The Broken Font: A Story of the Civil War (Complete)

It is impossible to read or meditate concerning that period of history in which the scene and action of my tale are laid without partaking of the feelings of both parties in that great quarrel, and “being (in an innocent sense) on both sides.” In such a spirit has my story been conceived and written. Until the sword was drawn, the more generous and constitutional Royalists were separated by but a faint line from the best and most patriotic men of the Parliament party. I have, however, confined myself more particularly to the contemplation of those miseries and violent acts of persecution which the appeal to arms brought upon many private families, and especially upon those of the clergy. In the contrivance of such a fiction, it became necessary to introduce pictures of fanaticism and hypocrisy, and to describe scenes of cruelty and of low interested persecution; but such parts of the story must not be considered separately from the rest. The general tenor of my volumes will, I trust, be found in strict consistency with that charity that “thinketh no evil,” but “hopeth all things.”