scandalised. He obtained assent to a new "Union of Brussels," destined to prove so evanescent that it has almost escaped notice. By it Catholics and "Dissentients" bound themselves to protect and help each other on equal terms against the national foe. His project of A Religious Peace was formally accepted by many of the principal cities, but it soon appeared to give a new ground for discord.
In his zeal for real and complete toleration of creed William of Orange was in advance of his age by many centuries. And in this he stood absolutely alone. Some Catholics could be brought to abstain from persecuting heretics; but none could be brought to surrender the exclusive prerogatives of their own Church. Calvinists clamoured for protection and freedom, but they all used both as an engine to suppress Catholicism. Catholics could only endure Protestant worship in private, and provided it did not menace the Church; and in like manner Protestants, where they were in a clear majority, strove to get rid of the Church altogether. Not one of the best and ablest of the Prince's supporters had risen to his conception of mutual tolerance and respect for differing faiths. The good John of Nassau would not endure papistical rites in a Protestant province. Ste. Aldegonde himself protested against the breadth of the Prince's charity. The zealots of all creeds held him to be a Gallio, if not a godless man at heart. To all, his suffering false belief to exist betrayed a secret proneness to it in himself. Nay, more; the formal proclaiming of full religious freedom roused alarm in all: the Catholic saw in it the eventful triumph of heresy; the Protestant saw in it the prelude to a new persecution.
