They could not renew the fiery gush of enthusiasm, when once the
molten metal had begun to stiffen in the mould of policy and precedent.
The religious element of Puritanism became insensibly merged in the
political; and, its one great man taken away, it died, as passions have
done before, of possession. It was one thing to shout with Cromwell
before the battle of Dunbar, "Now, Lord, arise, and let thine enemies be
scattered!" and to snuffle, "Rise, Lord, and keep us safe in our
benefices, our sequestered estates, and our five per cent!" Puritanism
meant something when Captain Hodgson, riding out to battle through the
morning mist, turns over the command of his troop to a lieutenant, and
stays to hear the prayer of a cornet, there was "so much of God in it."
Become traditional, repeating the phrase without the spirit, reading the
present backward as if it were written in Hebrew, translating Jehovah by
"I was" instead of "I am,"--it was no more like its former self than the
hollow drum made of Zisca's skin was like the grim captain whose soul it
had once contained. Yet the change was inevitable, for it is not safe to
confound the things of Caesar with the things of God. Some honest
republicans, like Ludlow, were never able to comprehend the chilling
contrast between the ideal aim and the material fulfilment, and looked
askance on the strenuous reign of Oliver,--that rugged boulder of
primitive manhood lying lonely there on the dead level of the
century,--as if some crooked changeling had been laid in the cradle
instead of that fair babe of the Commonwealth they had dreamed.
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