The Peril of the Republic of the United States of America - Percy T. Magan

esides.”[2]
Such was one of the most famous decrees,
having for its main object the trampling into the
dust the religious and civil rights and liberties of
the people of Holland. It would almost seem that if
the archfiend himself had set about it to create a
more awful ordinance, he would have paled before
the magnitude of the task. And it can never be said
that this was done in the Dark Ages, and that the
monarch was the only creature of the times in
which he lived. It was done during the days when
the Renaissance and the Reformation were at their
height. It was done during an age in which men
were supposed to have come out of darkness into
great and marvelous light. And to make the whole
transaction the more horrible, it was ordered and
decreed that this edict should be published forever,
once in every six months, in every city, and in
every village of the Netherlands. And this by a
monarch who said of himself that he had always,
“from the beginning of his government, followed
the path of clemency, according to his natural
disposition, so well known to all the world.”
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