o him
through the same grace of God. And if he falls into great sins, his firm
hope and confidence must be that the Lord God will not allow him to
continue in them, but that, through prayer for grace and repentance, he
will be converted from evil and remain in the faith to the end of his
life."

These feelings, he said, he had expressed fifty-two years before to three
eminent professors of theology in whom he confided, and they had assured
him that he might tranquilly continue in such belief without examining
further. "And this has always been my creed," he said.

The preachers replied that faith is a gift of God and not given to all
men, that it must be given out of heaven to a man before he could be
saved. Hereupon they began to dispute, and the Advocate spoke so
earnestly and well that the clergymen were astonished and sat for a time
listening to him in silence.

He asked afterwards about the Synod, and was informed that its decrees
had not yet been promulgated, but that the Remonstrants had been
condemned.

"It is a pity," said he. "One is trying to act on the old Papal system,
but it will never do. Things have gone too far. As to the Synod, if My
Lords the States of Holland had been heeded there would have been first a
provincial synod and then a national one."--"But," he added, looking the
preachers in the face, "had you been more gentle with each other, matters
would not have taken so high a turn. But you have been too fierce one
against the other, too full of bitter party spirit."

They replied that it was impossible for them to act against their
conscience and the supreme authority. And then they asked him if there
was nothing that troubled him in, his conscience in the matters for which
he must die; nothing for which he repented and sorrowed, and for which he
would call upon God for mercy.

"This I know well," he said, "that I have never willingly done wrong to
any man. People have been ransacking my letters to Caron--confidential
ones written several years ago to an old friend when I was troubled and
seeking for counsel and consolation. It is hard that matter of
impeachment against me to-day should be sought for thus."

And then he fell into political discourse again on the subject of the
Waartgelders and the State rights, and the villainous pasquils and libels
that had circulated so long through the country.

"I have sometimes spoken hastily, I confess," he said; "but that was when
I was stung by t