The religious element entered into everything Cromwell did, mixing curiously with his hard common-sense and practical appreciation of worldly benefits. It appears in all his letters and speeches. Such a letter as he wrote to the Speaker of the House after the storming of Bristol, is in thought and manner more akin to the writings of some old Hebrew prophet than to those of any conqueror before or after Cromwell’s time. It is saturated, not merely with biblical phraseology, but with biblical feeling, all the glory being ascribed to God, and the army claiming as their sole honor that God had vouchsafed to use them in his service, and that by faith and prayer they had obtained the favor of the Most High. It is impossible for a fair-minded and earnest man to read Cromwell’s letters and reports after action, and the prayers he made and the psalms he chose to read and to give out before action, and to doubt the intensity of the man’s religious fervor. In our day such utterances would be hypocritical. Almost the only modern generals in whom they would have been the sincere expression of inward belief were Stonewall Jackson and Gordon; and the times had changed so utterly that even they could not possibly give utterance to them as Cromwell did. But in Cromwell’s time the most earnest Puritans thought as he did, and expressed their thoughts as he did. That such expression should lend itself very readily to hypocrisy was inevitable; indeed, it was perhaps inevitable that the habitual use of such expression should breed somewhat of hypocrisy in almost any user. The incessant employment by Cromwell and his comrades of the word “saints,” to distinguish themselves and those who thought like them, is particularly objectionable in its offensive self-consciousness. In this letter about the taking of Bristol Cromwell touches upon the religious differences which were the great causes of division among the victors. He writes: “Presbyterians, Independents, all have here the same spirit of faith and prayer; the same presence and answer; they agree here; have no names of difference; pity it is it should be otherwise anywhere.... And for brethren in things of the mind we look for no compulsion but that of light and reason.” Cromwell strove earnestly to bring about harmony between the Independents of the New Model army and the Presbyterians, who were dominant in Parliament. Even in that day there were in private life men of high character and great intellect who believed in true religious liberty, men who stood far ahead of Cromwell; but Cromwell was equally far ahead of all the men who then had any real control in public life; so far ahead, indeed, that he could not get any considerable body of public opinion abreast of him.