and to make them live peacefully together. The end part of his life was spent in drawing up laws to that purpose.
In thinking over the character of Orange, the fact that strikes one most is that his character deepened and strengthened as he grew older and in proportion to his sufferings. If he had not been tried to the very limit by misfortunes, and if he had always been rich and prosperous, the finest things in his character might have remained untried and unknown to us. We should not have realized that beside his charming qualities, his great understanding of men, his gentleness and generosity, there lay heroic qualities of endurance, devotion, and courage. That he should not by nature have been an ascetic, despising amusements, good food, and fine clothes, and the lighter side of existence, but an aristocrat, easygoing, enjoying possessions and the beauty of life, and with some human weaknesses, only draws us more closely to him, for it makes us understand the struggles and difficulties he had to overcome in himself in order to do what he did. He gave away everything he had, and at one time possessed hardly the common necessaries of life, so that he was almost a beggar as well as an outlaw. In the darkest hours of his life he tried to smile and to appear cheerful for the sake of his people, and to encourage them, which made his enemies say he was flippant and heartless. But he was a truly religious man, inheriting from his mother
