Perhaps in these references to Thurloe we have drawn too largely on the reader's patience, but in the tangled thicket of his immense collection of letters, much fruit may be picked out from amidst thorns and briars, by the historian who searches for illustrations of affairs under Cromwell's Major-Generals. Not that anybody can expect to find in their reports an accurate picture of what Catholics, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, or Anabaptists really were; for it is evident these old soldiers were full of prejudice, and must have been oft-times misinformed; but the correspondence clearly reflects the sentiments of those in power with reference to that portion of the English people which gave them so much trouble. We are not able from these letters to determine exactly what was the character of the accused, or what was the treatment they deserved; but we are able to see how they were judged and treated by this class of rulers, who combined in one and the same person the soldier, the magistrate, and the ecclesiastical overseer. [Sidenote: _Sir Harry Vane._] Vane, after Cromwell's usurpation of absolute dictatorship, returned to Raby Castle, in the county of Durham--whose old grey towers, rich in Neville memories, still lift up their heads, full of feudal grandeur and picturesque beauty, among the trees of a lordly park, well stocked with deer. There, in rooms far different from the present modernized apartments, this philosophical statesman reflected upon what was going on in England under the administration of Major-Generals, and in some quiet chamber wrote his "Retired Man's Meditations." In the same abode also--when in March, 1656, Cromwell commanded a general fast, that the people might apply themselves to the Lord, to discover the Achan who had so long obstructed the settlement of these distracted kingdoms--Vane wrote his "Healing Question," in which he brings out his doctrine of religious liberty more luminously perhaps than he had ever done before. As it illustrates the progress of opinion in that subject, and is a clearer statement of principles which in our day are widely adopted, than can be found in any other book published during the Protectorate, we cannot resist the temptation to transfer to these pages the following extract:--