In his history of Cromwell, Mr. John Morley, in the August Century, writes of the Puritan Parliament,—“The Reign of the Saints,”—that “their whole existence is the high-water mark of the Biblical politics of the times, of Puritanism applying itself to legislation, political construction, and social regeneration. It hardly deserves to be described as the greatest attempt ever made in history to found civil society on the literal words of Scripture; but it was certainly the greatest failure of such an attempt.” And the history of that failure is timely reading now for those who would revive in this nation “such an attempt;” and it is instructive reading for all who would avoid it.