And as Cromwell listened his face grew luminous; he seemed to look through his eyeballs, rather than with them, and when Milton ceased there was silence until he spoke.
"I see," he said, "a great people, a vast empire, from the loins of all nations it shall spring. And there shall be no king there. But the desire of all hearts shall be towards it, and it shall be a covert for the oppressed, and bread and wine and meat for those ready to perish." Then, sighing, he seemed to realise the near and the present, and he added, "'Twas but yesterday I wrote to that good man, the Rev. John Cotton of Boston. I have told him that I am truly ready to serve him and the rest of the brethren, and the churches with him. And Doctor Verity, I wish much to have some talk with Mr. Hooker. I have a purpose to ask him to be my chaplain, if he be so minded, for his sermons first taught me that I had a soul to save, and that I must transact that business directly with God, and not through any church or clergy." And when Cromwell made this statement, he little realised that Hooker, founding a democracy in America, and he himself fighting for a free Parliament and a constitutionally limited executive in England, were "both of them of the same spirit and purpose"; and that the Hartford minister and the Huntingdon gentleman were preeminently the leaders in that great movement of the seventeenth century which made the United States, and is now transforming England.
Doctor Verity shook his head at the mention of the Chaplainship. "Your Highness will give great offense to some not of Mr. Hooker's precise way of thinking," he said.
"I care not, John Verity," Oliver answered with much warmth; "one creed must not trample upon the heels of another creed; Independents must not despise those under baptism, and revile them. I will not suffer it. Even to Quakers, we must wish no more harm than we do our own souls."
With these words he rose from the table, and Mr. Milton, the Ladies Mary and Frances Cromwell, and Jane Swaffham went into the great hall, where there was an exceedingly fine organ. In a short time Mr. Milton began to play and to sing, but the girls walked up and down talking to Jane of their admirers, and their new gowns, and of love-letters that had been sent them in baskets of flowers. And what song can equal the one we sing, or talk, about our own affairs? Mr. Milton's glorious voice rose and fell to incomparable melodies, but Jane's hand-clasp was so friendlike, and her face and words so sympathetic, that the two girls heard only their own chatter, and knew not that the greatest of English poets was singing with enchanting sweetness the songs of Lodge, and Raleigh, and Drayton.
But Cromwell knew it; he came to the entrance frequently and listened, and then went back to the group by the hearth, who were smoking and talking of the glorious liberating movements of the century—the Commonwealth in England, and the free commonwealths Englishmen were planting beyond the great seas. If the first should fail, there would still be left to unslavish souls the freedom of the illimitable western wilderness.
When the music ceased, the evening was far spent; and Cromwell said as he drew Frances and Jane within his arms, "Bring me the Bible, Mary. Mr. Milton has been giving us English song, now we will have the loftier music of King David."
"And we shall get no grander music, sir," said Doctor Owen, "than is to be found in the Bible. Sublimity is Hebrew by birth. We must go to the Holy Book for words beyond our words. Is there a man living who could have written that glorious Hymn,
"'Lord, Thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations;
"'Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever Thou hadst formed the earth and the world; even from everlasting to everlasting Thou art God'?"