bidding the
hideous assumptions now made by the general government. Perhaps no man
living fully felt its import save Barneveld alone. For groping however
dimly and hesitatingly towards the idea of religious liberty, of general
toleration, he was denounced as a Papist, an atheist, a traitor, a
miscreant, by the fanatics for the sacerdotal and personal power. Yet it
was a pity that he could never contemplate the possibility of his
country's throwing off the swaddling clothes of provincialism which had
wrapped its infancy. Doubtless history, law, tradition, and usage pointed
to the independent sovereignty of each province. Yet the period of the
Truce was precisely the time when a more generous constitution, a
national incorporation might have been constructed to take the place of
the loose confederacy by which the gigantic war had been fought out.
After all, foreign powers had no connection with the States, and knew
only the Union with which and with which alone they made treaties, and
the reality of sovereignty in each province was as ridiculous as in
theory it was impregnable. But Barneveld, under the modest title of
Advocate of one province, had been in reality president and prime
minister of the whole commonwealth. He had himself been the union and the
sovereignty. It was not wonderful that so imperious a nature objected to
transfer its powers to the Church, to the States-General, or to Maurice.

Moreover, when nationality assumed the unlovely form of rigid religious
uniformity; when Union meant an exclusive self-governed Church enthroned
above the State, responsible to no civic authority and no human law, the
boldest patriot might shiver at emerging from provincialism.

CHAPTER XV.

The Commonwealth bent on Self-destruction--Evils of a Confederate
System of Government--Rem Bischop's House sacked--Aerssens'
unceasing Efforts against Barneveld--The Advocate's Interview with
Maurice--The States of Utrecht raise the Troops--The Advocate at
Utrecht--Barneveld urges mutual Toleration--Barneveld accused of
being Partisan of Spain--Carleton takes his Departure.

It is not cheerful after widely contemplating the aspect of Christendom
in the year of supreme preparation to examine with the minuteness
absolutely necessary the narrow theatre to which the political affairs of
the great republic had been reduced.

That powerful commonwealth, to which the great party of the Reformation
naturally looked fo