"The cause General Cromwell deemed to be the multiplication of commanders. The remedy, that members of both Houses should _deny themselves_ the right to appoint _themselves_ to posts of military command. The 'Self-Denying Ordinance' and the 'New Model' of the army were proposed, and soon passed the House of Commons. The Lords debated and rejected it; but this day the Commons have appointed Sir Thomas Fairfax commander-in-chief, superseding Lord Essex. And few doubt but they will carry it through. "Thus may, we trust, a few vigorous strokes bring peace; and peace, order. "But meanwhile, during these dark January days, another conflict has ended; on Tower Hill. "The fallen archbishop, whose name was a terror for so many years in every Puritan home in England, there, on this 10th of January, laid down his life heroically and calmly as a martyr, which he surely believed himself to be. He read a prayer he had composed for the occasion. I grieve to say, the scaffold was crowded, not with his friends. He said he would have wished an empty scaffold, but if it could not be so, God's will be done; he was more willing to go out of the world than any could be to send him. A helpless, forsaken old man, heavily laden with bodily infirmities, four years a prisoner, uneasily dragged from trial to trial, I never heard that his courage failed. I would they had let him die in quiet. But Sir John Clotworthy, over zealous, as I think, asked him what text was most comfortable to a man in his departure. 'Cupio dissolviet esse cum Christo,' said the archbishop. 'That is a good desire,' was the rejoinder; 'but there must be a foundation for that desire, an assurance.' 'No man can express it,' was the calm reply, 'it must be found within.' 'Yet it is founded on a word, and that word should be known.' 'It is the knowledge of Jesus Christ,' said the archbishop, 'and that alone;' and to finish the discussion, he turned to the headsman, gave him some money, and said, 'Here, honest friend, God forgive thee, and do thy office on me in mercy;' and so, after a short prayer, his head was struck off at one blow. The crowd dispersed, and the fatal hill was left once more silent and deserted, with the scaffold and the Tower facing each other, the weary prison of so many, and the blood-stained key, which had for so many unbarred its heavy gates, and also, we may trust, another gate, from inside which our whole earth seems but a prison chamber. "If we look at the world only as divided into _parties_, truly this death of his were worth to those who think with him, more than many victories in Parliament or in the field. But if we think of the One Kingdom, surely we may rejoice that one who, as it seems to us, erred much in head and heart, and did no little hurt, came right at last, and took refuge with Him who receives us not as Archbishops, or Presbyterians or Independents, but as repentant, weary, and heavy-laden men and women.