ther
personages as to the conclusive opinions over there. The course of the
propositions does not harmonize with what I have myself heard out of the
King's mouth at other times, nor with the reports of former ambassadors.
I cannot well understand that the King should, with such preciseness,
condemn all other opinions save those of Calvin and Beza. It is important
to the service of this country that one should know the final intention
of his Majesty."

And this was the misery of the position. For it was soon to appear that
the King's definite and final intentions, varied from day to day. It was
almost humorous to find him at that moment condemning all opinions but
those of Calvin and Beza in Holland, while his course to the strictest
confessors of that creed in England was so ferocious.

But Vorstius was a rival author to his Majesty on subjects treated of by
both, so that literary spite of the most venomous kind, stirred into
theological hatred, was making a dangerous mixture. Had a man with the
soul and sense of the Advocate sat on the throne which James was
regarding at that moment as a professor's chair, the world's history
would have been changed.

"I fear," continued Barneveld, "that some of our own precisians have been
spinning this coil for us over there, and if the civil authority can be
thus countermined, things will go as in Flanders in your time. Pray
continue to be observant, discreet, and moderate."

The Advocate continued to use his best efforts to smooth the rising
waves. He humoured and even flattered the King, although perpetually
denounced by Winwood in his letters to his sovereign as tyrannical,
over-bearing, malignant, and treacherous. He did his best to counsel
moderation and mutual toleration, for he felt that these needless
theological disputes about an abstract and insoluble problem of casuistry
were digging an abyss in which the Republic might be swallowed up for
ever. If ever man worked steadily with the best lights of experience and
inborn sagacity for the good of his country and in defence of a
constitutional government, horribly defective certainly, but the only
legal one, and on the whole a more liberal polity than any then existing,
it was Barneveld. Courageously, steadily, but most patiently, he stood
upon that position so vital and daily so madly assailed; the defence of
the civil authority against the priesthood. He felt instinctively and
keenly that where any portion of the subject