theology which I don't understand, and about which I don't trouble
myself."

On another occasion he is reported to have said, "I know nothing of
predestination, whether it is green or whether it is blue; but I do know
that the Advocate's pipe and mine will never play the same tune."

It was not long before he fully comprehended the part which he must
necessarily play. To say that he was indifferent to religious matters
was as ridiculous as to make a like charge against Barneveld. Both
were religious men. It would have been almost impossible to find an
irreligious character in that country, certainly not among its highest-
placed and leading minds. Maurice had strong intellectual powers. He
was a regular attendant on divine worship, and was accustomed to hear
daily religious discussions. To avoid them indeed, he would have been
obliged not only to fly his country, but to leave Europe. He had a
profound reverence for the memory of his father, Calbo y Calbanista, as
William the Silent had called himself. But the great prince had died
before these fierce disputes had torn the bosom of the Reformed Church,
and while Reformers still were brethren. But if Maurice were a religious
man, he was also a keen politician; a less capable politician, however,
than a soldier, for he was confessedly the first captain of his age.
He was not rapid in his conceptions, but he was sure in the end to
comprehend his opportunity.

The Church, the people, the Union--the sacerdotal, the democratic,
and the national element--united under a name so potent to conjure
with as the name of Orange-Nassau, was stronger than any other possible
combination. Instinctively and logically therefore the Stadholder found
himself the chieftain of the Contra-Remonstrant party, and without the