Dutch Life in Town and Country

by P. M. Hough

It is necessary to point here to a peculiarity in Dutch religious and political life. At the time when Liberal politics were developing in Holland, critical and historical research made itself conspicuous in the teaching of leading Dutch ecclesiastics like Scholten and Kuenen. The Reformation upset the Divine authority of the Pope; these modern critics denied and destroyed the faith in the Divine authority of the Bible. They were educated, and afterwards taught their lessons at the University of Leyden, where the future Liberal statesmen of Holland were preparing for their task; they had the same ideals, the same modes of thought.

Interior of Delftshaven Church (Where the Pilgrim Fathers Worshipped Before Leaving for New England).

The ecclesiastics called themselves 'Moderns;' the politicians were designated 'Liberals.' Both vindicated the supreme right of freedom in everything: free criticism, free research, free thought, free speech. The reign of pure intellectualism became supreme; every emotion, every sentiment was dissected, measured by the measure of inexorable logic; and rationalism, later doomed to bankruptcy, was in those days all-triumphant.

So it came about that the Liberals were 'Moderns' and the 'Moderns' Liberals; and as the State was for a quarter of a century governed by Liberals who involuntarily made the Church 'Modern,' populated by Liberals, so it also came about that their religious opponents became their political foes.

These opponents were called 'Orthodox;' they felt this imposition of liberty as the worst coercion one man could apply to another--the coercion of the conscience. They did not care to see the Bible treated as a piece of sheer human manufacture, however exalted; they felt it a burning shame to have to pay taxes towards the maintenance of irreligious, or even anti-religious, scientific chairs and colleges. They thought of their stern forefathers, who had broken the power of the mighty Spanish Empire, strengthened by God's Word and by that only. To them the Netherlands Reformed Church and the Netherlands State lost their sound and only safe basis by the assertion that there was something changeable, something non-eternal in the Bible; that this Bible, revered as containing the Holy Scriptures, might be replaced by any human System of thought to serve as the foundation for the structure of the State.

This blending of Modernism and Liberalism afforded to them absolute proof that any abandonment of the ancient creed and the revered confession meant ruin both to State and Church. So they followed the time-honoured practice of the Dutch race; they separated, broke away from a species of liberty which was not of their liking, and became 'Anti-Revolutionists' and 'Separatists' ('Afgescheidenen'); Calvin, with his staunch, severe Protestantism, being their ideal as statesman and spiritual leader.

The Dutch language has two words for one thing: 'Hervorming' and 'Reformatie.' But there is a vast difference between the Netherlands 'Hervormde' and the Netherlands 'Gereformeerde' Churches. The former is the late State Church, the latter is the Church of the 'Afgescheidenen,' who, before joining the Netherlands Gereformeerde, called themselves 'Christelyk Gereformeerde.' These two joined in 1892, and are now known as the 'Gereformeerde Kerken' (the Reformed Churches).

Their leader is Professer Abraham Kuyper, the present President Minister of the Netherlands. He, like Dr. Schaepman, is a born orator, a prolific author, a scientific ecclesiastic, a strong democratic leader of men, an admirable organizer, and perhaps the most brilliant journalist in Holland; but beyond this, he is a staunch Protestant of the strictest Calvinistic type, to whom the Roman Catholic Church is a blasphemous and idolatrous institution. In 1879 he created the 'Society for Higher Education on a Reformed Basis,' and in 1880 his 'Free University' was consecrated in the 'Nieuwe Kerk' (the New Church) at Amsterdam, Dr. Kuyper ever since the opening acting as one of the professors. His flock is now strong in numbers, but his and their faith is stronger and has worked miracles, building churches and schools, maintaining preachers and teachers, finding money for everything, and finally, for the second time, gaining a political victory, with the help of such strange auxiliaries as the Roman Catholics. What unites them is the conviction they have in common that a State and a Government not led themselves by religion must lead a nation to perdition. To them Liberal Governments, although theoretically free from clerical influence, are actually led and unduly influenced by the 'Modern' Protestants of Holland. These 'Modern' Protestants reject the dogma of the Holy Trinity and various other dogmas which the Roman Catholics and the Orthodox Protestants consider the essence of the Christian creed; they are, therefore, in the opinion of the latter, mere atheists, and consequently unfit to rule the destinies of a nation.