nce of chartered rights, but they never denied
their lawful allegiance to their governor, nor refused scriptural
submission to the powers ordained of God. The public documents
throughout the eighty years of war invariably recognized Philip as
lawful king. Even the University of Leyden, founded as a thanksgiving
offering for their successful resistance to the Spanish siege, observed
the usual legal fiction, and acknowledged the King as ruler of the
realm. And, although the Dutch had abundant reason to be vindictive,
once the opportunity offered, the desire for persecution vanished.
William the Silent, as early as 1556, in a public speech before the
regent and her council, says, "Force can make no impression on one's
conscience." "It is the nature of heresy," he goes on to say (would we
had the spirit of William in our churches to-day)--"it is the nature of
heresy, if it rests it rusts: he that rubs it whets it." His was an age
when religious toleration, except as a political necessity, was unknown.
Holland first practised it, then taught it to the world. No less in her
example to the oppressed than in her warning to oppressors, is Holland
conspicuous, is Holland great. During the reign of William of Orange,
first a Romanist, then a Calvinist, never a bigot, always gentle, at
last a Christian, in Holland and in Zeeland, where for years he was
almost military dictator, these principles of tolerance were put to
severest test. Fortunately for the world, they were sufficiently strong
to stand the strain. The people about him had been the sad victims of a
horrible persecution which had furrowed their soil with graves, and
filled their land with widows and orphans. We know what is human nature.
But Dutch nature is a little more generous than ordinary human nature. A
Dutchman's heart is big, a Dutchman travels on a broad-gauge track; a
Dutchman can forgive and forget an injury; a Dutchman has no fears and
few frowns; a Dutchman is never icebergy, nor sullen, nor revengeful. He
may make mistakes from impulse, he never wounds with intention; he will
never put his foot twice in the same trap, nor will he take any pleasure
in seeing his enemy entrapped. All of a Dutchman's faults come from an
over-indulgence of a Dutchman's virtues. He is not cold, nor
calculating, nor cruel. Generally happy himself, he desires others to be
happy also. If he cannot get on with people, he lets them alone. He
does not seek to ruin them.

Such are trai