the affections and secrets of my heart, I know he would not bear it at my hands! [Deep silence; his Highness's voice, in sonorous bass, alone audible in the Painted Chamber.] Therefore in the fear and name of God: Go on, with love and integrity, against whatever arises of contrary to those ends which you know and have been told of; and the blessing of God go with you, and the blessing of God will go with you! [Amen!]

I have but one thing more to say. I know it is troublesome :-But 1 did read a Psalm yesterday; which truly may not unbecome both me to tell you of, and you to observe. It is the Eighty-fifth Psalm;* it is very instructive and significant: and though I do but a little touch upon it, I desire your perusal at pleasure. [We will many of us read it, this night; almost all of us, with one view or the other ;—and some of us may sing a part of it at evening worship.]

It begins: "Lord, Thou hast been very favorable to Thy Land; Thou hast brought back the captivity of Jacob. Thou hast forgiven the iniquity of Thy People; Thou hast covered all their sin. Thou hast taken away all the fierceness of Thy wrath: Thou hast turned Thyself from the fierceness of Thine anger. Turn us, O God of our salvation, and cause Thine anger toward us to cease. Wilt Thou be angry with us for ever; wilt thou draw out Thine anger to all genera tions? Wilt Thou not revive us again, that Thy People may rejoice in Thee?” Then he calls upon God as "the God of his salvation,”† and then saith he: "I will hear what God the Lord will speak: for He will speak peace unto His People, and to His Saints; but let them not turn again to folly. Surely His salvation is nigh them that fear Him;" Oh-" that glory may dwell in our land! Mercy and Truth are met together; Righteousness and Peace have kissed each other. Truth shall spring out of the Earth, and Righteousness shall look down from Heaven. Yea the Lord shall give that which is good, and our Land shall yield her increase. Righteousness shall go before Him, and shall set us in the way of his steps." [What a vision of celestial hope is this: vista into Lands of Light, God's Will done on Earth; this poor English Earth an Emblem of Heaven; where God's blessing reigns supreme; where ghastly Falsity and brutal Greed and Baseness, and Cruelty and Cowardice, and Sin and Fear, and all the Helldogs of Gehenna shall lie chained under our feet; and Man, august in divine

* Historical: Tuesday, 16th Sept., 1656; Oliver Protector reading the Eighty-fifth Psalm in Whitehall. We too might read it; but as his Highnese recites it all here except one short verse, it is not so necessary.

† Verse 7, Show us Thy mercy, O Lord, and grant us Thy salvation.'

manhood, shall step victorious over them, heavenward, like a god! O Oliver, I could weep,—and yet it steads not. Do not I too look into “ Psalms,” into a kind of Eternal Psalm, unalterable as adamant,-which the whole world yet will look into? Courage, my brave one!]

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Truly I wish that this Psalm, as it is written in the Book, might be better written in our hearts. That we might say as David, "Thou hast done this," and "Thou hast done that;""Thou hast pardoned our sins; 'Thou hast taken away our iniquities!" Whither can we go to a better God? For "He hath done it." It is to Him any Nation may come in their extremity, for the taking away of His wrath. How did He do it? "By pardoning their sins, by taking away their iniquities!" If we can but cry unto Him, He will "turn and take away our sins."Then let us listen to Him.. Then let us consult, and meet in Parliament; and ask Him counsel, and hear what He saith, "for He will speak peace unto His People." If you be the People of God, He will speak peace ;—and we will not turn again to folly.

"Folly:" a great deal of grudging in the Nation that we cannot have our horse-races, cock-fightings, and the like! [Abolished, suspended for good reasons!] I do not think these are lawful, except to make them recreations. That we will not endure for necessary ends' [For preventing Royalist Plots, and such like] to be abridged of them:-Till God hath brought us to another spirit than this, He will not bear with us. Ay, "but He bears with them in France;" "they in France are so and so!"-Have they the Gospel as we have? They have seen the sun but a little; we have great lights.--If God give you a spirit of Reformation, you will preserve this Nation from "turning again" to those fooleries:-and what will the end be? Comfort and blessing. Then "Mercy and Truth shall meet together." Here is a great deal of "truth" among professors, but very little "mercy!" They are ready to cut the throats of one another. But when we are brought into the right way, we shall be merciful as well as orthodox: and we know who it is that saith, “If a man could speak with the tongues of men and angels, and yet want that, he is but sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal !"

Therefore I beseech you in the name of God, set your hearts to this 'work.' And if you set your hearts to it, then you will sing Luther's Psalm.* That is a rare Psalm for a Christian!—and if he set his heart

* Psalm Forty-sixth; of which Luther's Paraphrase, Eine feste Burg ist unser Gott, is still very celebrated. Here is the original Psalm.

'God is our refuge and strength; a very present help in trouble: therefore we will not fear,-though the Earth be removed, and though the moun

open, and can approve it to God, we shall hear him say, "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in time of trouble." If Pope and Spaniard, and Devil and all, set themselves. against us,-though they should "compass us like bees," as it is in the Hundred-and-eighteenth Psalm,-yet in the name of the Lord we should destroy them! And, as it is in this Psalm of Luther's: "We will not fear, though the Earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the middle of the sea; though the waters thereof roar and be troubled; though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof." [A terrible scene indeed:-but there is something in the Heart of Man, then, greater than any “scene;” which, in the name of the Highest, can defy any scene or terror whatsoever? "Yea," answers the Hebrew David; " Yea," answers the German Luther; " Yea," the English Cromwell. The Ages responsive to one another; soul hailing soul across the dead Abysses; deep calling unto deep.] "There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the City of God. God is in the midst of her: she shall not be moved." [No!] Then he repeats two or three times, "The Lord of Hosts is with us: the God of Jacob is our refuge." [What are the King of Spain, Charles Stuart, Joseph Wagstaff, Chancellor Hyde, and your triple-hatted Chimera at Rome? What is the Devil in General, for that matter, the still very extensive Entity called "Devil," with all the force he can raise ?]

I have done. All I have to say is, To pray God that He may bless you with His presence; that He who hath your hearts and mine would show His presence in the midst of us.

I desire you will go together, and choose your Speaker.*

tains be carried into the midst of the sea; though the waters roar and be troubled; though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof!

"There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the City of God, the Holy Place of the Tabernacles of the Most High. God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved: God shall help her, and that right early. The Heathen raged, the Kingdoms were moved: He uttered His voice, the Earth melted. The Lord of Hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.

• Come behold the works of the Lord, what desolations He hath made in the Earth! He maketh wars to cease unto the ends of the Earth; He preaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder; He burneth the chariot in the fire;-Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the Heathen, I will be exalted in the Earth! The Lord of Hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.'

* Burton's Diary, i., Introd., p. clxxix. et seq. (from Additional Ays cough Mss., no. 6125).

The latest of the Commentators expresses himself in reference to this Speech in the following singular way:

'No Royal Speech like this was ever delivered elsewhere in the world! It is, with all its prudence, and it is very prudent, sagacious, courteous, right royal in spirit,-perhaps the most artless transparent piece of Public Speaking this Editor has ever studied. Rude, massive, genuine; like a block of unbeaten gold. A Speech not so fit for Drury Lane, as for Valhalla, and the Sanhedrim of the Gods. The man himself, and the England he presided over, there and then, are to a singular degree visible in it; open to our eyes, to our sympathies. He who would see Oliver, will find more of him here than in most of the historybooks yet written about him.

'On the whole, the cursory modern Englishman cannot be expected to read this Speech :—and yet it is pity; the Speech might do him good, if he understood it. We shall not again hear a Supreme Governor talk in this strain; the dialect of it is very obsolete; much more than the grammar and diction, for ever obsolete,—not to my regret the dialect of it. But the spirit of it is a thing that should never have grown obsolete. The spirit of it will have to revive itself again; and shine out in new dialect and vesture, in infinitely wider compass, wide as God's known Universe now is, if it please Heaven! Since that spirit went obsolete, and men took to "dallying" with the Highest, to " being bold" with the Highest, and not "bold with men" (only Belial, and not "Christ" in any shape, assisting them), we have had but sorry times, in Parliament and out of it. There has not been a Supreme Governor worth the meal upon his periwig, in comparison,-since this spirit fell obsolete. How could there? Belial is a desperately bad sleeping partner in any concern whatever! Cant did not ever yet, that I know of, turn ultimately to a good account, for any man or thing. May the Devil swiftly be compelled to call in large masses of our current stock of Cant, and withdraw it from circulation! Let the people "run for gold," as the Chartists say; demand Veracity, Performance, instead of mealy-mouthed Speak. ing; and force him to recal his Cant. Thank Heaven, stern Destiny, merciful were it even to death, does now compel them

verily to "run for gold:" Cant in all directions is swiftly ebbing into Bank it was issued by.'

Speech being ended, the Honorable Members 'went to the House,' says Bulstrode ;* and in the Lobby, with considerable crowding I think, 'received, from the Chancery Clerk, Certifi cates in this form,'-for instance:

'COUNTY OF BUCKS. These are to certify that' Sir Bulstrode Whitlocke is returned by Indenture one of the Knights to serve in this present Parliament for the said County, and approved by his Highness's Council. NATH. TAYLER, Clerk of the Commonwealth in Chancery.'

Mr. Tayler has received Four-hundred 'Indentures' from Honorable Gentlemen; but he does not give out Four-hundred 'Certificates,' he only gives Three-hundred and odd. Near Onehundred Honorable Gentlemen can get no Certificate from Mr. Tayler,-none provided for you ;-and without Certificate there is no admittance. Soldiers stand ranked at the door; no man enters without his Certificate! Astonishing to see. Haselrig, Scott and the stiff Republicans, Ashley Cooper and the turbulent persons, who might have leavened this Parliament into strange fermentation, cannot, it appears, get in! No admittance here: saw Honorable Gentlemen ever the like ?

The most flagrant violation of the Privileges of Parliament that was ever known! exclaim they. A sore blow to Privilege indeed. With which the Honorable House, shorn of certain limbs in this ude way, knows not well what to do. The Clerk of the Commonwealth, being summoned, answers what he can; Nathaniel Fiennes, for the Council of State, answers what he can: the Hon orable House, actually intent on Settling the Nation, has to reflect that in real truth this will be a great furtherance thereto; that matters do stand in an anomalous posture at present; that the Nation should and must be settled. The Honorable House, with an effort, swallows this injury; directs the petitioning Excluded Members to apply to the Council.'t The Excluded Members, or some one Excluded Member, redacts an indignant Protest,

• Whitlocke, p. 639. † Commons Journals, vii., 424, 5, 6 (Sept., 18-22),