In parliamentary assemblies the most influential speeches will be, not those which approach most nearly to the ideal of classical eloquence, but those which best correspond to the education and mental tendencies prevalent at the time. Pym’s speeches, as has been observed, move in the fetters of scholastic distinctions: but that was the form in which men of that epoch were wont to think, in consequence of the style and method of teaching then in vogue. They are solid, energetic, and altogether calculated to win acceptance for the conclusions to which they point. On this occasion he entered in more detail than before into the source and nature of the evils from which England was suffering. He attributed them to the violence of the spiritual and perversion of the temporal courts, above all to the contempt for the privileges of Parliament and the favour shown to Papists, even in military employment. He illustrated each of his positions by quoting piquant, pertinent, and sensational particulars, in order to support the conclusion that a plan had been formed for altering and destroying piecemeal, not merely the established religion, but also the constitutional form of government. This, he said, was not only treason, but the greatest of all imaginable treasons: it touched alike the King and the [A.D. 1640.] kingdom[212]. To direct the general zeal towards the discovery and punishment of the authors of these treasons and their accomplices was the special object of his words, and he attained it fully.