themselves to be enclosed in the sheepfold of Christ.  I have ever considered this opinion,” continued the president, “the most pernicious of all.  They who hold it have a contempt for all religion, and are neither more nor less than atheists.  This vague, fireside liberty should be by every possible means extirpated; therefore did Christ institute shepherds to drive his wandering sheep back into the fold of the true Church; thus only can we guard the lambs against the ravening wolves, and prevent their being carried away from the flock of Christ to the flock of Belial.  Liberty of religion, or of conscience, as they call it, ought never to be tolerated.”

This was the cant with which Viglius was ever ready to feed not only his faithful Hopper, but all the world beside.  The president was naturally anxious that the fold of Christ should be entrusted to none but regular shepherds, for he looked forward to taking one of the most lucrative crooks into his own hand, when he should retire from his secular career.

It is now necessary to say a few introductory words concerning the man who, from this time forth, begins to rise upon the history of his country with daily increasing grandeur and influence.  William of Nassau, Prince of Orange, although still young in years, is already the central personage about whom the events and the characters of the epoch most naturally group themselves; destined as he is to become more and more with each succeeding year the vivifying source of light, strength, and national life to a whole people.

The Nassau family first emerges into distinct existence in the middle of the eleventh century.  It divides itself almost as soon as known into two great branches.  The elder remained in Germany, ascended the imperial throne in the thirteenth century in the person of Adolph of Nassau and gave to the country many electors, bishops, and generals.  The younger and more illustrious branch retained the modest property and petty sovereignty of Nassau Dillenbourg, but at the same time transplanted itself to the Netherlands, where it attained at an early period to great power and large possessions.  The ancestors of William, as Dukes of Gueldres, had begun to exercise sovereignty in the provinces four centuries before the advent of the house of Burgundy.  That overshadowing family afterwards numbered the Netherland Nassaus among its most stanch and powerful adherents.  Engelbert the Second was distinguished in the turbulent councils and in the battle-fields of Charles the Bold, and was afterwards the unwavering supporter of Maximilian, in court and camp.  Dying childless, he was succeeded by his brother John, whose two sons, Henry and William, of Nassau, divided the great inheritance after their father’s death, William succeeded to the German estates, became a convert to Protestantism, and introduced the Reformation into his dominions.  Henry, the eldest son, received the family possessions and titles in Luxembourg, Brabant,