in the strength of the conviction that to stop with presbyterianism
was merely to change the name of the swamp--a party whose
distinctive and animating spirit was the love of freedom, which
indeed, degenerating into a passion among its inferior members,
broke out, upon occasion, in the wildest vagaries of speech and
doctrine, but on the other hand justified itself in its leaders,
chief amongst whom were Milton and Cromwell, inasmuch as they
accorded to the consciences of others the freedom they demanded for
their own--the love of liberty with them not meaning merely the love
of enjoying freedom, but that respect for the thing itself which
renders a man incapable of violating it in another.

Roger Heywood was, in fact, already a pupil of Milton, whose
anonymous pamphlet of 'Reformation touching Church Discipline' had
already reached him, and opened with him the way for all his
following works.

Richard, with whom my story has really to do, but for the
understanding of whom it is necessary that the character and mental
position of his father should in some measure be set forth, proved
an apt pupil, and was soon possessed with such a passion for justice
and liberty, as embodied in the political doctrines now presented
for his acceptance, that it was impossible for him to understand how
any honest man could be of a different mind. No youth, indeed, of
simple and noble nature, as yet unmarred by any dominant phase of
selfishness, could have failed to catch fire from the enthusiasm of
such a father, an enthusiasm glowing yet restrained, wherein party
spirit had a less share than principle--which, in relation to such a
time, is to say much. Richard's heart swelled within him at the
vistas of grandeur opened by his father's words, and swelled yet