In a remarkable particular, William the Silent resembles Quintus Sertorius; namely, that each, while rebel against his Government, fought in the name of his Government. Mommsen says: "It may be doubted whether any Roman statesman of the earlier period can be compared in point of versatile talent to Sertorius," who, though in rebellion against Rome, did all he did in the name of Rome, fought battles, levied tributes, enfranchised cities, remodeled communities; in short, did in Spain what, in a later period, Julius Caesar did in Gaul. William the Silent for years carried on his warfare in Philip's name, tacitly assuming that Philip's agents were at fault, and not Philip's self, and that himself was the king's true representative in the Low Countries. William made war in the king's name, Granvelle, in the earlier stages of the rebellion, being named as the agent of oppression; while, in fact, that remarkable man and sagacious statesman was hopelessly subordinate to his master, though harmonious with him. As yet, the Netherlands had not conceived the extent of Philip's tyranny, bigotry, and duplicity. Another similarity between the Dutch and Roman outlaw was, that both were statesmen rather than generals, having commanding outlook on their eras; and although each was, perforce, captain of a host, his signal service was as shaper of a realm.

Here lies William the Silent's chosen might. He was born diplomat. Philip himself kept State secrets behind no more impenetrable reserve than William. His statesmanship was wrought into his patriotism like glancing colors in silk; and he stands a patriot whose services no one can overestimate, and a champion of liberty the most valiant and sagacious known prior to the Puritan Rebellion. Seventeen provinces constituted the Netherlands. By the pacification of Ghent, in 1576, a union was formed among certain of these, in which, for the first time, religious tolerance was asserted and applied—Catholics to allow Protestants to worship as they would, and Protestants to do the like by Catholics. This pacification, in its specifications, was an unheard-of gain for Protestantism and for liberty, and constituted William's chief triumph up to that date. The Netherlands were peopled with varied populations, with all but innumerable conflicting interests and dispositions, so much so that union seemed impossible. This is partial explanation why Prince William suffered more from the inaction and suspicion of his own countrymen than from all Philip's machinations. His patience was something godlike. No people known to history appear to less advantage or show less love of liberty, or even common self-respect, than these Belgic provinces through many years. They were so abject, so schooled to suffer and resent nothing, that even the horrors of the Spanish Inquisition did not lift them into rebellion, nor yet the savage cruelties of Alva, nor the execution of Count Egmont and Count Horn, though the atrocities of Spanish mutineers did at last expedite those deliberations which ultimated in the pacification of Ghent. I have wondered many, many times. Orange did not lose faith in his countrymen and give them over to their servitude. His fortitude sustained him, and his patience held as if it had been a steel cable, and his natural cheerfulness was of unquestionable service in keeping him from losing heart. Almost every leader proved false to him, some of his own relations included, and he kept on! He must use the men he had. A great cause requires and equips a great leader. It was so in William. His country and its cause had him, and in him was rich. He saw worth in men, and built on that. That men betrayed him did not unseat his faith in men. He did what every statesman does, had faith in men, appealed to their possibilities, to their prospective rather than their present selves, and so helped them to what they ought to be. He lifted them up to his levels, and they stood peers in manhood and patriotism. Many failed him; but many did not. Much discouraged, but, specially later in his career, much encouraged him. Deeds of heroism so incredible as to read like a romance,—such deeds were not rare, rather common. The siege of Maestrich takes rank among the heroic episodes in the battles for human liberty. One's blood grows fairly frantic in reading the thrilling story, and a man is glad he is a man and brother to men who could do feats so superb; and the flooding of the lands in raising the siege of Leyden is to be classed among the deathless sacrifices for dear liberty. For these and all such lofty flights of courage and success, William was the inspiration. He was never defeated by defeat. Liberty must not fail. The Provinces trusted him in their hearts, and so long as he remained firm, self-sacrificing, undisturbed, the people (so he argued) could be relied on to trust in him and to justify his trust in them. In behalf of freedom, no sacrifice or achievement was other than feasible to him. He loaded his estate with debt for the common good. Through many years penury was his portion. Great events marshaled themselves about him as if he were their necessary captain. He knew the art of inspiring men, which is, at last, the mightiest resource of a great soul. He knew how to deal with men,—the finest of the arts. In his roused moments his eloquence, whether spoken or written, swayed men's judgments and nerved their hearts. Motley says, "His influence on his auditors was unexampled in the annals of his country or age." His memory lost nothing; his ability to read men ranks him with Richelieu; he was cautious, politic, but not slow, though his uniform habit of caution robbed his acts of the fine flavor of spontaneity; he was painstaking, and as laborious as Philip, which is the last effort of comparison, seeing Philip's industry was all but without precedent. If he flooded coasts and inlands by the seas he emptied on them as if the seas were his, he also inundated courts of kings and assemblies of nobles with appeals, remonstrances, or letters of instruction or information. He lacked nothing of being ubiquitous, and was the moving spirit of all occasions where liberty had followers. Nothing eluded nor bewildered him, from which observations Motley's estimate stands justified; for he called him "The first statesman of his age." Compare him with Don John of Austria, hero of Lepanto, who was natural son of Emperor Charles V, vivacious, romantic, brilliant, and conqueror of the Turks at Lepanto, whence his name had risen, like a star, to flame at the eastern window of every court in Christendom. Made governor of the Netherlands, he found himself beset by difficulties through which sword and troop could not cut his way. Harassed by the distrust, unfaithfulness, and meanness of Philip; hedged by the sagacious statecraft of his adversary, William of Orange, he attempted the role of war; found himself defeated by an invisible antagonist, whose name haunted his days and nights—the name was "Father William"—at last, flared up like an expiring lamp, and died. Such the conqueror of Lepanto when brought to cope with William the Silent. William stood possessed of vast character-resources, so that what was lacking in supplies he made up in himself.

William of Orange, and Philip, King of Spain and the Western Hemisphere, challenge comparison. Philip was statesman in that his powers were adapted to the cabinet rather than the battle; and Philip may pass for a statesman in some particulars. Painstaking, laborious, with real ability in choice of servants to execute his will, and keeping eyes on the horizons of the greatest empire the world had seen, he peopled this wide world of his with hopeless projects, since his ambition was topless as skies of night. His claims were fantastic or great, as you might elect to call them; for he claimed both England and France as provinces of his empire, keeping at the respective courts secret agents, with lavish gold for corrupting those sovereigns' servants. His reign is a sort of free fight with him on everybody, he keeping every item under his own surveillance, but displaying no capacity to do other that baldly claim and attempt. He could not compass his designs. There were no compensations in his reign. He lost and never gained. England defeated him at home and abroad. The Dutch defied him, and won their liberty after bitter years of struggle. His every effort to subdue them failed. Though the Inquisition murdered from fifty to one hundred thousand of his most industrious subjects, this done, and still failure! He trusted no man. He probably poisoned his own son, Don Carlos. His treachery was black as Caesar Borgia's; and to his chosen counselors he wrote interminable lies, apparently deeming lying a virtue. He offered fabulous sums of money for the assassination of Queen Elizabeth, of King Henry IV, and of William, Prince of Orange, and finally gave William's estate to the relatives of Gerard, the assassin of the prince. Philip was painstaking, not sagacious. While admiring his industry, I can not bring myself to the point of believing he had greatness. A superior chief clerk he was, and an inferior king.

William the Silent, Prince of Orange, moneyless, resourceless, defeated the richest empire of the world without winning a single decisive victory. So viewed, he is a statesman of magnificent proportions. At his death, fifteen out of the seventeen provinces were in rebellion; and had he lived, there can be no rational doubt the remaining two had rebelled and the seventeen become free. As it was, seven provinces won their liberty, and in 1648, at the Peace of Westphalia, were acknowledged as a sovereign State and free from Spain.

William was importuned, vehemently importuned, to become king. He refused, as Cromwell in a later day refused, though, had Cromwell become king, there is no reason why he might not have handed down his scepter to his son. What sealed Richard Cromwell's fate was that he was not a king, the English wishing to feel they had a hereditary head. This was the mistake of the Prince of Orange. While his refusal of regal honors reflected credit on his manhood and disinterested patriotism, that refusal was a weakness to the cause of liberty. About a king men of those days would have rallied as about no Stadtholder; for the Flemings were never essentially republican in instincts. Freemen they learned to be; republicans they never learned to be. Had William of Orange become king, then had his son, as sovereign, led his subjects to battle. As yet Europe was not ready for a commonwealth. As the case stood, William lived, loving his country with an ingenuous affection; was a patriot statesman, whose reward for years of toil, which seamed his brow at the age of forty as if he had been seventy, was an impoverished estate, but an imperishable fame.

On July 10, 1584, Belthazer Gerard shot "Father William" in his own home, and he, falling, cried: "My God, have pity on my soul! I am sorely wounded! My God, have pity on my soul and this poor people!" and this, save his whispered "Yes" to his sister's eager inquiry if he trusted his soul to Jesus, were his last words, so that, as his country had been his thought through many turbulent years, so was it his last thought and love—a fitting word for a patriot such as he to leave on his dead lips. Let the historian's verdict stand as ours, "His life was a noble Christian epic."

A statesman is a man of his own and succeeding ages, and in him, therefore, is much anticipatory. He outruns his time. The vision William the Silent had, which outran the simple patriot in him, was the vision of religious tolerance. This might serve him for crown had he no other. What the world has learned to do, that this Dutch prince taught—virtually first of modern statesmen. In an utterly intolerant age and country, he apostled manly tolerance. In a later day, John of Barneveldt came to the block because he was an Arminian. Protestants, though never wholesale persecutors, had yet to learn this wise man's lesson. And this must rank among the underscored virtues of this old soldier of liberty, that he wished men to worship God without molestation. Nor did this tolerance grow out of indifference to religion. In youth he was careless of Divine matters, and thought little of religion. But so sagacious and so burdened a man as he grew to feel need of strength beyond the help of man. In his mature years he was from conviction a Christian in the Protestant Church, and his life walked on high levels to the end. God was to him as to innumerable souls, "a refuge and strength and a very present help in time of trouble;" and in death he committed his soul to God. By worth and service; by fortitude and patriotism; by long years of devotion to the task of breaking the scepter of tyranny; by genius burning as the light, and goodness purifying itself as years marched past,—by these attributes has William the Silent, Prince of Orange, earned a right to stand erect among the world's immortals.

V

The Romance of American Geography

In traveling over the undulating prairies of many States of the Union, huge granite boulders are seen lying solitary, as if dropped by some passing cloud, having no kindred in the rocky formations environing, but being absolute foreigners in a strange land. There they lie, prone, chiseled by some forgotten art, and so solitary as to bring a tinge of melancholy to the reflection of the thoughtful. In certain regions these boulders are so numerous and so various in size as to be used in building foundations, and sometimes entire habitations. These rocks were dropped in remote centuries by passing icebergs, and are solitary memorials of the ice-drift across our continent. The crafts on which they voyaged were wrecked long ago. They were passengers on