Some were for gospel ministers,
And some for red-coat seculars,
As men most fit t’ hold forth the word,
And wield the one and th’ other sword.
Butler’s _Hudibras_.
There is a handsome parish church in the town of Woodstock,—I am told
so, at least, for I never saw it, having scarce time, when at the
place, to view the magnificence of Blenheim, its painted halls, and
tapestried bowers, and then return in due season to dine in hall with
my learned friend, the provost of ——; being one of those occasions on
which a man wrongs himself extremely, if he lets his curiosity
interfere with his punctuality. I had the church accurately described
to me, with a view to this work; but, as I have some reason to doubt
whether my informant had ever seen the inside of it himself, I shall be
content to say that it is now a handsome edifice, most part of which
was rebuilt forty or fifty years since, although it still contains some
arches of the old chantry, founded, it is said, by King John. It is to
this more ancient part of the building that my story refers. On a
morning in the end of September, or beginning of October, in the year
1652, being a day appointed for a solemn thanksgiving for the decisive
victory at Worcester, a respectable audience was assembled in the old
chantry, or chapel of King John. The condition of the church and
character of the audience both bore witness to the rage of civil war,
and the peculiar spirit of the times. The sacred edifice showed many
marks of dilapidation. The windows, once filled with stained glass, had
been dashed to pieces with pikes and muskets, as matters of and
pertaining to idolatry. The carving on the reading-desk was damaged,
and two fair screens of beautiful sculptured oak had been destroyed,
for the same pithy and conclusive reason. The high altar had been
removed, and the gilded railing, which was once around it, was broken
down and carried off. The effigies of several tombs were mutilated, and
now lay scattered about the church,
Torn from their destined niche—unworthy meed
Of knightly counsel or heroic deed!
The autumn wind piped through empty aisles, in which the remains of
stakes and trevisses of rough-hewn timber, as well as a quantity of
scattered hay and trampled straw, seemed to intimate that the hallowed
precincts had been, upon some late emergency, made the quarters of a
troop of horse.
The audience, like the building, was abated in splendour. None of the
ancient and habitual worshippers during peaceful times, were now to be
seen in their carved galleries, with hands shadowing their brows, while
composing their minds to pray where their fathers had prayed, and after
the same mode of worship. The eye of the yeoman and peasant sought in
vain the tall form of old Sir Henry Lee, of Ditchley, as, wrapped in
his lace cloak, and with beard and whiskers duly composed, he moved
slowly through the aisles, followed by the faithful mastiff, or
bloodhound, which in old time had saved his master by his fidelity, and
which regularly followed him to church. Bevis, indeed, fell under the
proverb which avers, “He is a good dog which goes to church;” for,
bating an occasional temptation to warble along with the accord, he
behaved himself as decorously as any of the congregation, and returned
as much edified, perhaps, as most of them. The damsels of Woodstock
looked as vainly for the laced cloaks, jingling spurs, slashed boots,
and tall plumes, of the young cavaliers of this and other high-born
houses, moving through the streets and the church-yard with the
careless ease, which indicates perhaps rather an overweening degree of
self-confidence, yet shows graceful when mingled with good-humour and
courtesy. The good old dames, too, in their white hoods and black
velvet gowns—their daughters, “the cynosure of neighbouring
eyes,”—where were they all now, who, when they entered the church, used
to divide men’s thoughts between them and Heaven? “But, ah! Alice
Lee—so sweet, so gentle, so condescending in thy loveliness—[thus
proceeds a contemporary annalist, whose manuscript we have
deciphered]—why is my story to turn upon thy fallen fortunes? and why
not rather to the period when, in the very dismounting from your
palfrey, you attracted as many eyes as if an angel had descended,—as
many blessings as if the benignant being had come fraught with good
tidings? No creature wert thou of an idle romancer’s imagination—no
being fantastically bedizened with inconsistent perfections;—thy merits
made me love thee well—and for thy faults—so well did they show amid
thy good qualities, that I think they made me love thee better.”
With the house of Lee had disappeared from the chantry of King John
others of gentle blood and honoured lineage—Freemantles, Winklecombes,
Drycotts, &c.; for the air that blew over the towers of Oxford was
unfavourable to the growth of Puritanism, which was more general in the
neighbouring counties. There were among the congregation, however, one
or two that, by their habits and demeanour, seemed country gentlemen of
consideration, and there were also present some of the notables of the
town of Woodstock, cutlers or glovers chiefly, whose skill in steel or
leather had raised them to a comfortable livelihood. These dignitaries
wore long black cloaks, plaited close at the neck, and, like peaceful
citizens, carried their Bibles and memorandum-books at their girdles,
instead of knife or sword.[1] This respectable, but least numerous part
of the audience, were such decent persons as had adopted the
Presbyterian form of faith, renouncing the liturgy and hierarchy of the
Church of England, and living under the tuition of the Rev. Nehemiah
Holdenough, much famed for the length and strength of his powers of
predication. With these grave seniors sate their goodly dames in ruff
and gorget, like the portraits which in catalogues of paintings are
designed “wife of a burgomaster;” and their pretty daughters, whose
study, like that of Chaucer’s physician, was not always in the Bible,
but who were, on the contrary, when a glance could escape the vigilance
of their honoured mothers, inattentive themselves, and the cause of
inattention in others.
[1] This custom among the Puritans is mentioned often in old plays,
and among others in the Widow of Watling Street.
But, besides these dignified persons, there were in the church a
numerous collection of the lower orders, some brought thither by
curiosity, but many of them unwashed artificers, bewildered in the
theological discussions of the time, and of as many various sects as
there are colours in the rainbow. The presumption of these learned
Thebans being in exact proportion to their ignorance, the last was
total and the first boundless. Their behaviour in the church was any
thing but reverential or edifying. Most of them affected a cynical
contempt for all that was only held sacred by human sanction—the church
was to these men but a steeple-house, the clergyman, an ordinary
person; her ordinances, dry bran and sapless pottage unfitted for the
spiritualized palates of the saints, and the prayer, an address to
Heaven, to which each acceded or not as in his too critical judgment he
conceived fit.
The elder amongst them sate or lay on the benches, with their high
steeple-crowned hats pulled over their severe and knitted brows,
waiting for the Presbyterian parson, as mastiffs sit in dumb
expectation of the bull that is to be brought to the stake. The younger
mixed, some of them, a bolder license of manners with their heresies;
they gazed round on the women, yawned, coughed, and whispered, eat
apples, and cracked nuts, as if in the gallery of a theatre ere the
piece commences.
Besides all these, the congregation contained a few soldiers, some in
corslets and steel caps, some in buff, and others in red coats. These
men of war had their bandeliers, with ammunition, slung around them,
and rested on their pikes and muskets. They, too, had their peculiar
doctrines on the most difficult points of religion, and united the
extravagances of enthusiasm with the most determined courage and
resolution in the field. The burghers of Woodstock looked on these
military saints with no small degree of awe; for though not often
sullied with deeds of plunder or cruelty, they had the power of both
absolutely in their hands, and the peaceful citizen had no alternative,
save submission to whatever the ill-regulated and enthusiastic
imaginations of their martial guides might suggest.
After some time spent in waiting for him, Mr. Holdenough began to walk
up the aisles of the chapel, not with the slow and dignified carriage
with which the old Rector was of yore wont to maintain the dignity of
the surplice, but with a hasty step, like one who arrives too late at
an appointment, and bustles forward to make the best use of his time.
He was a tall thin man, with an adust complexion, and the vivacity of
his eye indicated some irascibility of temperament. His dress was
brown, not black, and over his other vestments he wore, in honour of
Calvin, a Geneva cloak of a blue colour, which fell backwards from his
shoulders as he posted on to the pulpit. His grizzled hair was cut as
short as shears could perform the feat, and covered with a black silk
scull-cap, which stuck so close to his head, that the two ears expanded
from under it as if they had been intended as handles by which to lift
the whole person. Moreover, the worthy divine wore spectacles, and a
long grizzled peaked beard, and he carried in his hand a small
pocket-bible with silver clasps. Upon arriving at the pulpit, he paused
a moment to take breath, then began to ascend the steps by two at a
time.
But his course was arrested by a strong hand, which seized his cloak.
It was that of one who had detached himself from the group of soldiery.
He was a stout man of middle stature, with a quick eye, and a
countenance, which, though plain, had yet an expression that fixed the
attention. His dress, though not strictly military, partook of that
character. He wore large hose made of calves-leather, and a tuck, as it
was then called, or rapier, of tremendous length, balanced on the other
side by a dagger. The belt was morocco, garnished with pistols.
The minister, thus intercepted in his duty, faced round upon the party
who had seized him, and demanded, in no gentle tone, the meaning of the
interruption.
“Friend,” quoth the intruder, “is it thy purpose to hold forth to these
good people?”
“Ay, marry is it,” said the clergyman, “and such is my bounden duty.
Woe to me if I preach not the gospel—Prithee, friend, let me not in my
labour”—
“Nay,” said the man of warlike mien, “I am myself minded to hold forth;
therefore, do thou desist, or if thou wilt do by my advice, remain and
fructify with those poor goslings, to whom I am presently about to
shake forth the crumbs of comfortable doctrine.”
“Give place, thou man of Satan,” said the priest, waxing wroth,
“respect mine order—my cloth.”
“I see no more to respect in the cut of thy cloak, or in the cloth of
which it is fashioned,” said the other, “than thou didst in the
Bishop’s rochets—they were black and white, thou art blue and brown.
Sleeping dogs every one of you, lying down, loving to slumber—shepherds
that starve the flock but will not watch it, each looking to his own
gain—hum.”
Scenes of this indecent kind were so common at the time, that no one
thought of interfering; the congregation looked on in silence, the
better class scandalized, and the lower orders, some laughing, and
others backing the soldier or minister as their fancy dictated.
Meantime the struggle waxed fiercer; Mr. Holdenough clamoured for
assistance.
“Master Mayor of Woodstock,” he exclaimed, “wilt thou be among those
wicked magistrates, who bear the sword in vain?—Citizens, will you not
help your pastor?—Worthy Alderman, will you see me strangled on the
pulpit stairs by this man of buff and Belial?—But lo, I will overcome
him, and cast his cords from me.”
As Holdenough spoke, he struggled to ascend the pulpit stairs, holding
hard on the banisters. His tormentor held fast by the skirts of the
cloak, which went nigh to the choking of the wearer, until, as he spoke
the words last mentioned, in a half-strangled voice, Mr. Holdenough
dexterously slipped the string which tied it round his neck, so that
the garment suddenly gave way; the soldier fell backwards down the
steps, and the liberated divine skipped into the pulpit, and began to
give forth a psalm of triumph over his prostrate adversary. But a great
hubbub in the church marred his exultation, and although he and his
faithful clerk continued to sing the hymn of victory, their notes were
only heard by fits, like the whistle of a curlew during a gale of wind.
The cause of the tumult was as follows:—The Mayor was a zealous
Presbyterian, and witnessed the intrusion of the soldier with great
indignation from the very beginning, though he hesitated to interfere
with an armed man while on his legs and capable of resistance. But no
sooner did he behold the champion of independency sprawling on his
back, with the divine’s Geneva cloak fluttering in his hands, than the
magistrate rushed forward, exclaiming that such insolence was not to be
endured, and ordered his constables to seize the prostrate champion,
proclaiming, in the magnanimity of wrath, “I will commit every red-coat
of them all—I will commit him were he Noll Cromwell himself!”
The worthy Mayor’s indignation had overmastered his reason when he made
this mistimed vaunt; for three soldiers, who had hitherto stood
motionless like statues, made each a stride in advance, which placed
them betwixt the municipal officers and the soldier, who was in the act
of rising; then making at once the movement of resting arms according
to the manual as then practised, their musket-buts rang on the church
pavement, within an inch of the gouty toes of Master Mayor. The
energetic magistrate, whose efforts in favour of order were thus
checked, cast one glance on his supporters, but that was enough to show
him that force was not on his side. All had shrunk back on hearing that
ominous clatter of stone and iron. He was obliged to descend to
expostulation.
“What do you mean, my masters?” said he; “is it like a decent and
God-fearing soldiery, who have wrought such things for the land as have
never before been heard of, to brawl and riot in the church, or to aid,
abet, and comfort a profane fellow, who hath, upon a solemn
thanksgiving excluded the minister from his own pulpit?”
“We have nought to do with thy church, as thou call’st it,” said he
who, by a small feather in front of his morion, appeared to be the
corporal of the party;—“we see not why men of gifts should not be heard
within these citadels of superstition, as well as the voice of the men
of crape of old, and the men of cloak now. Wherefore, we will pluck yon
Jack Presbyter out of his wooden sentinel-box, and our own watchman
shall relieve the guard, and mount thereon, and cry aloud and spare
not.”
“Nay, gentlemen,” said the Mayor, “if such be your purpose, we have not
the means to withstand you, being, as you see, peaceful and quiet
men—But let me first speak with this worthy minister, Nehemiah
Holdenough, to persuade him to yield up his place for the time without
farther scandal.”
The peace-making Mayor then interrupted the quavering Holdenough and
the clerk, and prayed both to retire, else there would, he said, be
certainly strife.
“Strife!” replied the Presbyterian divine, with scorn; “no fear of
strife among men that dare not testify against this open profanation of
the Church, and daring display of heresy. Would your neighbours of
Banbury have brooked such an insult?”
“Come, come, Master Holdenough,” said the Mayor, “put us not to mutiny
and cry Clubs. I tell you once more, we are not men of war or blood.”
“Not more than may be drawn by the point of a needle,” said the
preacher, scornfully.—“Ye tailors of Woodstock!—for what is a glover
but a tailor working on kidskin?—I forsake you, in scorn of your faint
hearts and feeble hands, and will seek me elsewhere a flock which will
not fly from their shepherd at the braying of the first wild ass which
cometh from out the great desert.”
So saying, the aggrieved divine departed from his pulpit, and shaking
the dust from his shoes, left the church as hastily as he had entered
it, though with a different reason for his speed. The citizens saw his
retreat with sorrow, and not without a compunctious feeling, as if
conscious that they were not playing the most courageous part in the
world. The Mayor himself and several others left the church, to follow
and appease him.
The Independent orator, late prostrate, was now triumphant, and
inducting himself into the pulpit without farther ceremony, he pulled a
Bible from his pocket, and selected his text from the forty-fifth
psalm,—“Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O most mighty, with thy glory
and thy majesty: and in thy majesty ride prosperously.”—Upon this
theme, he commenced one of those wild declamations common at the
period, in which men were accustomed to wrest and pervert the language
of Scripture, by adapting to it modern events.[2] The language which,
in its literal sense, was applied to King David, and typically referred
to the coming of the Messiah, was, in the opinion of the military
orator, most properly to be interpreted of Oliver Cromwell, the
victorious general of the infant Commonwealth, which was never destined
to come of age. “Gird on thy sword!” exclaimed the preacher
emphatically; “and was not that a pretty bit of steel as ever dangled
from a corslet, or rung against a steel saddle? Ay, ye prick up your
ears now, ye cutlers of Woodstock, as if ye should know something of a
good fox broad sword—Did you forge it, I trow?—was the steel quenched
with water from Rosamond’s well, or the blade blessed by the old
cuckoldy priest of Godstow? You would have us think, I warrant me, that
you wrought it and welded it, grinded and polished it, and all the
while it never came on a Woodstock stithy! You were all too busy making
whittles for the lazy crape-men of Oxford, bouncing priests, whose eyes
were so closed up with fat, that they could not see Destruction till
she had them by the throat. But I can tell you where the sword was
forged, and tempered, and welded, and grinded, and polished. When you
were, as I said before, making whittles for false priests, and daggers
for dissolute G—d d—n-me cavaliers, to cut the people of England’s
throats with—it was forged at Long Marston Moor, where blows went
faster than ever rung hammer on anvil—and it was tempered at Naseby, in
the best blood of the cavaliers—and it was welded in Ireland against
the walls of Drogheda—and it was grinded on Scottish lives at
Dunbar—and now of late it was polished in Worcester, till it shines as
bright as the sun in the middle heaven, and there is no light in
England that shall come nigh unto it.”
[2] See “Vindication of the Book of Common Prayer, against the
contumelious Slanders of the Fanatic Party terming it Porridge.”
The author of this singular and rare tract indulges in the
allegorical style, till he fairly hunts down the allegory.
“But as for what you call porridge, who hatched the name I know
not, neither is it worth the enquiring after, for I hold porridge
good food. It is better to a sick man than meat, for a sick man
will sooner eat pottage than meat. Pottage will digest with him
when meat will not: pottage will nourish the blood, fill the veins,
run into every part of a man, make him warmer; so will these
prayers do, set our soul and body in a heat, warm our devotion,
work fervency in us, lift up our soul to God. For there be herbs of
God’s own planting in our pottage as ye call it—the Ten
Commandments, dainty herbs to season any pottage in the world;
there is the Lord’s Prayer, and that is a most sweet pot-herb,
cannot be denied; then there is also David’s herbs, his prayers and
psalms, helps to make our pottage relish well; the psalm of the
blessed Virgin, a good pot-herb. Though they be, as some term them,
_cock-crowed_ pottage, yet they are as sweet, as good, as dainty,
and as fresh, as they were at first. The sun hath not made them
sour with its heat, neither hath the cold water taken away their
vigour and strength. Compare them with the Scriptures, and see if
they be not as well seasoned and crumbed. If you find any thing in
them that is either too salt, too fresh, or too bitter, that herb
shall be taken out and better put in, if it can be got, or none.
And as in kitchen pottage there are many good herbs, so there is
likewise in this church pottage, as ye call it. For first, there is
in kitchen pottage good water to make them so; on the contrary, in
the other pottage there is the water of life. 2. There is salt, to
season them; so in the other is a prayer of grace to season their
hearts. 3. There is oatmeal to nourish the body, in the other is
the bread of life. 4. There is thyme in them to relish them, and it
is very wholesome—in the other is the wholesome exhortation not to
harden our heart while it is called to-day. This relisheth well. 5.
There is a small onion to give a taste—in the other is a good herb,
called Lord have mercy on us. These, and many other holy herbs are
contained in it, all boiling in the heart of man, will make as good
pottage as the world can afford, especially if you use these herbs
for digestion. The herb repentance, the herb grace, the herb faith,
the herb love, the herb hope, the herb good works, the herb
feeling, the herb zeal, the herb fervency, the herb ardency, the
herb constancy, with many more of this nature, most excellent for
digestion.” _Ohe! jam satis._ In this manner the learned divine
hunts his metaphor at a very cold scent, through a pamphlet of six
mortal quarto pages.)
Here the military part of the congregation raised a hum of approbation,
which, being a sound like the “hear, hear,” of the British House of
Commons, was calculated to heighten the enthusiasm of the orator, by
intimating the sympathy of the audience. “And then,” resumed the
preacher, rising in energy as he found that his audience partook in
these feelings, “what saith the text?—Ride on prosperously—do not
stop—do not call a halt—do not quit the saddle—pursue the scattered
fliers—sound the trumpet—not a levant or a flourish, but a point of
war—sound, boot and saddle—to horse and away—a charge!—follow after the
young Man!—what part have we in him?—Slay, take, destroy, divide the
spoil! Blessed art thou, Oliver, on account of thine honour—thy cause
is clear, thy call is undoubted—never has defeat come near thy
leading-staff, nor disaster attended thy banner. Ride on, flower of
England’s soldiers! ride on, chosen leader of God’s champions! gird up
the loins of thy resolution, and be steadfast to the mark of thy high
calling.”
Another deep and stern hum, echoed by the ancient embow’d arches of the
old chantry, gave him an opportunity of an instant’s repose; when the
people of Woodstock heard him, and not without anxiety, turn the stream
of his oratory into another channel.
“But wherefore, ye people of Woodstock, do I say these things to you,
who claim no portion in our David, no interest in England’s son of
Jesse?—You, who were fighting as well as your might could (and it was
not very formidable) for the late Man, under that old blood-thirsty
papist Sir Jacob Aston—are you not now plotting, or ready to plot, for
the restoring, as ye call it, of the young Man, the unclean son of the
slaughtered tyrant—the fugitive after whom the true hearts of England
are now following, that they may take and slay him?—‘Why should your
rider turn his bridle our way?’ say you in your hearts; ‘we will none
of him; if we may help ourselves, we will rather turn us to wallow in
the mire of monarchy, with the sow that was washed but newly.’ Come,
men of Woodstock, I will ask, and do you answer me. Hunger ye still
after the flesh-pots of the monks of Godstow? and ye will say, Nay;—but
wherefore, except that the pots are cracked and broken, and the fire is
extinguished wherewith thy oven used to boil? And again, I ask, drink
ye still of the well of fornications of the fair Rosamond?—ye will say,
Nay;—but wherefore?”—
Here the orator, ere he could answer the question in his own way, was
surprised by the following reply, very pithily pronounced by one of the
congregation:—“Because you, and the like of you, have left us no brandy
to mix with it.”
All eyes turned to the audacious speaker, who stood beside one of the
thick sturdy Saxon pillars, which he himself somewhat resembled, being
short of stature, but very strongly made, a squat broad Little John
sort of figure, leaning on a quarterstaff, and wearing a jerkin, which,
though now sorely stained and discoloured, had once been of the Lincoln
green, and showed remnants of having been laced. There was an air of
careless, good humoured audacity about the fellow; and, though under
military restraint, there were some of the citizens who could not help
crying out,—“Well said, Joceline Joliffe!”
“Jolly Joceline, call ye him?” proceeded the preacher, without showing
either confusion or displeasure at the interruption,—“I will make him
Joceline of the jail, if he interrupts me again. One of your
park-keepers, I warrant, that can never forget they have borne C. R.
upon their badges and bugle-horns, even as a dog bears his owner’s name
on his collar—a pretty emblem for Christian men! But the brute beast
hath the better of him,—the brute weareth his own coat, and the caitiff
thrall wears his master’s. I have seen such a wag make a rope’s end wag
ere now.—Where was I?—Oh, rebuking you for your backslidings, men of
Woodstock.—Yes, then ye will say ye have renounced Popery, and ye have
renounced Prelacy, and then ye wipe your mouth like Pharisees, as ye
are; and who but you for purity of religion! But I tell you, ye are but
like Jehu the son of Nimshi, who broke down the house of Baal, yet
departed not from the sins of Jeroboam. Even so ye eat not fish on
Friday with the blinded Papists, nor minced-pies on the 25th day of
December, like the slothful Prelatists; but ye will gorge on
sack-posset each night in the year with your blind Presbyterian guide,
and ye will speak evil of dignities, and revile the Commonwealth; and
ye will glorify yourselves in your park of Woodstock, and say, ‘Was it
not walled in first of any other in England, and that by Henry, son of
William called the Conqueror?’ And ye have a princely Lodge therein,
and call the same a Royal Lodge; and ye have an oak which ye call the
King’s Oak; and ye steal and eat the venison of the park, and ye say,
‘This is the king’s venison, we will wash it down with a cup to the
king’s health—better we eat it than those round-headed commonwealth
knaves.’ But listen unto me and take warning. For these things come we
to controversy with you. And our name shall be a cannon-shot, before
which your Lodge, in the pleasantness whereof ye take pastime, shall be
blown into ruins; and we will be as a wedge to split asunder the King’s
Oak into billets to heat a brown baker’s oven; and we will dispark your
park, and slay your deer, and eat them ourselves, neither shall you
have any portion thereof, whether in neck or haunch. Ye shall not haft
a ten-penny knife with the horns thereof, neither shall ye cut a pair
of breeches out of the hide, for all ye be cutlers and glovers; and ye
shall have no comfort or support neither from the sequestered traitor
Henry Lee, who called himself Ranger of Woodstock, nor from any on his
behalf; for they are coming hither who shall be called
Mahershalal-hash-baz, because he maketh haste to the spoil.”
Here ended the wild effusion, the latter part of which fell heavy on
the souls of the poor citizens of Woodstock, as tending to confirm a
report of an unpleasing nature which had been lately circulated. The
communication with London was indeed slow, and the news which it
transmitted were uncertain; no less uncertain were the times
themselves, and the rumours which were circulated, exaggerated by the
hopes and fears of so many various factions. But the general stream of
report, so far as Woodstock was concerned, had of late run uniformly in
one direction. Day after day they had been informed, that the fatal
fiat of Parliament had gone out, for selling the park of Woodstock,
destroying its lodge, disparking its forest, and erasing, as far as
they could be erased, all traces of its ancient fame. Many of the
citizens were likely to be sufferers on this occasion, as several of
them enjoyed, either by sufferance or right, various convenient
privileges of pasturage, cutting firewood, and the like, in the royal
chase; and all the inhabitants of the little borough were hurt to
think, that the scenery of the place was to be destroyed, its edifices
ruined, and its honours rent away. This is a patriotic sensation often
found in such places, which ancient distinctions and long-cherished
recollections of former days, render so different from towns of recent
date. The natives of Woodstock felt it in the fullest force. They had
trembled at the anticipated calamity; but now, when it was announced by
the appearance of those dark, stern, and at the same time omnipotent
soldiers—now that they heard it proclaimed by the mouth of one of their
military preachers—they considered their fate as inevitable. The causes
of disagreement among themselves were for the time forgotten, as the
congregation, dismissed without psalmody or benediction, went slowly
and mournfully homeward, each to his own place of abode.