and level survey of remarkable phenomena manifesting themselves on the
earth; direct or secondary emanations from those distant spheres.

For in those days, and in that land especially, theology and politics
were one. It may be questioned at least whether this practical fusion
of elements, which may with more safety to the Commonwealth be kept
separate, did not tend quite as much to lower and contaminate the
religious sentiments as to elevate the political idea. To mix habitually
the solemn phraseology which men love to reserve for their highest and
most sacred needs with the familiar slang of politics and trade seems
to our generation not a very desirable proceeding.

The aroma of doubly distilled and highly sublimated dogma is more
difficult to catch than to comprehend the broader and more practical
distinctions of every-day party strife.

King James was furious at the thought that common men--the vulgar, the
people in short--should dare to discuss deep problems of divinity which,
as he confessed, had puzzled even his royal mind. Barneveld modestly
disclaimed the power of seeing with absolute clearness into things beyond
the reach of the human intellect. But the honest Netherlanders were not
abashed by thunder from the royal pulpit, nor perplexed by hesitations
which darkened the soul of the great Advocate.

In burghers' mansions, peasants' cottages, mechanics' back-parlours, on
board herring smacks, canal boats, and East Indiamen; in shops, counting-
rooms, farmyards, guard-rooms, ale-houses; on the exchange, in the
tennis-court, on the mall; at banquets, at burials, christenings, or
bridals; wherever and whenever human creatures met each other, there
was ever to be found the fierce wrangle of Remonstrant and Contra-