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INTRODUCTION
9
manity bleeding but not killed, standing at bay and defying her hunters.”
But God's deliverer was at hand. Out of the gloomy background there rose a figure, at first indistinct, shadowy, but as the contest proceeded, becoming clearly defined. It was the figure of a man, who in this bigoted age loved and exercised tolerance in the affairs of conscience; a man, who to his latest breath contended that freedom of inquiry was an inalienable right of the human race; a man whose magnanimity and self-abnegation for the cause of freedom well deserved the double glory of exalted position and final martyrdom.
This man was William of Orange, the Silent Prince.