He brought two letters from my Father and Roger. My Father's was sad; Roger's was indignant. Both spoke of divisions among the supporters of the Parliament. They were written at different times, but reached us together by Dr. Antony's hand as the first safe opportunity. The first was from Roger, dated late in September, speaking of the surrender of Lord Essex's foot:--"Marston Moor with the four thousand that lie dead there," he wrote, "was after all, it seems, not a step towards the end. Everything gained there is thrown away again by the indecisions of noblemen who are afraid to win too much; and old soldiers who will not move a finger except in the fashion some one else moved it a hundred years ago. As if when war is once begun, there were any way to peace but by the ruin of one party, except, indeed, by the ruin of both; as if a lingering war were a kind of half peace, instead of being as it is, the worst of wars; the opening of the nation's veins at a thousand points, whereby she slowly bleeds to death. Lieutenant-General Cromwell takes sadly to heart the sad conditions of our army in the West. He saith, had we wings we would fly thither. Indeed, wings he hath at command, in the hearts of his men, 'never so cheerful,' he says, 'as when there is work to do.' But there are those whose chief business is to clip these wings, lest affairs fly too fast. The general saith, 'If we could all intend our own ends less, and our ease too, our business in this army would go on wheels for expedition.' If he were at the head of affairs, we should not, in sooth, lack wheels or wrings." The second letter was from my Father written early in November, after the second battle of Newbury (fought on the 27th of October). He wrote,-- "It is the old story, I fear, of our Protestant lack of unity. People do not seem able to see that the military unity of the Roman Church being broken, the only ecclesiastical unity possible for us is the unity as of an empire, like that of Great Britain, with different races and local constitutions under one sovereign; or the unity as of a family of grown-up children, in free obedience to one father. If Lutherans and Calvinists could have merged their lesser differences in their real agreement, probably that terrible war, which is still crushing the life out of Germany, need never have begun. If Prelatists, Presbyterians, and Independents could agree now to yield each other liberty, this war of ours might end. But while they had power, Prelatists would rather let the nation be torn asunder than tolerate Presbyterians. And now the Presbyterians think they have power, they had rather lose everything we have gained than tolerate Independents. The merit of the Independents and Anabaptists being, perhaps, only this, that they never have had the power to persecute. I cannot see whither it is all tending.