Excerpt from The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine, Vol. 59: November, 1899, to April, 1900It is hard to deny that wherever force was useless Cromwell failed; or that his example would often lead in what modern opinion firmly judges to be false directions; or that it is in Milton and Bunyan rather than in Cromwell that we seek what was deepest, loftiest, and most abiding in Puritanism: we look to its apostles rather than its soldier. Yet Oliver's largeness of aim; his freedom of spirit, and that energy that comes of a free spirit; the presence of a burning light in his mind, though the light to our later times may have grown dim; his good faith, his valor, his constancy, have stamped his name, in spite of some exasperated acts that it is pure sophistry to justify, upon the imagination of men over all the vast area of the civilized world where the English tongue prevails.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.