Cromwell, Oliver, 1599-1658; Great Britain -- History -- Commonwealth and Protectorate, 1649-1660
Oliver's speech did not all turn upon what ordinary men
term politics. "Make it a shame," he cried, "to see men bold in sin
and profaneness, and God will bless you. You will be a blessing to
the nation; and by this will be more repairers of breaches than by
anything in the world. Truly these things do respect the souls of men,
and the spirits--which are the men. The mind is the man. If that be
kept pure, a man signifies somewhat; if not, I would very fain see what
difference there is betwixt him and a beast. He hath only some activity
to do some more mischief." It was the voice of the higher--because more
universal--Puritanism which rang in these words, a voice which soared
to worlds above the region of ceremonial form or doctrinal dispute,
echoing, as from the lips of a man of practical wrestlings with the
world, the voice of the imaginative poet who, in the days of his youth,
had taught that
So dear to Heaven is saintly chastity
That, when a soul is found sincerely so,
A thousand liveried angels lackey her,
Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt,
And in clear dream and solemn vision
Tell her of things that no gross ear can hear,
Till oft converse with heavenly habitants
Begin to cast a beam on the outward shape,
The unpolluted temple of the mind,
And turns it by degrees to the soul's essence
Till all be made immortal.
Oliver had to touch earth again with a financial statement and to crave
for Parliamentary supplies. A demand for money was not particularly
welcome to the members, and they preferred to wrangle for some weeks
over the case of James Naylor, a fanatic who had allowed himself to
be greeted as the Messiah by his feminine admirers. In October news
came that Stayner, in command of a detachment from Blake's fleet,
had destroyed or captured a part of the Plate Fleet off the Spanish
coast, and in the following month the carts were rolling through the
London streets on their way to the Tower with silver worth £200,000.
Emboldened by this success, Oliver's confidants brought in a bill
perpetuating the decimation of the Royalists by act of Parliament. The
bill was rejected, and hard words were spoken of the Major-Generals.
Oliver accepted the decision of the House, and the Major-Generals were
withdrawn.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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