e henceforth to be devoted, had already
led him to a closer inspection of the essential attributes of
Christianity. He was now enrolled for life as a soldier of the
Reformation. The Reformation was henceforth his fatherland, the sphere,
of his duty and his affection. The religious Reformers became his
brethren, whether in France, Germany, the Netherlands, or England. Yet
his mind had taken a higher flight than that of the most eminent
Reformers. His goal was not a new doctrine, but religious liberty. In an
age when to think was a crime, and when bigotry and a persecuting spirit
characterized Romanists and Lutherans, Calvinists and Zwinglians, he had
dared to announce freedom of conscience as the great object for which
noble natures should strive. In an age when toleration was a vice, he had
the manhood to cultivate it as a virtue. His parting advice to the
Reformers of the Netherlands, when he left them for a season in the
spring of 1567, was to sink all lesser differences in religious union.
Those of the Augsburg Confession and those of the Calvinistic Church, in
their own opinion as incapable of commingling as oil and water, were, in
his judgment, capable of friendly amalgamation. He appealed eloquently to
the good and influential of all parties to unite in one common cause
against oppression. Even while favoring daily more and more the cause of
the purified Church, and becoming daily more alive to the corruption of
Rome, he was yet willing to tolerate all forms of worship, and to leave
reason to combat error.

Without a particle of cant or fanaticism, he had become a deeply
religious man. Hitherto he had been only a man of the world and a
statesman, but from this time forth he began calmly to rely upon God's
providence in all the emergencies of his eventful life. His letters
written to his most confidential friends, to be read only by themselves,
and which have been gazed upon by no other eyes until after the lapse of
nearly three centuries, abundantly prove his sincere and simple trust.
This sentiment was not assumed for effect to delude others, but cherished
as a secret support for himself. His religion was not a cloak to his
designs, but a consolation in his disasters. In his letter of instruction
to his most confidential agent, John Bazius, while he declared himself
frankly in favor of the Protestant principles, he expressed his extreme
repugnance to the persecution of Catholics. "Should we obtain power over
any