frightful massacre of St.
Bartholomew. We may not enter on a description of the afflicting
scene which followed; but the mind is pleased in picturing the
bold solemnity with which Prince Maurice, then eighteen years
of age, swore--not vengeance or hatred against his father's
murderers--but that he would faithfully and religiously follow
the glorious example he had given him.

Whoever would really enjoy the spirit of historical details should
never omit an opportunity of seeing places rendered memorable by
associations connected with the deeds, and especially with the
death, of great men; the spot, for instance, where William was
assassinated at Delft; the old staircase he was just on the point
of ascending; the narrow pass between that and the dining-hall
whence he came out, of scarcely sufficient extent for the murderer
to held forth his arm and his pistol, two and a half feet long.
This weapon, and its fellow, are both preserved in the museum
of The Hague, together with two of the fatal bullets, and the
very clothes which the victim wore. The leathern doublet, pierced
by the balls and burned by the powder, lies beside the other
parts of the dress, the simple gravity of which, in fashion and
color, irresistibly brings the wise, great man before us, and
adds a hundred-fold to the interest excited by a recital of his
murder.

There is but one important feature in the character of William
which we have hitherto left untouched, but which the circumstances
of his death seemed to sanctify, and point out for record in the
same page with it. We mean his religious opinions; and we shall
despatch a subject which is, in regard to all men, so delicate,
indeed so sacred, in a few words. He was born a Lutheran. When
he arrived, a boy, at the court of Charles V., he was initiated
into the Catholic creed, in which he was thenceforward brought
up. Afterward, when he could think for himself and choose his
profession of faith, he embraced the doctrine of Calvin. His
whole public conduct seems to prove that he viewed sectarian
principles chiefly in the light of political instruments; and
that, himself a conscientious Christian, in the broad sense of
the term, he was deeply imbued with the spirit of universal
toleration, and considered the various shades of belief as
subservient to the one grand principle of civil and religious
liberty, for which he had long devoted and at length laid down
his life. His assassin was taken alive, and f