Of what earnest stuff Motley's dreams of religious freedom are made, we read in his terse comments upon the declaration of the principles of liberty of conscience by the States General. 'Such words shine through the prevailing darkness of the religious atmosphere at that epoch like characters of light. They are beacons in the upward path of mankind. Never before had so bold and wise a tribute to the genius of the Reformation been paid by an organized community. Individuals walking in advance of their age had enunciated such truths, and their voices had seemed to die away, but at last, a little, struggling, half-developed commonwealth had proclaimed the rights of conscience for all mankind.' Thus we have no longer a wearisome compilation of events strung upon the thread of chronology, but a practical history of the most momentous epoch of modern times. No hand has before pointed out so faithfully its great motive power or adjusted so nicely its apparent contradictions. The structure is grand; it is the expression of a glorious faith. In the accomplishment of so vast a design, Motley has won our warmest gratitude, while he has awakened our deepest sympathies. Not alone to the learned, the scholarly, and the elegant, are these volumes addressed; their high-toned thought has met response in the people's heart, and children bend with flushed faces over the high romance of the struggle that cost the lives of thousands, and recognize, perhaps dimly, the import of that great advance from the darkness of intolerance to the light of freedom, that was so well worth the treasure of blood with which it was bought.