There is no Christian people even among the Protestant nations which could be compared with the English in knowledge of the Old Testament and in devotion to its teachings. This was the avowed object and the undeniable result of the English Reformation. “Elizabeth (1533‒1603) might silence or tune the pulpits,” says John Richard Green (1837‒1883), “but it was impossible for her to silence or tune the great preachers of justice and mercy and truth who spoke from the Book.... The whole temper of the nation was changed. A new conception of life and of man superseded the old. A new moral and religious impulse spread through every class.” This Biblical influence was felt long before the translation of the Bible into English. When King James I. (1566‒1625) in 1604 sanctioned a new translation of the Bible, he let loose moral and spiritual forces which transformed English life and thought. But before this the Renaissance, or revival of learning, had led to the study of the Scriptures and so had helped to make men Puritans. The Pilgrim Fathers crossed the ocean with little more than this sacred volume in their hands and its spirit in their hearts. The men who founded new Commonwealths built up their constitutions upon the teachings of the Bible; and tradition has long asserted that every soldier in Cromwell’s army was provided with a pocket edition, which consisted of appropriate quotations from the Scriptures, mostly from the Bible of the Jews.¹ ¹ Cromwell’s Soldiers’ Bible, London, 1895. A close parallel can be drawn between the Puritans, of whom Oliver Cromwell (1599‒1658) was the principal type, and the enthusiasts who shared with _Judas Maccabæus_ (_ob._ 3628 _a.m._) the dangers and glories of his illustrious career. Both were stern warriors forced into battle by the stress of great principles, and by the strongest sense of obligation to a sacred cause. Both fought for liberty against tyranny, against religious persecution and unrighteousness. The spirit which inspired them all was the secret of the world’s greatest achievements. The parallel can be traced even further. Cromwell’s life was shaped by the influence of the Bible. For a figure to compare with Cromwell we must turn neither to ancient history nor to early English history, but to the pages of Jewish national history in the Bible. Cromwell’s examples were _Joshua_ (2406‒2516 _a.m._), _Gideon_ (_fl._ 2676 _a.m._) and _Samuel_ (_ob._ 2882 _a.m._). _Hebrew_ warriors and prophets were his ideals. And that is not to be wondered at, for Cromwell studied the Bible every day with attention and reverence and with a desire to be guided by it. He was an intellectual and spiritual child of the Old Testament, and he “imagined himself to be a second _Phineas_, raised up by Providence to be the scourge of idolatry and superstition.”¹ ¹ Daniel Neal (1678‒1743): _History of the Puritans_, vol. iv. (1738), p. 187. CHAPTER II.