In those days of tardy intercourse with the Continent, this last letter had scarcely reached its destination when the gossips of London were all astir with reports relative to Cromwell's escape from a great personal danger. A story gained circulation, to the effect, that a hole had been cut in the backdoor of Whitehall chapel, and that a basket of pitch, tar, and gunpowder had been placed there, with a lighted match hung over it, in order to blow up both the palace and the Protector. A resolution of the Parliament to keep a day of thanksgiving followed the discovery of this design--known in history as Sindercombe's plot--whereupon a curious debate ensued upon the question, as to who should preach the sermon for improving the event. Alderman Foot, member for the city of London, proposed that Dr. Reynolds should perform the office; when exceptions were taken to the "low voice" of that eminent Presbyterian Divine. The same complaint was urged with regard to Mr. Caryl, the Independent. "It is strange we should not hear as well now as we did fourteen years ago," observed Lord Strickland--one of his Highness's Council, and member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne--to which Mr. Robinson, who represented Yorkshire, added the remark--"Ministers tell us our faults. It is fit we should tell them theirs. Their reading of sermons makes their voice lower. I doubt we are going to the episcopal way of reading prayers, too." Another member moved that Mr. Matthew Mead, minister of Stepney, might be selected as one of the preachers: and he expressed an earnest hope that charity might be more manifest on the occasion than it had been when a fast was last observed by the Houses, for then "nothing was given at the door to the poor." From observations advanced in the course of this amusing debate, it appears that reading discourses had begun to be somewhat fashionable amongst the English pulpit orators of the Puritan period; it was, however, otherwise in Scotland, _memoriter_ delivery being the practice there; and hence, Lord Cochrane of Dundonald, who sat for Aire and Renfrew, suggested his fellow-countryman, Mr. Galaspy, of the Scotch kirk, as a minister peculiarly fitted to edify the House by his ministrations, because he was not accustomed to read his discourses. The honourable member raised a laugh by saying "something of an evil man who read his sermons."[135] [Sidenote: 1657, March.] [Sidenote: _The New Constitution._]