Contemporary Literature [pp. 729-761]

1874.1 CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE. 753
arduous labors in counselling and guiding the course of diplomacy with
foreign nations. In this last matter he stood almost if not quite alone.
He was the brain of the Republic.
But with the triumphant conclusion of the war with Spain the new State
w,as beset with dangers that threatened civil conflict. The Reformed Churches
of Europe wvere Calvinistic, and yet at this juncture the Church of the
Dutch Republic was rent by divisions of opinion. Theological agitation
pervaded city and country. Society was divided into Gomarists and Arminians, Remonstrants and Counter-Remonstrants. So bitter was the feeling of
alienation that the two parties sometimes came to blows. Barneveld counselled peace and forbearance. He insisted that the terms of union between
the different States implied, and virtually, if not sometimes actually, expresses
this. He had no taste for theological controversy, but rather an utter re pugnance to it.
But he scarcely realized the depth of feeling that was excited by the con troversy. He believed that such a spirit as he possessed need only to be
cherished to evade or at least adjourn the crisis. But on this point the issue
proved that he was mistaken. Possibly his policy might have proved suc cessful, if it had not been that the son of William of Orange lacked some of
his father's virtues. He aspired to be the head of the State, and he could
brook no rival-such as Barneveld undoubtedly was. At first he took no in terest in the theological dispute. He does not even seem to have known what
it was about, and his favorite preacher for a time was one of the leaders of
the Arminians. But as the controversy progressed and parties were formed
he found it necessary to take sides. The fact that Barneveld was on one side
was of itself enough to throw him on the other. He dismissed his Arminian
preacher, and ostentatiously threw his influence and his sword into the
scales of Calvinism. The practical question was whether the National Synod
should be summoned to decide the theological questions at issue. Barneveld
opposed it, and for a time with some promise of success. But the very
popular demand for it, enforced by the urgency of James of England, and
sustained by the decision of the Stadtholder, carried the day.
But the triumph of the latter decided the fate of Barneveld. No epithet
was too odious to be applied to him. His enemies adroitly insinuated, and at
length boldly charged, that he was the tool of Spain, that he had suffered
himself to be purchased with Spanish gold. No charge could have been
more preposterous, but it showed clearly the strength and bitterness of that
partisan prejudice that had already marked him as its victim. With scarcely
the forms of trial, in contempt of justice, and without the least regard to his
longand tried fidelity, and his great and unremunerated services to his country,
he was condemned to be beheaded, and the sentence was ruthlessly ex ecuted.
Barneveld's real crime was that he was too great a man to be allowed to
stand in the way of the Stadtholder's ambition. He was the only man that
had dared manfully to withstand him, and the disposition which he evinced,
actually encouraging those cities in which the Remonstrants were in power