nations than in others; but in all strong nations persecution will cause revolt long before it takes the terrible form given it by Spaniards and Turks; and, once the war is on, the men who revolt hate any persecutor so much that there is scant room for intensification of the feeling. Moreover, instead of the Cromwellian government growing more, it grew less tolerant of Catholicism and Episcopacy as time went on. The people at large were peculiarly irritated by what were merely the defects inevitably incident to the good features of Puritanism in that age. When faith is very strong and belief very sincere, men must possess great wisdom, broad charity, and the ability to learn by experience, or else they will certainly try to make others live up to their own standards. This would be bad enough, even were the standards absolutely right; and it is necessarily worse in practice than in theory, inasmuch as mixed with the right there is invariably an element of what is wrong or foolish. The extreme exponents and apologists of any fervent creed can always justify themselves, in the realm of pure logic, for insisting that all the world shall be made to accept and act up to their standards, and that they must necessarily strive to bring this about, if they really believe what they profess to believe. Of course, in practice, the answer is that there are hundreds of different creeds, or shades of creeds, all of which are believed in with equal devoutness by their followers, and therefore in a workaday government it is necessary to insist that none shall interfere with any other. Where people are as far advanced in practical good sense and in true religious toleration as in the United States to-day, the great majority of each creed gradually grows to accept this position as axiomatic, and the smaller minority is kept in check without effort, both by law and by public opinion. In Cromwell’s time, such law did not obtain in any land, and public opinion was not ripe for it. He was far in advance of his fellow-Englishmen. He described their attitude perfectly, and indeed the attitude of all Europe, when he remarked: “Every sect saith, Oh, give me liberty! but, given it and to spare, he will not yield it to anyone else. Liberty of conscience is a natural right, and he that would have it ought to give it.... I desire it from my heart; I have prayed for it; I have watched for the day to see union and right understanding between the Godly people—Scots, English, Jews, Gentiles, Presbyterians, Independents, Anabaptists, and all.”