Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/670

Rh 638 MAURICE among the legions on the Danube, who declared Maurice unworthy to reign, and, commanded by Phocas, then a simple centurion, but destined to become emperor, marched upon Constantinople. The capital having declared against him, Maurice abdicated and withdrew to Chalcedon, but was pursued and put to death there after having witnessed the murder of five of his sons (November 27, 602). He was the author of a work on military art (&amp;lt;TT partly IKO) in twelve books, of which there is an edition by Scheffer, published at Upsala in 1664. There is a Vita Mauricii by Theophylact Simocatta. MAURICE OF NASSAU, prince of Orange, the younger son of William the Silent, was born at Dillenburg in 1567, and was made governor of the United Provinces after the assassination of his father in 1584. He succeeded his brother as prince of Orange in 1618, and died at the Hague on April 23, 1 625. For the leading features of his character and events of his life see HOLLAND, vol. xii. pp. 77, 78. MAURICE (1521-1553), duke and elector of Saxony, the son of Duke Henry the Pious, was born on the 21st of March 1521. He received a learned education, and at an early age gave evidence of an energetic and ambitious temper. In 1541 he married Agnes, daughter of the landgrave Philip of Hesse, and succeeded his father as duke of Saxony, of the Albertine line. Although a Pro testant, he held cautiously aloof from the League of Smalkald; and in 1542 and 154-3 he received imperial favour by supporting Charles V. against the Turks and the French. In 1546, when Charles V. attacked the League of Smalkald, Maurice sided with the emperor, the result being that he was made elector of Saxony in place of his cousin John Frederick (of the Ernestine line), who was taken prisoner and deposed. At this time Maurice was detested by the German Protestants, who considered him a traitor to his religion; but the tide soon turned. Fearing that the emperor s ultimate aim was to strike at the authority of the princes, he began silently to make pre parations for war ; and Charles V. was imprudent enough to provide him with a pretext for opposition by detaining the landgrave Philip of Hesse, whose freedom Maurice had guaranteed. In 1551 Maurice concluded a secret treaty with Henry II. of France against the emperor, and an alliance was also formed with several German princes. Charles V. refused to believe in the reality of the danger ; but in March 1552 he was startled by the intelligence that Henry II. had entered Germany as an invader, and that Maurice was hastening southward at the head of a powerful army. John Frederick and Philip were at once released, and the emperor, after an ignominious flight, was compelled to sign the treaty of Passau. After the re-establishment of peace Maurice fought for some time against the Turks in Hungary; he then returned to Saxony, and associated himself with the alliance against Margrave Albert of Brandenburg, by whom the treaty of Passau had not been recognized. At Sievershauseri, on the 9th of July 1553, the margrave was defeated ; but during the battle Maurice was wounded, and two days afterwards he died in his tent. He was not only a great diplomatist and general, but one of the most enlightened rulers of his age, and his early death was sincerely deplored by his subjects. In his last years he was content &quot; with small diet and little sleep.&quot; &quot; Therefore,&quot; says Roger Ascham, who had seen him, &quot; he had a waking and working head, and became so witty and secret, so hardy and ware, so skilful of ways, both to do harm to others and to keep hurt from himself, as he never took enterprise in hand wherein he put not his adversary always to the worse.&quot; See Roger Ascliam, A Report and Discourse of the Affairs and State of Germany ; Langcnn, Moritz, Herzog und Kurfurst von Sachsen, 1841 ; G. Voigt, Moritz von Sachsen 1541-47, 1876. MAURICE, JOHN FREDERIC DENISON (1805-1872), better known without his first name, an English clergyman and theologian, was born in the year 1805. He was the son of a Unitarian minister, and educated in his father s faith, entering Trinity College, Cambridge, as a Noncon formist, for the sake of the university course, at a time when it was impossible for any but members of the Established Church to obtain a degree. Together with John Sterling, Maurice migrated to the smaller college of Trinity Hall, whence he obtained a first class in civil law in 1827 ; he then came to London, and gave himself to literary work, editing for a short time the Athenaeum newspaper. During this period of his life he came under the influence of S. T. Coleridge, an influence which drew Maurice into conformity, and issued through him in what was known as the Broad-Church school of thought. When Maurice joined the Church of England, he might no doubt have returned to Cambridge for his degree, or, when he chose Oxford, his terms at Cambridge would have been allowed him, but with characteristic thorough ness he elected to go through the whole Oxford course. He entered Exeter College, and obtained a second class in classics in 1831. The intellectual stir of Oxford life, and the vehement controversies in the clash of which sparks of truth seemed struck out, were probably among the causes which attracted Maurice to Oxford, and he afterwards took his full share in them, always in a liberal, tolerant, yet strongly Pro testant spirit. He was ordained in 1834, and after a short interval spent in parish work in the country was appointed chaplain of Guy s Hospital, and became thenceforward a sensible factor in the intellectual and social life of London. Carlyle has told us how &quot; going to Guy s &quot; Sunday after Sunday was a part of Sterling s routine, and an appreci able number of persons far above the average were attracted to the hospital chapel. In 1840 Maurice was appointed professor of history and literature in King s College, to which in 1846 was added the chair of divinity. These chairs he held till 1853. In that year he published Theological Essays, wherein were stated opinions which savoured, to the principal, Dr Jelf, and to the council, of unsound theology in regard to eternal punishment. Maurice maintained with great warmth of conviction that his views were in close accordance with Scripture and the Anglican standards, but the council ruled otherwise, and he was deprived of his professorships. He held at the same time the chaplaincy of Lincoln s Inn (1846-60), but no attempt was made to deprive him of this. Neither was he assailed in the incumbency of St Peter s, Yere Street, which he held for nine years (1860-69), and where, though his congregation was never large, partly perhaps because no parish or district was apportioned to his churcL, he drew round him a circle of thoughtful persons, attached in no common degree to himself and to his teaching. During his residence in London Maurice was specially identified with two important movements for education, the Working Men s College, and Queen s College for the education of women, while he threw himself with great energy into all that affected the social life of the people. Certain abortive efforts at a true co-operation among work ing men, and the movement known as Christian Socialism, were the immediate outcome of his teaching, and directly fostered by himself. In 1866 Maurice was appointed professor of moral philosophy in the university of Cam bridge. He died on the 1st of April 1872. Maurice was before all things a preacher. The actual message he had to proclaim was apparently simple ; his two great convic tions, which he strove to impress on all other men, were the fatherhood of God, and that all religious systems which had any stability lasted because of a portion of truth which had to be disentangled from the error differentiating them from the doctrines