ement struggling with the military
for predominance; sword against gown; states' rights against central
authority; peace against war; above all the rivalry of one prominent
personage against another, whose mutual hatred was now artfully inflamed
by partisans.

And now another element of discord had come, more potent than all the
rest: the terrible, never ending, struggle of Church against State.
Theological hatred which forty years long had found vent in the exchange
of acrimony between the ancient and the Reformed churches was now
assuming other shapes. Religion in that age and country was more than has
often been the case in history the atmosphere of men's daily lives. But
during the great war for independence, although the hostility between the
two religious forces was always intense, it was modified especially
towards the close of the struggle by other controlling influences. The
love of independence and the passion for nationality, the devotion to
ancient political privileges, was often as fervid and genuine in Catholic
bosoms as in those of Protestants, and sincere adherents of the ancient
church had fought to the death against Spain in defence of chartered
rights.

At that very moment it is probable that half the population of the United
Provinces was Catholic. Yet it would be ridiculous to deny that the
aggressive, uncompromising; self-sacrificing, intensely believing,
perfectly fearless spirit of Calvinism had been the animating soul, the
motive power of the great revolt. For the Provinces to have encountered
Spain and Rome without Calvinism, and relying upon municipal enthusiasm
only, would have been to throw away the sword and fight with the
scabbard.

But it is equally certain that those hot gospellers who had suffered so
much martyrdom and achieved so many miracles were fully aware of their
power and despotic in its exercise. Against the oligarchy of commercial
and juridical corporations they stood there the most terrible aristocracy
of all: the aristocracy of God's elect, predestined from all time and to
all eternity to take precedence of and to look down upon their inferior
and lost fellow creatures. It was inevitable that this aristocracy, which
had done so much, which had breathed into a new-born commonwealth the
breath of its life, should be intolerant, haughty, dogmatic.

The Church of Rome, which had been dethroned after inflicting such
exquisite tortures during its period of power, was not to ra