Perhaps there is nothing in ecclesiastical writings more ludicrously and
rabidly solemn than the sermons preached before "The Honourable House of
Commons" during the Protectorate, by that warlike race of saints who figure
so extensively in the {35} history of those times. I possess some thirty of
these, and extract from their pages the following morsels, which may be
taken as a fair sample of the general strain: