a system of public credit absolutely marvellous in the circumstances, by
means of which an otherwise impossible struggle was carried to a
victorious end.

When the stadholderate of the provinces of Gelderland, Utrecht, and
Overyssel became vacant, it was again Barneveld's potent influence and
sincere attachment to the House of Nassau that procured the election of
Maurice to those posts. Thus within six years after his father's death
the youthful soldier who had already given proof of his surpassing
military genius had become governor, commander-in-chief, and high
admiral, of five of the seven provinces constituting the Confederacy.

At about the same period the great question of Church and State, which
Barneveld had always felt to be among the vital problems of the age, and
on which his opinions were most decided, came up for partial solution.
It would have been too much to expect the opinion of any statesman to
be so much in advance of his time as to favor religious equality.
Toleration of various creeds, including the Roman Catholic, so far as
abstinence from inquisition into consciences and private parlours could
be called toleration, was secured, and that was a considerable step in
advance of the practice of the sixteenth century. Burning, hanging, and
burying alive of culprits guilty of another creed than the dominant one
had become obsolete. But there was an established creed--the Reformed
religion, founded on the Netherland Confession and the Heidelberg
Catechism. And there was one established principle then considered
throughout Europe the grand result of the Reformation; "Cujus regio ejus
religio;" which was in reality as impudent an invasion of human right as
any heaven-born dogma of Infallibility. The sovereign of a country,
having appropriated the revenues of the ancient church, prescribed his
own creed to his subjects. In the royal conscience were included the