"YET

CHAPTER XVII.

THE LAST DAYS OF CROMWELL.

ET is their strength labour and sorrow;" this, after all, must be said even of this great and most successful man. Our conception of him is such that we can well believe he longed to be at rest. It was an amazing work, that in which he was the actor; but with what toil and endurance and sleepless energy had he to travail day and night! The honour of knighthood and £500 a year for ever, was offered by a proclamation, by Charles Stuart, from his vile, ragged, and filthy Court in Paris, to any who would take the life of the Protector; and there were many in England who longed to see the mighty monarch dethroned. In his palace chambers lived his noble mother, nearly ninety, now trembling at every sound, lest it be some ill to her noble and royal son.

We are not surprised at the absence of much that seems, to our minds, happiness in those last days. The higher we go, brother, in the great kingdom of duty, the less we must expect to enjoy, apparently, in the picturesque villages of happiness. Ah! but the sense brightens and sweetens within; for there

are they "who taste and see that the Lord is good." "Do you not see," says our anti-Cromwell friend, "a Divine compensation in this unhappiness of Cromwell?" No, we do not. What, in his old age was Baxter happier? or Vane? or were the last days of Owen more sweetly soothed? On the contrary. Weak Richard Cromwell-who does nothing-steps into the bye-lanes of life, and goes serenely off the stage. Would you rather, then, be Richard than Oliver ?—rather have Richard's quiet than Oliver's unrest? It is well to sigh for calm; but to sigh for it, indeed, we must deserve it. Easy it is for us who do nothing worth calling a deed, to take our Rhine journeys, to stand in Venice, or to see the broad sun shine on us from Ben Mucdhui or Loch Lomond, or the moon rise over Grasmere. But men who have done a thousand times over our work never know that hour of rest. What then, they are rewarded better than we are, and shall be! No, thou caitiff, coward Royalist! Say not to us, “See, here is the life thou callest a brave one going out in ashes. What is Oliver, the just and the holy, better than I with my songs, and my harlots, and my dice?" And we say, "Thou poor, halt, and maimed rascal, he is every way better; for he has peace." Oh, doubtless, then, the hard, rough hand of the old Marston and Naseby soldier would take once more the gentle hand of Elizabeth, clasped tightly thirtyeight years ago; floods of tenderness would come over him as they come over all such men. In those

last days it was that he said to his Parliament : "There is not a man living can say I sought this place-not a man or woman living on English ground. I can say in the presence of God, in comparison with whom we are like creeping ants upon the earth, I would have been glad to have lived under my woodside, and have kept a flock of sheep, rather than have undertaken such a government as this." Yes; you can see him there, in the great, stately palace, in some quiet room, talking with Elizabeth over the old, free, healthy, quiet days at Huntingdon, and St. Ives, and Ely, and Ramsey— days surely, never to be known again until the deeper quiet of eternity is reached. Do you not sympathise with that quiet, timid, lady-like wife, in her dove-like beauty, trembling near the eagle heart of her great husband, and wondering, "When he is gone, what will, what can become of me?" As we walk in fancy through the old palace chambers, we think many such things about them.

Death threw his shadow over Oliver's palace before he broke in. The following of Thurloe is touching: "My Lord Protector's mother, of ninetyfour years old, died last night. A little before her death she gave my lord her blessing in these words: 'The Lord cause His face to shine upon you, and comfort you in all your adversities, and enable you to do great things for the glory of your most high God, and to be a relief unto His people. My dear son, I leave my heart with thee. Good-night.'

"Taken from the evil to come." One is glad she went first, before the great change. Then his heart was shaken by the death of the Lady Elizabeth, his beloved daughter, Mrs. Claypole. This broke down his heart. Her long illness; his tenderness, as father, so extreme; his constant watching by her side, the spectator of her violent convulsive fits: the strong soldier, who had ridden his war-charger conquering over so many fields, bowed before the blow when her death came.

And, therefore, only a few days after, when he was seized with illness at Hampton Court, he felt that it was for death; and that death-bed is one of the most profoundly memorable, even as that life was one of the most illustrious and glorious. But it was more than the death-bed of a hero; it was the death-bed of a Christian. In that death-chamber prayers-deep, powerful, long-went up, and men sought to lay hold on God that He might spare him; but, says one, "We could not be more desirous he should abide than he was content and willing to be gone. He called for his Bible, and desired an honourable and godly person there, with others present, to read unto him that passage in Phil. iv. 11-13: 'Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound everywhere and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.

do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.' Which read, said he, to use his own words as near as we can remember them, 'This Scripture did once save my life, when my eldest son, poor Oliver, died, which went as a dagger to my heart, indeed it did.' And then, repeating the words of the text himself, and reading the tenth and eleventh verses, of St, Paul's contentment and submission to the will of God in all conditions, said he, 'It's true, Paul, you have learned this, and attained to this measure of grace; but what shall I do? Ah, poor creature, it is a hard lesson for me to take out! I find it so.' But reading on to the thirteenth verse, where Paul saith, I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me,' then faith began to work, and his heart to find support and comfort, and he said thus to himself, 'He that was Paul's Christ is my Christ too;' and so 'he drew water out of the wells of salvation.'"

Oliver, we find," says Carlyle, "spoke much of 'the covenants,' which, indeed, are the grand axes of all, in that Puritan universe of his. Two covenants ; one of works, with fearful judgment for our shortcomings therein, one of grace, with unspeakable mercy; gracious engagements, covenants which the eternal God has vouchsafed to make with his feeble creature, man. Two-and by Christ's death they have become one-there, for Oliver, is the divine solution of this our mystery of life. They were two,' he was heard ejaculating-'but put into one