responses; the former appears to regard the deed itself, and his hero's share in it, with approbation; he "reckons it a daring," he does not say a criminal" action," and seems to consider its results to have been in a high degree salutary; the latter, though the title of his work is "A Vindication," does not vindicate, but condemns him here. Neither of the writers state distinctly the grounds of their judgment.

The authors themselves of these works, claim our concluding sentence. Dr Merle D'Aubigné is in himself already a " power in Europe;" his History of the Reformation is in many hands, and ought to be in the hands of every family in Scotland. In it and in most of his other works, (we are not sure if we can include this), he has done, we will venture to say, more efficient and enduring service to the cause of the Reformation, than ever Cromwell did; his work will stand, it is built on a rock, the Protector, unhappily, built his on the sand. Since the days of Calvin, Geneva has had few citizens of which she has more reason to be proud and grateful. We cannot, however, conceal our regret, that he has not been able as yet to take the same firm hold of the truth, in regard to the government of the Church, that his illustrious predecessor, and our great Scottish leaders, Knox, Melville and Henderson did; it is painful to read the following sentence in page 167: after stating truly that the gospel is the only means of saving Ireland, he continues, "a respectable ecclesiastical form is necessary to encourage the poor Catholics; in their house of bondage they have contracted certain wants which ought to be respected. The two Protestant Churches which are most numerous in Ireland, the Episcopalian and the Presbyterian, present all that can be desired." Dr D'Aubigné's late decisive avowal that he is a Presbyterian, surely implies that Episcopacy, the antagonist system, must be unscriptural, and how, with this as a fixed fact in his understanding, and England with its corrupt and lifeless clergy, and more than half Popish hierarchy full in view, and Ireland's past history in the background, he could recommend the continuance of the same baneful system in either country, or expect any good from it, is indeed marvellous; but we may have occasion to advert to this topic in another form.

To Mr Carlyle the public are deeply indebted for the minute and laborious research displayed in these volumes; they constitute the most complete and best arranged collection of the fragments of the great Protector yet given to the world; but the value of the work consists nearly, almost exclusively indeed, in the exhibition of the facts, not in the author's own expositions of them. Any reader who would imbibe the spirit which pervades these will be deeply injured by the work. With Cromwell, viewed simply as a believer in the word of God, he has no sympathy; he admires him only as an earnest true-hearted man-as a hero

what he himself believes, what confession of faith he would subscribe, the most acute and far-sighted of his critics have not yet been able to discover. We have read his volume on Hero Worship, and some few other of his works; and we find that he believes in John Knox, and that he has not less faith in Napoleon,-that Luther was somewhat of a divinity,

and so was Mahomet; he believes in our ancient and obselete divinities Thor and Woden, and perhaps in Jupiter. Cromwell, however, if we may judge by the bulky temple he has here reared for him, is the great modern divinity-the chief god (till a greater appear) of his idolatry; and the thought obtruded itself on us once and again, in the course of our reading, that the "straps and considerations" which withheld the author from doing profane homage in a similar style to the greatest "name given under heaven among men," was not the fear of God but the fear of men. We earnestly trust that some of the kings among men, in our periodical literature, will subject the writings of this author to a thorough dissection, expose the fallacies with which they abound, and put the reading public on their guard against some certain fascinations-not of style certainly-which they must be allowed to possess.

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AND THE PROSPECTS OF

EUROPE.

The events which have recently occurred in the political world are very astonishing. They have excited attention through all the earth, and will, no doubt, exercise an extensive influence over the destinies of our species.

The mighty wave of revolution, after sweeping away the throne of the Bourbons, like a thing of nought, has rolled over the greater part of continental Europe, forcing its way across the lofty summits of modern despotism, which seemed to present a permanent and insuperable barrier to the waters of the political sea, even when these were agitated by the deepest and most extensive swell of popular feeling. The mystic wheels moved by "the living creatures," have been "going and returning like a flash of lightning," and steam and electricity have been outdone, by the chariot of providence, which, carrying all Europe along with it, has accomplished in a day, the journey of ages. Great, marvellous, and altogether unexpected changes have taken place. In the language of the Apocalypse, there has been "a great earthquake, and the cities of the nations have fallen." Bavaria, Austria, Prussia, Italy, Poland, have all experienced the shock, which has passed onward to the extremities of civilization, and beyond the abodes of freedom, and been felt by the Autokrator of all the Russias, and filled him with dismay.

"Come and behold what wondrous works have by the Lord been wrought!" What shall be the end of these things? With what feelings should they be viewed? What lesson do they teach? To what duties do they call civil and ecclesiastical society?

In our opinion, these occurrences ought to be viewed with mingled emotions. So far as hitherto developed, they combine the elements of hope and fear in almost equal proportions. Nothing, therefore, could be more injudicious in itself, or more likely to hurt the interests of humanity and religion, than for one part of the world to form an opinion by looking only at what is bright and cheering, while the opinion of another part is formed by looking exclusively to what is dark and ominous. To do so is the likeliest of all methods to blight whatever is really hopeful, and to produce the very calamities which are foreboded. We can only hope to ar