depend more on thyself. Pardon such as desire to trample on the dust of a poor worm, for they are thy people, too; and pardon the folly of this short prayer. Even for Jesus Christ's sake. And give us a good-night, if it be thy pleasure. Amen!"*

But the days of Cromwell—such is the tenure upon which human life is held- were numbered! Whilst Europe was resounding with the fame of those splendid achievements which had raised Great Britain to an unprecedented eminence, whilst powerful empires were crouching at his feet, and his incomparable energy was beating down the hydra-like attempts of modern and ancient factions, but before he had time fully to concentrate and establish the power out of which future liberty was to spring,— he died. He left behind him a name inseparably bound up with England's pride and power, and a fame which will outlive reproach, and may well dispense with statuary. Whatever his faults, and his very strength was his weakness, he taught a secondary nation to become the first in Europe, by developing its latent powers and resources. What can be more honorable to Cromwell than the fact that he, in the seventeenth century, had approximated as nearly to religious liberty as most senators have done in the nineteenth; and that he only stopped then where they are stopping now? With clearer views than his predecessors, his contemporaries, or his immediate successors, he saw, to a large extent, that freedom was an essential element of virtue and of power, and that a nation was great, not when it prescribed opinions, but when it acted on the divine rule of bearing with the mistaken, and diffusing free air and sunshine around it.

Happy shall we be if whilst we profit by the errors, we shall exceed the lessons, of so great an instructor!

* Carlyle's Cromwell, vol. IX., p. 400.

CHAPTER VII.

THE RETURNING TIDE.

"The flagrant inconsistency of all protestant intolerance is a poison in its veins which must destroy it.". MACKINTOSH.

AMONG the eminent men who flourished during the period of the great civil wars, none was more worthily conspicuous than Richard Baxter. His name, his piety, his usefulness, have been bequeathed by him as a precious legacy to Christ's church, to show how much more religion is than an empty name; how near a Christian on earth may be to a saint in Paradise; and how the deepest concern in public movements does not necessarily fret away a heaven-born piety. His portrait is almost as well known as his name. The pinched skull-cap, from under which the jetblack locks flow down with puritanical severity; the sharplychiselled features, indicating an equal familiarity with thought and emotion; the somewhat severe expression of the dark lineaments, over which a divine radiance is yet diffused, like some stern fastness glowing in the brilliance of a summer's sun, are in the memory of the least intelligent. To dwell upon the history of such a man, even to its most detailed incidents, and to observe how his errors and littlenesses become faint, when regarded by the side of a devoutness which has scarcely a parallel, would be, to any well-constituted man, a delightful task; but it is one we cannot in this chapter undertake to perform, nor is it necessary.

The ancient town of Kidderminster is at present, owing to its being off the great lines of railway, no very accessible spot. It stands in a basin of the red sandstone formation, and its vicinity is

—

delightfully diversified with hill and valley. Nothing can be more delicious than the green foliage, alternating with the ruby-colored soil which abundantly produces it, a contrast of color always harmonious, and in this neighborhood peculiarly beautiful. Kidderminster is less injured than most towns by the progress of modern improvement. The natural features of the place are, indeed, beyond the possibility of change; but, besides these, old structures meet the eye continually. The eminence from which our sketch

VLDIGEES

is taken Bewdley-road - must exhibit in 1851 nearly the same aspect it presented in the days of the devout nonconformist. The steep declivity down which the road passes into the town, displaying ancient houses, hollowed out of the living rock, as if they had been parts though very ungraceful ones of some modern Petra; the antique tower, conspicuous in the central distance, built of the red rock, to which the corrosions of weather impart a peculiar mellowness; the ill-constructed houses, sometimes almost buried under the cliffs, and then as picturesquely lifting them

selves high in air, -impart a physiognomy to the ancient place extremely uncommon.

Here, then, the holy man lived and labored. On each side of this old street the voice of thanksgiving might be heard, on a Sabbath-evening, from the various families assembled at their evening devotions. The grave form of the thin, sickness-worn divine, or of his congenial assistant, may be imagined, proceeding from house. to house, as he pursued his work of conversation or catechising among the numerous parishioners. The crowds gathering weekly to the church bore witness to the value the hearers set upon the living truth, enforced as it was by Baxter's earnest oratory, and still more by his exemplary life. His time for at this period he had neither wife nor family- was altogether devoted to his flock. Though his means were small, his liberality was great. Vice was frowned down. The Sabbath was so observed, that the traces of that observance yet remain, or did until very recently, in the habits of the people. All Baxter's hearers were not, indeed, converted, and enemies and maligners still remained; but they were mostly silenced; and Kidderminster presented, in his days, the nearest approach, perhaps, which any town has ever exhibited, to a Christianized community. And what rendered this the more remarkable was, that this reformation took place at a time when internal discord was eating into the heart of the land.

No change can be greater than that which has befallen the interior of Baxter's church itself. It stands on one side of the town, and on the edge of a precipice, which renders it a commanding object. But all within is transformed. A taste, in some respects of the best kind, but of the most tractarian pattern, has remodelled the whole edifice; and the advance to Romanism is conspicuous upon every panel and adornment. But in the "New Meeting" Baxter's ancient pulpit yet survives, having been purchased, among a mass of old rubbish, when, some years ago, the church was undergoing alteration. What visitor can look upon it unmoved? It is an ornamented structure, as rich as carving and gilt could make it, of the date of James I., when Inigo Jones gave

the taste for Grecian architecture in Gothic churches. Carved in alto-relievo, on its sounding-board are the appropriate words:

SING UNTO THE

LORD PRAISE

HIS NAME DECLARE

HIS WORKS A

MONG THE PEOPLE

PSALMS THE CV.

Below, in a similar style, is the conspicuous name of its donor:

ALICE DAWX WIDOW GAVE THIS.

Kidderminster has no other monument of Richard Baxter. It is impossible that it could possess a better.

Baxter had not been long settled in Kidderminster, when the great civil war began. He was at this time twenty-six years of age. The king kept as far as possible from the counties which formed the eastern association; and drew most of his retainers from Shropshire, Herefordshire, Worcestershire, and Wales. As, to be a puritan, or to be suspected of being one, exposed a man to all kinds of abuse and exaction from the royal partisans, many who would have lived in quiet, had such a course been possible, were compelled to ally themselves with the parliamentary troops, and seek refuge under their protection. Among those who were in this predicament was Baxter himself. When the king's declarations were read in the marketplace of Kidderminster, the rabble grew so riotous and outrageous, that he was compelled to leave the town. He retired for a while to Gloucester, where he became involved in sectarian disputes, tending to sharpen his acrimony against ecclesiastical schismatics. He subsequently found a refuge in Coventry, where he resided for a time with a friend, preaching once a week to the soldiers of the garrison, and to various ministers and others, who had taken refuge