“My good friends,” said Cromwell “it is now time for our evening devotions. Let them not be performed in a house made with hands, but in the open air. And yet I would rather worship in your dwelling, than in all the gorgeous temples, which speak too much of man, to say any thing of God. But, let us to the garden.”
His eye beamed with a love for nature. He is said often to have dwelt with rapture on the beauty of external objects, and to have wished that his lot, however humble, had been cast in a pastoral retirement, far from bustle and care. Nature had first given him thoughts of liberty. It was not the lightning and the storm, which inspired them. He cared not for the cold mountains, with their terrific heads mantled in the tempest. He looked around upon lovely nature. He called himself her son. It was not because she was free, but because she was beautiful, that he swore never to be a slave. A beautiful mother, and a son with a craven soul: it must not be!
They went forth to the garden. A pleasant arbour at the extremity, topping the eminence, and shaded with trees, was their temple. The balmy fragrance of eve rested on the bushes, and the glow of coming twilight floated in the sky. Cromwell for a moment listened in silence, as if the song of spirits, keeping their sabbath, was borne on the gentle west wind.
“What a temple is this,” he said, “to worship God! I cannot endure to enter churches, and there to gaze upon the gay gilded fluttering sons of pride, clothed in purple and fine linen. But here, I can gaze upon objects still more gaily adorned, and I dare not call them vain.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Miss Evelyn, catching fire and animation from the republican. “Churches teach so much the lesson of our mortality. Many graves are around us. But this temple teaches us of immortality.”
“Thou speakest well, beauteous maiden. Mortality is a great lesson, but immortality is one greater and more useful. Mortality teaches us to trace our connections and relatives in the worm. But immortality in God and angels! Sin brought the first to light, but Christ the other.”
They all joined in singing a psalm. Mary Evelyn’s sweet voice, with its low and tremulous sounds, occasionally induced Cromwell to be silent and listen, while he kindly placed his hand upon hers. He next read a portion of Scripture,—one of the Psalms—which he afterwards commented upon, in his address to Parliament, as Lord Protector of the Commonwealth. He then knelt down on the grass and prayed, “Father above, we come to thee! We now bow at thy feet: soon we shall lie in thine arms! Far above us, still thou hidest not thy face. Excuse us in this act of adoration, for opening our eyes to see the heavens, and for sinking our hands on the ground to feel thy footstool. The moon and the stars may not arise, but the clouds which conceal them, tell their tale. The flowers of the earth may have withered, but the clods of the valley, beneath which their fair young forms are buried, take their place, and speak to us of thee!”
Here he paused, as if overcome by the greatness of the Being whom he addressed. But soon it was the strong republican who prayed, and he raved about Israel; Israel’s God, and himself the deliverer of both, as he presumed.
When he had concluded, he abruptly arose and left them. They followed him into the house, after a few minutes, but he had gone to his apartment for the night. As long however as they themselves were awake, they heard him walking up and down.