. The story of our Christianity; an account of the struggles, persecutions, wars, and victories of Christians of all times. er, and the seesaw was to go up and downfor years yet. The arrangement was mainly the work of Pym, who himself pre-ferred the Episcopal forms; but he labored with all his great powers, till hisdeath in December, to attain the great end in view, which was to put down theRoyalists and secure constitutional government. CROMWELL AND THE IRONSIDES. But now a new and! unforeseen factor came into the problem. Oliver Crom-well had been to all appearance an ordinary country squire
. The story of our Christianity; an account of the struggles, persecutions, wars, and victories of Christians of all times. er, and the seesaw was to go up and downfor years yet. The arrangement was mainly the work of Pym, who himself pre-ferred the Episcopal forms; but he labored with all his great powers, till hisdeath in December, to attain the great end in view, which was to put down theRoyalists and secure constitutional government. CROMWELL AND THE IRONSIDES. But now a new and! unforeseen factor came into the problem. Oliver Crom-well had been to all appearance an ordinary country squire, little known outsidehis own neighborhood, till he entered Parliament in 1640. Some years before that,disgusted with the tyranny of Laud and Strafford, he had thought of removing 654 THE STORY OF OUR CHRISTIANITY. to America. If lie had done so, the course of English history would have beendifferent. When he entered the Parliaments army as a captain, at the age offorty-three, no one dreamed of his coming greatness. He soon rose to be colonel,developed amazing military genius, and prepared a body of men who could beat. LEICESTER HOSPITAL, WARWICK. any soldiers in Europe. They were far above the ordinary privates in characterand condition; decent, grave, sober, God-fearing, and of intense religious and polit-ical convictions. Independent thought and fervent zeal were the marks of the THE STORY OF OUR CHRISTIANITY. 655 Ironsides. To a man they held opinions which, though perfectly familiar now,were then considered startling, if not shocking. As prelacy (in the language ofthe time) was a step onward from popery, and Presbyterianism another stepbeyond prelacy, so the system of the Independents was an advance on that ofthe Presbyterians. Their descendants are the Congregationalists, a body as prom-inent and highly esteemed as any in England or America; but they were fewand obscure in 1642, and became great by their military successes. They heldthat a Christian congregation was compl
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