dollar is worth scarcely one-fifth of its value two hundred and fifty
years ago.

Surely here is improvement, both in the capacity to produce and in the
power to save.

In the year 1609, died John, the last sovereign of Cleves and Juliers,
and Jacob Arminius, Doctor of Divinity at Leyden. It would be difficult
to imagine two more entirely dissimilar individuals of the human family
than this lunatic duke and that theological professor. And yet, perhaps,
the two names, more concisely than those of any other mortals, might
serve as an index to the ghastly chronicle over which a coming generation
was to shudder. The death of the duke was at first thought likely to
break off the negotiations for truce. The States-General at once
declared that they would permit no movements on the part of the Spanish
party to seize the inheritance in behalf of the Catholic claimants.
Prince Maurice, nothing loth to make use of so well-timed an event in
order to cut for ever the tangled skein at the Hague, was for marching
forthwith into the duchies.

But the archdukes gave such unequivocal assurances of abstaining from
interference, and the desire for peace was so strong both in the obedient
and in the United Provinces, that the question of the duchies was
postponed. It was to serve as both torch and fuel for one of the longest
and most hideous tragedies that had ever disgraced humanity. A thirty
years' war of demons was, after a brief interval, to succeed the forty
years' struggle between slaves and masters, which had just ended in the
recognition of Dutch independence.

The gentle Arminius was in his grave, but a bloody harvest was fast