Margaret's concessions. Public preaching, according to the
Reformed religion, had already taken place within the city. Upon the 22d,
possession had been taken of at least three churches. The senate had
deputed pensionary Wesenbeck to expostulate with the ministers, for the
magistrates were at that moment not able to command. Taffin, the Walloon
preacher, had been tractable, and had agreed to postpone his exercises.
He furthermore had accompanied the pensionary to the cathedral, in order
to persuade Herman Modet that it would be better for him likewise to
defer his intended ministrations. They had found that eloquent enthusiast
already in the great church, burning with impatience to ascend upon the
ruins, and quite unable to resist the temptation of setting a Flemish
psalm and preaching a Flemish sermon within the walls which had for so
many centuries been vocal only to the Roman tongue and the Roman ritual.
All that he would concede to the entreaties of his colleague and of the
magistrate, was that his sermon should be short. In this, however, he had
overrated his powers of retention, for the sermon not only became a long
one, but he had preached another upon the afternoon of the same day. The
city of Antwerp, therefore, was clearly within the seventh clause of the
treaty of the 24th August, for preaching had taken place in the
cathedral, previously to the signing of that Accord.

Upon the 2d September, therefore, after many protracted interview with
the heads of the Reformed religion, the Prince drew up sixteen articles
of agreement between them, the magistrates and the government, which were
duly signed and exchanged. They were conceived in the true spirit of
statesmanship, and could the rulers of the land have elevated themselves
to the mental height of William de Nassau, had Philip been able of
comprehending such a mind, the Prince, who alone possessed the power in
those distracted times of governing the wills of all men, would have
enabled the monarch to transmit that beautiful cluster of provinces,
without the lose of a single jewel, to the inheritors of his crown.

If the Prince were playing a game, he played it honorably. To have
conceived the thought of religious toleration in an age of universal
dogmatism; to have labored to produce mutual respect among conflicting
opinions, at a period when many Dissenters were as bigoted as the
orthodox, and when most Reformers fiercely proclaimed not liberty for
every Chri