while that of Louis, in spite of his graces and urbanities, is a watchword for all that is repulsive in despotism.  Hence Cromwell is more and more a favorite with enlightened minds, while Louis is more and more regarded as a man who made the welfare of the State subordinate to his own glory.  In a word, Cromwell feared only God; while Louis feared only hell.  The piety of the one was lofty; that of the other was technical, formal, and pharisaical.  The chief defect in the character of Cromwell was his expediency, or what I call jesuitism,—­following out good ends by questionable means; the chief defect in the character of Louis was an absorbing egotism, which sacrificed everything for private pleasure or interest.

The difficulty in judging Cromwell seems to me to be in the imperfection of our standards of public morality.  We are apt to excuse in a ruler what we condemn in a private man.  If Oliver Cromwell is to be measured by the standard which accepts expediency as a guide in life, he will be excused for his worst acts.  If he is to be measured by an immutable standard, he will be picked to pieces.  In regard to his private life, aside from cant and dissimulation, there is not much to condemn, and there is much to praise.  He was not a libertine like Henry IV., nor an egotist like Napoleon.  He delighted in the society of the learned and the pious; he was susceptible to grand sentiments; he was just in his dealings and fervent in his devotions.  He was liberal, humane, simple, unostentatious, and economical.  He was indeed ambitious, but his ambition was noble.

His intellectual defect was his idea of special divine illumination, which made him visionary and rhapsodical and conceited.  He was a second-adventist, and believed that Christ would return, at no distant time, to establish the reign of the saints upon the earth.  But his morals were as irreproachable as those of Marcus Aurelius.  Like Michael Angelo, he despised frivolities, though it is said he relished rough jokes, like Abraham Lincoln.  He was conscientious in the discharge of what he regarded as duties, and seemed to feel his responsibility to God as the sovereign of the universe.  His family revered him as much as the nation respected him.  He was not indeed lovable, like Saint Louis; but he can never lose the admiration of mankind, since the glory of his administration was not sullied by those private vices which destroy esteem and ultimately undermine both power and influence.  He was one of those world-heroes of whom nations will be proud as they advance in the toleration of human infirmities,—­as they draw distinction between those who live for themselves and those who live for their country,—­and the recognition of those principles on which all progress is based.

Cromwell died prematurely, if not for his fame, at least for his usefulness.  His reign as Protector lasted only five years, yet what wonders he did in that brief period!  He suppressed the anarchies of the revolution, he revived law, he restored learning, he developed the resources of his country; he made it respected at home and abroad, and shed an imperishable glory on his administration,—­but “on the threshold of success he met the inexorable enemy.”