OLIVER CROMWELL.
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��been diligently set forth in the garb of the most repulsive cant and hypocrisy. Among these men thus willfully traduc- ed by malicious enemies, stands pre-emi- nent the leader of the great rebellion, Oliver Cromwell. At the mention of his name, the mind is at once beset with im- ages of violence, of oppression, tyranny, falsehood and hypocrisy. Why should the name of Cromwell be associated with all that is vile in men or odious in de- mons? Did he walk the earth an incar- nate fiend? Was he, as his foes main- tained, in league with the Prince of dark- ness? Why has his name become, in his- tory, synonymous with usurper, tyrant, and hypocrite? 'Tis true he won a king- dom by his valor. So did David, the man after God's own heart. 'Tis true he consented to the death of an imbecile, perjured tyrant. If David did not as much, he was as undoubtedly reconciled, eventually, to the removal of Saul, and wore his roj al honors without reluctance. 'Tis true that Cromwell punished those who conspired to overthrow his govern- ment and refused to obey his laws. So did the Hebrew monarch. 'Tis true that Cromwell believed in a special Provi- dence, and ever acknowledged the reign of Jehovah. 'Tis no less true that he prayed earnestly and devoutly to the God of Heaven for divine counsel and guidance; and he believed, too, in his inmost soul, that his prayers were heard and answered. All this did the sweet Psalmist of Israel. It does not, there- fore follow, because Cromwell consented to the death of Charles, that he was a regicide, nor because he wore the regal honors that he was a usurper, nor be- cause he prayed and sung psalms that he was a hypocrite. Had he been as reck- less as Macedonia's " Madman or the Swede," had be been as profligate as Csesar and as bloodthirsty as Napoleon, had he combined and in his own charac- ter, all the vices of military chieftains from the days of Nimrod to Andrew Jackson, and at the same time been as undevout as Paine or Voltaire, he might have stood in peerless grandeur among earth's mightiest heroes, without a stain of meanness upon his character. Men
��have been so long accustomed to rever- ence power, and to admire the conquer- or's nodding plume and glittering helmet, when surrounded with all the " pomp and circumstance of glorious war," that they have learned not only to tolerate but to laud the vices of their heroes. They expect a great man to be a wicked man. Public character and private virtue are dissociated. The trappings of royalty, the diadem, the purple robe, and the studded baldrick, conceal the moial diseases of the monarch ; and when, like Herod of old, arrayed in royal apparel and seated upon a throne he makes an oration, the people shout; " it is the voice of a god and not of a man," though he may al- ready be smitten with a moral plague by the angel of the bottomless pit! Had Cromwell been as immoral and profligate as other conquerors whom the world de- lights to honor, his very wickedness would have abated one half of the slan- ders with which the press has teemed against him. But he was a religious man, a man of prayer. In this he was so unlike other conquerors that the mul- titude, at once, pronounced him a hypo- crite. The like was never known in the biographies of a thousand heroes. Great men never pray — never make God's word the standard of their conduct. For a pretence he makes long prayers. He is a deceiver — a mean, canting hypocrite, say they. The reputation of the Pro- tector has suffered from this one cause more than from all others. It was not so strange a thing in the world's history, or in England's history even, that a king should be deposed or murdered, that the trial and condemnation of his most sa- cred majesty, Charles I. should have so filled the hearts of men with horror and loaded the memory of his judges and ex- ecutioners with ignominy. Had the king been removed by secret assassina tion, his murderer might have filled his throne with no reproach of meanness. Men would have called him wicked, no doubt, but the very daring of the villany would have cloaked its enormity. Men look upon Richard III. with more com- placency than upon Cromwell ; and why ? Because they, erroneously, suppose that
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