The beautiful tower, rising so high above the city, as delicate as a flower and as strong as iron, was a noble object that symbolized the loftiest feeling of which, perhaps, man is capable—the spiritual desire to reach up to escape the earth.
Duprès, always alive to the grand and the lovely, was moved by the sight of the marvellous spire, so high above all this passion, and turmoil, fury and bitterness which beat and lashed below it; he felt a desire to enter the building, though Romish churches were usually hateful to him, and he considered them dangerous also for one of his party.
To-day, however, he was emboldened by the general fearlessness of the crowd and by the number of Reformers, or heretics, abroad.
So he went up to the great bronze doors; before them sat an old woman selling candles, tapers, and little trivial pictures and images.
To-day a little group was gathered round her, threatening that her trade was nearly at an end, and hurling at her pungent gibes to which she replied by fierce and voluble abuse.
Duprès slipped by these, lifted the heavy curtain which hung before the inner door, and stepped into the church.
At first the immense size, the immense height, bewildered him, he and the others there seemed like dwarfs lost in an immense twilight forest.
A forest strewn with jewels instead of flowers, and lit with priceless lamps of gold and silver instead of by sun and stars and moon.
It was indeed the richest church in the Netherlands, and one of the most sumptuous in Christendom.
Over four centuries of lavish labour, of infinite care, of prodigal expenditure had gone to the adornment of the building, the entire art expression of a nation had gone to the decoration, all the finest inspirations of the best artists, all the most painful and wonderful work of the best craftsmen were contained within these lofty walls, and all was sanctioned and hallowed by unending prayers and devotions, unending tears and penitences, unending humiliations before God.