Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 06.djvu/299

Rh not one of them fairly believable;—wondered to see how already in one generation, earnest Puritanism being hung on the gallows or thrown out in St. Margaret’s Churchyard, the whole History of it had grown mythical, and men were ready to swallow all manner of nonsense concerning it. Ask for dates, ask for proofs: Who saw it, heard it; when was it, where? A misdate, of itself, will do much. So accurate a man as Mr. Godwin, generally very accurate in such matters, makes “a master-stroke of duplicity” merely by mistake of dating: the thing when Oliver did say it, was a credible truth, and no master-stroke or stroke of any kind!

‘“Master-strokes of duplicity”; “false protestations”; “fomenting of the Army discontents”: alas, alas! It was not Cromwell that raised these discontents; not he, but the elemental Powers! Neither was it, I think, “by masterstrokes of duplicity” that Cromwell steered himself victoriously across such a devouring chaos; no, but by continuances of noble manful simplicity, I rather think,—by meaning one thing before God, and meaning the same before men, not as a weak but as a strong man does. By conscientious resolution; by sagacity, and silent wariness and promptitude; by religious valour and veracity,—which, however it may fare with foxes, are really, after all, the grand source of clearness for a man in this world!’We here close our Manuscript.

Modern readers ought to believe that there was a real impulse of heavenly Faith at work in this Controversy; that on both sides, more especially on the Army’s side, here lay the central element of all; modifying all other elements and passions;—that this Controversy was, in several respects, very different from the common wrestling of Greek with Greek for what are called ‘Political objects’!—Modern readers, mindful of the French Revolution, will perhaps compare these Presbyterians and Independents to the Gironde and the Mountain. And there is an analogy; yet with differences. With a great difference in the situations; with the difference, too, between