that age: he wanted to do the best for his country. Like many open-minded persons, he was able to see two sides to a question and to see it in its widest sense. He was tolerant and ahead of his times. To be all this in an age of bigotry and intolerance was to be insincere.
By circumstance William the Silent was placed in an extremely difficult position, and all must admit that he came out of it with the greatest glory. His troubles came upon him only because he was too honest. It is a difficult thing to understand, but a man's sufferings and troubles are often a result of his own finest qualities, and so it was with Orange. As to his lack of physical bravery, his life was also a living contradiction of this criticism, as witness his indifference to the ban put upon him. It did not make him in the least nervous, and he took no precautions for protecting himself against assassins. For years, too, his life was spent on the field of battle, meeting with great reverses and hairbreadth escapes, yet he never shirked it, but endured and faced it. It is true that, unlike his brother Louis, he had no actual joy in battle. His blood was not stirred by the clash of arms, for he was not naturally a soldier, any more than he was a rebel; circumstances and his own fair-*mindedness had made him so; while rebelling against an utterly unfair and unlawful condition of things, he used all his powers to moderate people's passions,
