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INTRODUCTION

thirty thousand men left who had had this wonderful experience, who had seen, as it were, the opening of the heavens and the shining of the hosts of the Lord; who could testify that there need be no fear for our dear England, since the Company of Heaven fought for us.

Never shall I believe that these thirty thousand witnesses could keep silence and secrecy in such a cause. Yet if they had spoken, nay, if but a thousand, if but a hundred of them had spoken, who can doubt that their testimony would have gone like a forest-flame from end to end of all the armies, till the trenches and the camps burned and glowed with the fervency and the triumph of such a witness.

And yet my friend—I have his letter in the original envelope with the Censor's pale magenta stamp upon it—had not heard a word of it all, not a hint, not a whisper, nothing.

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