assailed, notwithstanding the evident bad faith of the Spanish diplomatists and the schemes of Henry IV., conducted the long negotiation to a successful issue. A truce of twelve years was signed, on the 9th of April, 1609. Philip III. and the Archdukes swallowed the bitter cup to the dregs. They humbled themselves to recognise the independence of their rebellious subjects, acknowledged virtually their claim to trade to whatever lands they pleased, and contented themselves with expressing a hope that the States would treat all Catholics with kindness. Sober and devout were the words of the great statesman when his task was accomplished :

"To-day (wrote Barneveld) we have concluded our negotiations for the truce. We must pray to the Lord God, and we must do our highest duty that our work may redound to His honour and glory, and to the nation's welfare. It is certain that men will make their criticisms upon it according to their humours. But those who love their country, and all honest people who knew the condition of the land, will say that it is well done."

Thus ended a great chapter in the history of the world. No settled season of peace was destined, indeed, to crown all these efforts. The Thirty Years' War already loomed darkly on the horizon, and in the Netherlands not only foreign war, but internal dissensions were imminent; and the statesman who had so ably piloted the vessel of the State was to fall a victim to popular pasion. But this was still in the future. As regards the past a glorious work had been achieved. Popery and tyranny had received a terrible blow full in the face. Spain, that had made herself the champion of the evil cause, was humbled and beaten. A Protestant liberal state had asserted her right to a high place in the commonwealth of nations. For upwards of forty years these "Beggars," as they had been contemptuously called, had successfully withstood the foremost power in the world. Goaded into rebellion by the bloody tyranny of the Inquisition, and the suppression of their local liberties, they had baffled the intrigues of the Duchess Margaret, and of Granvelle, the ferocity of Alva, the chivalrous bravery of Don John of Austria, the military genius and splendid talents of Alexander of Parma, and latterly the skill of Spinola, that prince of volunteers. The wealth of the Indies had been squandered. upon them in vain. It is true, alas! that the whole of the Netherlands had not proved equally constant. The Catholic provinces of the south, which had been first to strike a blow for

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freedom, afterwards bowed their necks to the yoke. While their Protestant sisters of the north were embarking on a career of unrivalled commercial prosperity, enjoying political liberty, and for many years proudly doing their duty in the first rank of European nations, they remained during nearly two centuries a distant possession of the House of Austria. But this fact itself is not without significance. It may show how far Holland and the world are indebted to the Reformation.

The scene of the events described so graphically in Mr. Motley's volumes lies within a few hours' journey from our shores. The land, as we see it now, is pre-eminently one of peace and plenty, of sober thrift, and prosaic industry. The rich green meadows are dotted with quiet kine. The sluggish canals bear their freightage of ponderous barges to the sea. The broad slow rivers, and hundred inlets and estuaries, are crowded with shipping. The ports are busy with a worldwide commerce. The inland towns, scattered like islands in a sea of pasturage, are trim and quaint and olden. From many a spire

"The faint and frail cathedral chime
Speaks time in music."*

It is difficult to realise that what is now so peaceful should once have been the volcano of Europe-that these meadows once rang with the clamour of battle; that these innumerable canals were so many lines of fortification by which great strategists ruled their operations; that these quays were once covered with the spoils from many a Spanish galleon, and these harbours busy with preparations for war; that these inland towns lived in daily expectation of siege and sack, and such horrors as only Spanish cruelty could devise; that the same bells once rang the citizens to arms. It is difficult to carry back one's thoughts to the time when a people so phlegmatic and orderly, so commercial in spirit, so entirely standing aloof from the great march of European politics, to the time, we say, when they won their independence at the sword's point from Philip of Spain, withstood undaunted the attacks of Louis XIV., and sent a victorious fleet into the Medway. Has Holland lost or gained since those days? Great are the blessings of peace. But is it better for a country to be ready to seal what it thinks right and true, even if necessary with its blood, or to be content to sit a kind of a Lotos-eater among the nations? This is a question which Holland has solved for herself. Upon that solution England may well ponder.

Coventry Patmore.

ART. V.-Letters Apostolic of his Holiness Pope Pius IX., by which the Ecumenical Council is proclaimed to be held at Rome, and to begin on the Day sacred to the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mother of God, in the Year MDCCCLXIX. Supplement to the "Tablet," February 20, 1869.

ALTHOUGH the political horizon is not quite clear just now, Pius IX. ordains, and we do not presage the contrary, that some number of patriarchs, bishops, abbots, and other privileged persons, will find their way to the monumental city on or before the eighth day of December, 1869, "the day sacred to the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mother of God," according to the terms of the indiction. It is to be an Ecumenical Council. The oikovμévη is the whole world-all the expanse of lands where men inhabit--" where'er the circling sun displays his rising beams and setting rays," wherever a creature breathes to tremble under an anathema, or to be thankful for a benediction. Of course this vastly comprehensive word is a name of courtesy, just as the Pope's own titles are titles of courtesy which the world gives, and does not stay to criticise. His Holiness, then, has appointed an Ecumenical Council, wherein the interests of mankind in general are to be laid at his feet. Mankind, indeed, will not send its delegates, but the individuals, whoever they be, not sent but summoned, will go thither as already bound under canonical obedience, to appear "at a Synod" when called for, or, if they do not go, to show sufficient reason for their absence. In some countries the bishops will, no doubt, consider whether it is expedient for them to attend; but in Protestant countries and on remote mission stations there will be no probability of hindrance, and the congregation De Propaganda Fide may possibly engage a considerable attendance of missionary bishops, and so give a certain air of œcumenicity to the General Council now expected, such as could not have been given to any of those assemblages that were convened in former ages, before the missions had existence.

The last General Council, that of Trent, which, in fact, chiefly consisted of Italians, and was entirely controlled by them, held its final session in December, 1563, when the Fathers performed their closing act in loud responses to the anathema cunctis hæreticis of the officiating cardinal, and every

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one of them was commanded, on peril of excommunication, to subscribe the decrees and canons before he left the city. The lips which uttered those vain anathemas were soon sealed in death; many generations of cardinals have succeeded to them, all blessing and cursing in their turn; but the hoar of age covers the very name of council, and the moderns, to whom a resurrection of that historic institution is offered, are curiously speculating as to what form it will put on. Shall we see gods ascending out of the earth? No one can presume to tell, as yet, whether the Council will be a sepulchral shade or a substantial and living reality; but it is worth while considering whether there is a place now remaining in the world for anything like one of the great Councils that were, during twelve or thirteen hundred years, powers able to control kings, and better able to suppress the liberty of nations than any armies kings could muster. Actual comparison, however, must not be carried too far back. The first General Council, as it might be fairly called, was assembled in Jerusalem to settle a question raised in Antioch touching the fundamental principle of Christianity-that salvation can be found in Christ alone and not in Moses-which some Jewish emissaries had disputed. The holy men who reverently discussed that question, framed no canons, but were content to meet the exigency in the Church of Antioch, with a few necessary directions to those who sought their guidance. The Apostles and brethren did no more than send them a decree for present observance, not presuming to impose articles of faith, or any system of universal discipline, but waited for the rule of faith to be imparted as it should please the Author of faith by special inspiration, and left the discipline of the Church to be regulated and matured under Divine guidance and sanctified experience. It would be difficult to prove that there was much resemblance between that primitive Council and any that followed it, unless, perhaps, the first Council of Nicæa, which is the first called general by historians, and even there the features of difference were so strongly marked as to obscure the traces of similitude.

Yet we love to dwell in thought on that venerable assemblage, where was a genuine simplicity and dignity of character, mingled with high unworldly purpose not to be equalled in any subsequent assembly bearing the like title. More than three hundred veteran confessors came at the imperial command, holy men who had braved persecution in many forms, and had but just escaped the fires of martyrdom, yet never shunned the sufferings of confession, sufferings far harder

to be borne without shrinking than the momentary pains which Stephen, Paul, and Polycarp, with multitudes besides, had passed through triumphant. The Nicene fathers, it is true, were called together by an emperor whose appearance at their head was the least admirable object in the picture, although his motive was commendable enough. The object for which they came thither was to counteract by united study and confession, with full force of argument and weight of example, the Arian heresy. They upheld the standard of Christian truth by gathering from inspired Scripture the doctrine of our Lord's Divinity, and exhibiting the same in language not to be surpassed in precision, clearness, and simplicity, without a syllable of priestly boast. They bequeathed that confession to the Catholic Church of all ages in every land, but did not pronounce one anathema, nor claim the least degree of temporal power. Far from lording it over their Master's heritage, they quitted the imperial court with all haste possible, gladly left behind them the mailed body-guards, and, involuntarily burdened with Cæsar's patronage, went back to their flocks to teach the truth which they had learned more perfectly by drinking together at the fountain-head of Scripture. That was a fruitful Council. There the youthful Athanasius girded himself to the battle that should follow, and thence the aged Hosius returned to Cordova, meekly to await the summons of the King of kings to a superior throne. We have mentioned this venerable Council for the sake of contrast, not comparison, and must now be content to take our stand on lower ground, there to compare the rude reality of barbarous society with the present artificial state of things ecclesiastical and civil-to observe the growth of priestly power as it appeared in those synods, and its death-portending struggles as they are actually witnessed in Rome day by day, and published with lugubrious declamation in allocutions and encyclicals.

From Constantine the Great at Nicæa in Bithynia, down to Charles the Fifth, in connection with the Council held at Trent, in the Tyrol, the names of the mightiest sovereigns and most eminent personages of Christendom, both in Church and State, were always associated with their assemblage, and mingled with the records of their proceedings. Matters of the utmost practical importance engaged their deliberations. Whatever has to be said of their spirit and acts, the objects sought were seldom insignificant. Even the second Council at Nicæa-curse that it was to Christendom-while it took the wrong side in the great struggle concerning image