On the 4th of July, 1653--a very sultry day--the gentlemen met in the Whitehall Council Chamber, and seated themselves round the room on chairs. As Cromwell, with his officers, entered, all present rose and bowed. The General moved his hat, advanced to the middle window, and leaning on the back of a chair, addressed them for more than an hour. Descanting upon religion, he pleaded earnestly that all God's saints should be treated with tenderness, and that if he had seemed to reflect upon those who held Presbyterian opinions, he now thought faithfulness demanded that he should love them. He had, when God had been gracious to him and his companions, often read that passage: "He would plant in the wilderness the cedar, the shittah-tree, and the myrtle, and the oil tree; and He would set in the desert the fir tree, and the pine tree, and the box tree together. That they may see, and know, and consider, and understand together." Therefore he besought his audience to have care for the whole flock--lambs and all--and if the poorest and most mistaken Christian should desire to live peaceably and quietly under the government, let him be protected. He pleaded for a faithful ministry, such as did not derive itself from the Papacy; the true succession being through the Holy Spirit. He never looked, he said, to see such a day as that he now witnessed, Jesus Christ being owned by all. The persons present might not personally be known to each other; but the endeavour in calling that New Parliament had been, not to choose any but such as had hope and faith in Christ. "The Lord," he observed, "shakes the hills and mountains, and they reel; and God hath a hill too, an high hill as the hill of Bashan, and the chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels, and God will dwell upon this hill for ever." Such a speech had never before been delivered at the opening of a Parliament. When it was finished, a formal instrument devolving authority on the members was placed on the table, with the General's signature and seal, after which he left the Chamber,--politically "nothing more than the brewer's son of Huntingdon."[47] [Sidenote: _Little Parliament._]