THE DUTCH DOMINE
[Speech of Rev. Dr. D. Sage Mackay at the eleventh annual dinner of the Holland Society of New York, January 15, 1896. The President, Dr. D. B. St. John Roosa, said in introducing the speaker: "Before I announce the next toast I want to remark that one of our distinguished speakers, a Huguenot, said at the St. Nicholas dinner, that it was such a particularly good dinner, that there were such particularly good speeches, and that very few of them had been made by Dutchmen. But now we shall have a gentleman who represents the profession we all delight to honor, and who will delineate the next regular toast:—
'The Dutch Domine: guide, philosopher, and friend,
A man he was to all the country dear.'
"I have the pleasure of introducing a gentleman who wishes he had been born a Dutchman but who is not entitled, I suppose, to that great honor, as he is to many others deservedly showered upon him—the Rev. Dr. D. Sage Mackay.">[
Mr. President and Gentlemen:—I will confess, at the outset here to-night, that when by the courtesy of your Committee I was asked to respond to this sentiment, which so poetically and yet so truly enshrines the memory of the old Dutch Domine, that I felt somewhat in the condition in which a member of the Glasgow Fire Brigade found himself some years ago. One night, being on duty, he had the misfortune to fall asleep, and to insure his comfort before doing so he had divested himself of his heavy overalls. About midnight the alarm bell rang. He staggered to his feet, and in the condition of a man suddenly aroused from sleep drew on the overalls so that back was front and front was back. In the excitement of the moment he forgot all about his abnormal condition. Coming down the staircase of the burning building he had the misfortune to slip and fall heavily to the ground, in a heap of cinders. His companions eagerly asked him if he was hurt. "No," he replied, with true Scotch canniness. "No, chaps, I canna' say I am hurt, but eh, sirs, I maun hae got an awfu' twist." [Laughter.] And so, sir, when I, unfortunately to-night, a Scotchman born and bred, was asked to reply to the toast "The Dutch Domine," I felt that in the arrangements of the evening there was something of a twist. [Laughter.] And yet, if twist it may be called, it was only on the surface.
After a happy experience in the Dutch ministry, and after enjoying for a second time the hospitality of this honorable Society, I know nowhere where a Scotchman can feel himself so at home as in the genial influences of Dutch custom and Dutch tradition. [Applause.] We gladly echo all these patriotic and inspiring sentiments which have fallen from the lips of the speakers to-night. We believe that Dutch influences have salted America, but we Scotchmen have got the idea somehow that Scotland was leavening if not salting Holland for a hundred years before that exodus to these shores took place. [Laughter.]
General Morgan, on one occasion, in discussing the fighting qualities of the soldiers of different nations, came to the conclusion that in many respects they were about the same, with one notable exception. "After all," he said, "for the possession of the ideal quality of the soldier, for the grand essential, give me the Dutchman—he starves well." [Laughter.] And, no doubt, when provisions are scarce, no man can afford to starve better than he, for the simple reason that when provisions are plentiful no man can manage to eat better. [Laughter.]
I feel like mentioning as the first quality of the Dutch Domine to-night the possession of a good digestion. I myself have fared so well on Dutch fare for these last two or three years that I feel I could almost claim to be a Dutchman, very much as a man once claimed to be a native of a certain parish in Scotland. He was being examined by counsel. Counsel asked him, "Were you born here?" "Maistly, your honor," was the reply. "What do you mean by 'maistly'? Did you come here when you were a child?" "Na, I didna' cam here when I was a chiel," he replied. "Then what do you mean by 'maistly,' if you have not lived here most of your life?" counsel asked. "Weel, when I cam here I weighed eighty pun, and now I weigh three hundred, so that I maun be maistly a native." [Laughter.] So, perhaps, that "maistly" may be the claim to be a Dutchman which some of us may make, if we go on.
The sentiment to which I have been asked to respond is one which I doubt not will strike a responsive chord in the memories of most of you Hollanders here to-night. Across the vanished years will come back the picture of the old Dutch village, nestling in some sheltered nook behind the Hudson, and there in the old-fashioned pulpit arises the quaint, once well-loved face and form of the Domine, with big, dome-shaped head, full mouth and nose, marked with lines of humor, the fringe of white whiskers, and underneath, around the throat, the voluminous folds of the white choker, a kind of a combination of a swaddling-band and a winding-sheet, suggestive of birth or death, as the occasion demanded. [Laughter.] So he appeared an almost essential feature in the landscape, as year in and out he ministered in unassuming faithfulness to the needs of his people. By the bedside of the dying, or in the home of the widow, a comforter and friend; in the stirring days of revolutionary struggle, a leader and patriot, and sometimes a martyr too; in the social gatherings around the great open fireplace in the long dark nights, pipe in hand, a genial companion, so in every walk of life, in scenes gladsome or sad, the old Domine was a constant presence, an influence for righteousness, moulding his people in that simplicity of life and independence of spirit, which in all times have been preeminent as features in the Dutch character. Into the homespun of common life, he wove the threads of gold, revealing by life and precept that type of religion which is not "too bright and good for human nature's daily food."
What were some of the distinctive features in the character of the old Domine? Pre-eminently, we remember him for his wide and genial humanity, as a man strong in his convictions yet generous in his sympathies, faithful in his denunciation of sin yet holding outstretched hands of brotherhood to the weak and tempted. In a parish near by to where my grandfather was settled, there had been three ministers, one after the other in quick succession. The old beadle compared them to a friend something after this fashion: "The first yin was a mon, but he was na' a meenister; the second yin was a meenister, but he was na' a mon; but the third was neither a mon nor a meenister." [Great laughter.] But the Dutch Domine was at once a man and a minister. The official never overshadowed the man, neither did the humanity of the man degrade the sacred office. All strong character is the union of two opposite qualities, and in the Dutch minister I trace the harmonious presence of two elements not often found in one personality. On the one hand there was a rigid adherence to his own church and creed, so that to the orthodox Dutch mind, whatever may happen elsewhere, heaven will be peopled by Reformed Dutchmen, and in the celestial hymn-book an appendix will be found for the Heidelberg Catechism and liturgical forms of the Dutch Church [laughter]; but on the other hand, with this loyalty to his own creed, there was a generous tolerance towards the view of others, a broad-minded charity, expressed in thought and life, towards those whose standpoint in religion differed from his own. In reality, your old Domine had, and I venture to say, has, little sympathy with that narrow ecclesiasticism, which in effect claims a monopoly in religion and would practically hand over the salvation of the race to the hands of a close corporation. Now, whence did it come; where did he learn this steadfastness to his own principles, yet this generosity towards the convictions of other men, which has been so eloquently dwelt on to-night as a cardinal feature of the American character through the leavening power of Dutch influence? It came, gentlemen, as part of his birthright. We have been told that to study and appreciate Dutch character and Dutch history we must keep in view what has been called the geographical factor, that constant war with the elements, which trained the Dutchman to patience, to endurance, and to self-mastery. So, in studying the Dutch Domine, you must keep in view the historic factor out of which he and his church have come. I make no extravagant claim for the old Dutch Church of New Amsterdam and New York, when I say she stands to-day for a great and a splendid tradition in American life. She enshrines within her history facts and forces which have been woven into the texture of her most enduring institutions. Out of the darkness of persecution she came, bearing to these shores the precious casket of civil and religious liberty. When with prophetic vision she gazed across the Western sea, and saw the red dawn of a new day glow upon the waters, that dawn but reflected the red blood that dripped like sacramental wine from her robes—the blood of martyrdom poured forth for that sacred trophy of liberty of conscience which it is your privilege and mine to hand on to the generations yet to come. For full forty years, the Dutch Church was the only religious institution on this island, and who in these early times, when the great ideas for which America stands to-day were in their formative stage, guided in the light of truth the young country to a larger conception of her destiny? Not only from the standpoint of religion, but from the standpoint of education, the Dutch Church and her clergy were a mighty factor in the evolution of the great twin truths of civil and religious liberty. To the Dutch Church we owe it, that liberty, in the reaction from old-world despotism, was not allowed to degenerate into license. To them we owe it that freedom of conscience was impressed not merely as a right to be claimed, but as a duty to be safe-guarded, and, need I say?—this sense of personal duty and responsibility in respect of the rights of conscience is the note above all others that we have to strike in our nation's life to-day. [Applause.]
Gentlemen, in the old country, among others, I have looked at the monument of your noble old Dutch Admiral, Tromp, and there it says, "Unconquered by the English, he ceased to triumph only when he ceased to live," and I take these words, the epitaph of the old hero, not indeed as the epitaph of Dutch influence—that will never die—but as the ideal of Dutch character in this country in the years to come. Let it cease to triumph only when it ceases to live; let it seek to lead onward and upward to a diviner freedom this country, whose history is the evolution of the great God-given idea—civil and religious liberty. [Applause.]