confined to fiery words, and was not manifested in the actual burning
alive of the heterodox, was a mark of the advance made by the mass of
mankind in despite of bigotry. It was at any rate a solace to those who
believed in human progress; even in matters of conscience, that no other
ecclesiastical establishment was ever likely to imitate the matchless
machinery for the extermination of heretical vermin which the Church of
Rome had found in the Spanish Inquisition. The blasts of denunciation
from the pulpit of Plancius have long since mingled with empty air and
been forgotten, but his services in the cause of nautical enterprise and
geographical science, which formed, as it were, a relaxation to what he
deemed the more serious pursuits of theology, will endear his name for
ever to the lovers of civilization.

Plancius and Dr. Francis Maalzoon--the enlightened pensionary of
Enkhuizen--had studied long and earnestly the history and aspects of the
oceanic trade, which had been unfolding itself then for a whole century,
but was still comparatively new, while Barneveld, ever ready to assist in
the advancement of science, and to foster that commerce which was the
life of the commonwealth, was most favourably disposed towards projects
of maritime exploration. For hitherto, although the Hollanders had been
among the hardiest and the foremost in the art of navigation they had
contributed but little to actual discovery. A Genoese had led the way to
America, while one Portuguese mariner had been the first to double the
southern cape of Africa, and another, at the opposite side of the world,
had opened what was then supposed the only passage through the vast
continent which, according to ideas then prevalent, extended from the
Southern Pole to Greenland, and from Java to Patagonia. But it was
easier to follow in the wake of Columbus, Gama, or Magellan, than to
strike out new pathways by the aid of scientific deduction and audacious
enterprise. At a not distant day many errors, disseminated by the