[85] Praying and Working. By Rev. W. F. Stevenson, of Dublin. This is by far the best source of information on the leading charities of Germany. Our high appreciation of its value is indicated by the use made of its contents in the preparation of our account of Falk and other humanitarians treated in this chapter.
[86] Praying and Working, pp. 212-213.
[87] Schaff; Germany, &c., pp. 200-212.
[88] Herzog's Real Encyclopædie. Art. Inner Mission.
CHAPTER XIV.
HOLLAND: THEOLOGY AND RELIGION FROM THE SYNOD OF DORT TO THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE PRESENT CENTURY.
The only country whose national existence and independence are due to the Reformation is Holland. To be the first to break the triumphant power of the Spanish army would have been glory enough for any ordinary ambition, but no sooner was her independence declared than she gave signs of great commercial and intellectual activity. Her Hudsons navigated every sea and planted the Dutch flag on shores not then traced on any map of the world; her manufacturers supplied all markets with the fruit of their labor and ingenuity; her soldiers were a match for any European force; her De Ruyters and Van Tromps knew how to contend with the Blakes of England; her William of Orange, whom she gave to her British neighbor, made as good a ruler as ever lived in Whitehall; her scientific men founded the systems which have continued in use to the present time; her philosophers revolutionized the thinking of the civilized world; her universities were the seat of the most thorough humanistic researches of the age; her painters founded new schools of art, and vied with the Italian masters; her theologians gave rise to controversies which brought all churches and their champions within the scene of conflict; and her pulpit orators acquired a celebrity which, in spite of the inflexibility of the language, was second only to that enjoyed by the most renowned preachers of France and Great Britain.
After Holland had fallen a victim to her political partisanship, she gradually disappeared from public observation. Her greatness in the past would have been well nigh forgotten if Prescott and Motley had not recalled it. But the judgment of the world concerning her, in her present state, is not more flattering than that of the author of Hudibras, who, in addition to venting his spleen against the people, employs his wit upon the irrational land, calling it,