Suddenly and without warning appears in history, Oliver Cromwell, taking his seat in the House of Commons on Monday, March Seventeenth, Sixteen Hundred Twenty-seven, making then a speech of five minutes, accusing one Reverend Doctor Alablaster of flat popery; and goes back into the silence, pulling the silence in after him, to remain twelve years. Then comes he forth again as member of Cambridge. He was a country squire, bronze-faced, callous-handed, clothes plainly made by a woman, dyed brown with walnut-juice. The man was much in earnest, although seemingly having little to say. He was not especially conspicuous, because it was largely a Parliament of Puritans. As members, there sat in it John Hampden, Selden, Stratford, Prynne, and with these, the rising tide had carried Oliver Cromwell. In a seat near him sat Sir Edward Coke, known to posterity because he wrote a book on Lyttleton, and Lyttleton is known to us for one sole reason only, and that is because Coke used him for literary flux. Religions are founded on antipathies. Patriotism, which Doctor Johnson, beefeater-in-ordinary, said is the last refuge of a rogue, is usually nothing but hatred of other countries, very much as we are told that the shibboleth of Harvard is, "To hell with Yale." Puritanism is a reactionary move, a swinging out of the pendulum away from idleness, gluttony, sham, pretense and hypocrisy. Charles the First was king. He was a year younger than Oliver, but as Fate would have it, he was to die first. So sat Oliver Cromwell, grim, silent--thinking. And then back he lumbered by the stagecoach to his country house. His finances not prospering, he had moved to the little village of Saint Ives, famous because of the fact that there was born the only lawyer ever elected to a saintship. Once a year there is a village festival at Saint Ives in honor of the attorney, when all the children sing, "Advocatus et non latro, res miranda populo." The land owned by Cromwell was boggy, willow-grown, marshy, fit only for grazing. Oliver was a justice of the peace, now devoting his days to improving his herds, draining the marsh-lands, praying, occasionally fasting, exhorting at the village crossroads, and once collaring the loafers at a country tavern and making them join in a hymn. This exploit, together with that of quelling a small disturbance among some student factions at the neighboring town of Cambridge, had attracted a little attention to him, and Cambridge Puritans, not knowing whom else to send to Parliament, chose Cromwell, the dark horse. With his big family he was very gentle, yet obedience was demanded, and given, without question or dispute, and a glance at the portrait of the man makes the matter plain. It was easier to agree with him than successfully to oppose him.