Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 06.djvu/111

 all the horror in men’s minds, which at all dates, and at this date too, is due to him. The accursed thing! No man as yet dared to do it; all men believing that God would judge them. In the History of the Civil War far and wide, I have not fallen-in with one such phenomenon. Even Archbishop Laud and Peter Heylin meant what they say; through their words you do look direct into the scraggy conviction they have formed:—or if ‘lying Peter’ do lie, he at least knows that he is lying! Lord Clarendon, a man of sufficient unveracity of heart, to whom indeed whatsoever has direct veracity of heart is more or less horrible, speaks always in official language; a clothed, nay sometimes even quilted dialect, yet always with some considerable body in the heart of it, never with none! The use of the human tongue was then other than it now is. I counsel the reader to leave all that of Cant, Dupery, Macchiavelism, and so forth, decisively lying at the threshold. He will be wise to believe that these Puritans do mean what they say, and to try unimpeded if he can discover what that is. Gradually a very stupendous phenomenon may rise on his astonished eye. A practical world based on Belief in God;—such as many centuries had seen before, but as never any century since has been privileged to see. It was the last glimpse of it in our world, this of English Puritanism: very great, very glorious; tragical enough to all thinking hearts that look on it from these days of ours.

My second advice is, Not to imagine that it was Constitution, ‘Liberty of the people to tax themselves,’ Privilege of Parliament, Triennial or Annual Parliaments, or any modification of these sublime Privileges now waxing somewhat faint in our admirations, that mainly animated our Cromwells, Pyms, and Hampdens to the heroic efforts we still admire in retrospect. Not these very measurable ‘Privileges,’ but a far other and deeper, which could not be measured; of which these, and all grand social improvements whatsoever, are the corollary. Our ancient Puritan Reformers were, as all Reformers that will ever much benefit this Earth are always, inspired by a