cessions, and to bring back the provinces to the condition in which they were in the time of his father, Charles V. When he arrived, he found that concessions were demanded. The Spanish troops were to leave the provinces: the Duke consented. They were to leave, either by land or sea; the Duke proposed that they should go by sea. It was then demanded that they should go by land; to this, also, the Duke consented. Finally, he affirmed, in toto, the Pacification of Ghent, and the new treaty which he made was called the Perpetual Edict. Here, at least, was no Margaret, no Duke of Alva, no such Governor as the provinces had hitherto enjoyed under Philip. Having obtained all that they had ever asked, the States— excepting Holland and Zealand,-concluded a formal treaty. This treaty Philip signed.

Here we might expect to find the war ended. It is impossible not to do justice to the spirit of concession and reconciliation manifested by the Duke and the King. But Orange was suspicious. He distrusted the Duke-we think unjustly. He distrusted the King,-and not without good reason. The fate of Egmont and Horn, of Berghen and Montigny, was ever in his mind. The ample concessions of the Duke had taken him entirely by surprise. The Edict had been accepted by the Duke, ratified by the Estates, and signed by the King. Were the Provinces to keep faith with the Sovereign, or to violate their pledges? Were they to rest satisfied with all they had asked, or resort, again, to war? Orange decided on the latter course. The Duke made the most strenuous efforts to conciliate him, but, in vain. The war was yet to last for two generations ! We think there can be but little doubt in the mind of an impartial reader, that the Duke was shamefully treated. After he had conceded all that the Protestants asked, and rendered himself defenseless, they were still unwilling to be satisfied. They had, from the first, treated the Duke with rudeness; under the persuasions of Orange, they had manifested the utmost jealousy of his intentions: they proceeded now to declare him an enemy of the public weal. They did not even scruple to taunt him with the illegitimacy of his birth. The great nobles, jealous of the influence of Orange, invited the

Archduke Matthias into the Provinces, and Elizabeth, of England, concluded a treaty with them, by which she agreed to send them both men and money. The Provinces were deter

mined to have war, and war they finally had. But their first achievements in arms were not brilliant. Their entire army was cut to pieces by Don John, with a very small force. Ten thousand of the soldiers of the States were slain, and hardly one Spaniard. At this time the Duke of Anjou came to the assistance of the Provinces. The situation of the Duke of Austria was trying. He was in the midst of a hostile people; he saw, everywhere around him, the evidences of a hatred which he had not provoked; England and France were arrayed against him; his forces were weak, and his funds utterly ex-hausted. Disgusted with the people of the Provinces, he had long solicited his recall. It came, at length; but from a might-ier Monarch than the King of Spain. A fever, brought on. by anxiety of mind, conducted to the tomb the first soldier of. Europe. With his last breath he appointed Alexander, Prince of Parma, to succeed him. He died at the age of thirty-three,but his military exploits had long covered him with glory... Well has Mr. Motley described him, as "the last of the Paladins and Crusaders."

Alexander Farnese, his nephew and successor, while scarcely inferior to Don John in military reputation, was his superior in those subtle arts which Orange so well understood. He per-fectly understood the game of Orange, and the result showed,. that he played it with no small success. A reaction, which soon occurred, in favor of the royal party, was the first fruit of his exertions. The Walloon Provinces were reconciled with Philip. The Patriots were dismayed. Holland, Zealand, Geł-derland, Zutphen, Utrecht, and the Frisian Provinces, formed a new union, from which, ultimately, arose the Dutch Repub-lic. On the other hand, Parma took Maestrecht, after an he-roic resistance.

The war had now lasted twelve years. The cause of the Provinces seemed to be declining. Desertions to the party of Philip were of frequent occurrence. As a last resource, the States abjured Philip, and transferred their allegiance to the

Duke of Anjou, who was acknowledged by all but Holland and Zealand, and the Walloon Provinces, which last, as we have said, had gone over to Philip. The King of Spain now issued a ban against Orange, denouncing him as the enemy of mankind, and setting a price upon his head. The conduct of Anjou shewed the Provinces how much they could trust the man to whom they had given their allegiance. He treacherously endeavored to seize Antwerp; but the burghers repulsed his forces. With a few other towns he had been more successful. A reconciliation was, at length, effected. The Prince of Parma had taken advantage of the general confusion, to capture some important towns. Many efforts had been unsuccessfully made to take the life of Orange: another effort was destined to be more successul. Gerard, a Burgundian, was the assassin. He was known to Orange, who had befriended him, and it was subsequently proved, that the weapon, with which he performed the deed, had been purchased with money which Orange had given him! As the Prince was proceeding to his private apartments, after dinner, the murderer, who had been concealed by an arch, fired. The Prince received three balls, exclaiming, as he fell, "O, my God, have mercy upon my soul! O, my God, have mercy upon this poor people!" A few moments after, he expired.

Thus perished William the Silent, the champion of Netherland freedom. Few men have accomplished so much with such slender resources; and few are more deeply enshrined in the heart of every lover of freedom. Though dead, the remembrance of his deeds nerved a gallant people to achieve their independence. From the tomb of the Silent went forth an influence, which wasted the gold and the blood of Spain, nd reared an empire of unrivalled prosperity on the shores of he Zuider Zee.

ART. VI.-CHRYSTAL'S MODES OF BAPTISM.

A HISTORY OF THE MODES OF CHRISTIAN BAPTISM, from Holy Scripture, the Councils Ecumenical and Provincial, the Fathers, the Schoolmen, and the Rubrics of the whole Church, East and West, in illustration and vindication of the Rubrics of the Church of England since the Reformation, and those of the American Church. By Rev. JAMES CHRYSTAL, A. M., a Presbyter of the Protestant Episcopal Church. Philadelphia: Lindsay & Blackiston, 1861. pp. 324.

THOUGHT has been free, through all the ages, and in all climes, just as the soul is free, and within itself feels the consciousness of its lofty independence of all external forces. Still, in a certain sense, free thought was at once the parent and the offspring of the Reformation, and therefore most free in those countries where it triumphed most. And there, of course, its maddest vagaries, and its wildest excesses, were exhibited. Nothing damaged the Reformation more, than the extravagancies and excesses of the numerous Sects, to which it gave birth.

Considering the importance attached to the primary, initiative Sacrament of the Gospel, Baptism, and the strange deviations, in the course of ages, and the progress of error, from the primitive practice, and the Apostolic Doctrine with regard to it, which, at the West, everywhere prevailed, it is not at all surprising, that certain Sects should have sprung up, both in Germany and in England, calling in question the regularity and validity of Roman Catholic Baptism, both with regard to its subjects and its mode.

Political agitations, and more engrossing controversies relative to Doctrines and Worship, occupied the attention of by far the greater portion of our English ancestors for more than an hundred years. Indeed, as a Sect of any considerable prominence, English Baptists did not appear upon the stage much above two hundred years ago. Indeed, they come much nearer to being an indigenous American Denomination, than

any other amongst us. Of the others, some, like the German Sects, have a race, or national origin; some, like Congregationalists and Scotch Presbyterians, an historic, or strictly European, sectarian origin; and one denomination, at least, the Protestant Episcopal Church, has an organic and self-expanding origin. With the exception of Churchmen, who, as far as their principles are older than the specialities of the State Church of England, and based upon eternal and immutable truth, the Baptists alone have assumed positions, which, if tenable and true, are suited to all times, and all peoples. And, in this sense, they are much more an American Denomination, than an English. The acorn, planted by Roger Williams in Rhode Island, and which, as far as any culture on his part was concerned, might, and would have perished in the ground, has become a prodigious oak, whose branches extend over all our land; and vigorous offshoots from it have taken root on far distant shores, and, by its side, the original English stock is, in comparison, a diminutive shrub.

A curious speculation with regard to most other denominations, does not apply with like force to our Baptist friendshow their European peculiarities have proved themselves capable of transplantation to the soil of America, and how far they have been subject to change, or, at least, to modification, by various native influences. Of the great Presbyterian family, there is not a branch which has not an historic, European, and strictly sectarian origin: and why and how their differences have been so long perpetuated, is hardly to be accounted for, even by their distinctive pertinacity; so evidently is it the tendency of American institutions and American ideas, to blend into one all shades of mere opinion, of transatlantic origin. Fusion, amalgamation into one homogeneous mass of all races, of all Sects, of all opinions, seems to be a part, at least, of the great and good work for which this great American alembic was set up; and if, under the supervision of the Great Purifier, the result can only be, the consuming of all dross, and the refining of the pure gold, then all the scorching endured in the process will be very little to be deplored.*

* The fervent heat of some great social convulsion may be needed, in order to