A Year in Europe

by Walter W. Moore

The story of Leyden which made the deepest impression upon me as a boy was that of William's offering to reward the citizens for this gallant defence either by exempting them from taxes for a certain number of years or by the establishment of a university in their city. To their everlasting honor they chose the latter, even in that time of distress and poverty, and the University was founded in 1575. Of course we wished to see the University which had such a history as that, to say nothing of the fact that we had heard of Leyden jars ever since we began the study of electricity at college, and that we knew something of a few of the men whose genius has at different periods since made the faculty one of the most illustrious in Europe, such as "the learned Scaliger," the famous physician Boerhaave, Arminius and Gomar, champions, respectively, of the two theological schools known as Arminians or Remonstrants and Calvinists, which in 1618 brought their differences to debate in the famous Synod of Dort; and, as is always the case when an opportunity for thorough discussion on the basis of Scripture is given, the result was a victory for the Calvinists. We remembered also with pleasure that Oliver Goldsmith, author of the immortal Vicar of Wakefield, was for a time a student at the University of Leyden; and we recalled with less pleasure that in our own day the faculty of the institution had furnished one of the boldest advocates of the destructive criticism of the Old Testament, Professor Abraham Kuenen.

Plain College Buildings Abroad.

It was a satisfaction to see it, though there is little to see; this University, like most of those on the continent, having very indifferent buildings and appointments. The men who sometimes "kick" in American colleges and seminaries because the class-rooms and dormitories do not suit them, to say nothing of their board, would get a superabundance of that sort of exercise if they had to attend the average Dutch or German university. In fact, it has been intimated at times that there are men in American colleges and seminaries who belong to that class of people of whom it was suggested that they would grumble even after getting to heaven on the ground that their haloes didn't fit. Fortunately, however, these are very few, the great majority of our American students being not spoiled and fussy children, but manly, sensible, hard working, plain living, high thinking men.

John Robinson and the Pilgrim Fathers.

Before leaving Leyden we made a point of visiting the house in which the Rev. John Robinson lived. He was the leader of the first Puritans who were banished from England, and who, like the adherents of every other persecuted faith, found toleration and liberty in Calvinistic Holland. A bronze tablet affixed to the wall of the church on the opposite side of the street contains a bas-relief of the Mayflower, and states that it was at Mr. Robinson's prompting that the Pilgrim Fathers went forth to settle New England in 1620.

Horse Flesh as Food.

As we passed with our guide through what looked like an open-air beef market, he surprised us not a little by telling us that what the people were buying there was not beef, but horse flesh, which is much cheaper, adding that the worn-out dray horses and car horses of the English cities were regularly bought and shipped to Holland to be sold to the poor instead of beef. No doubt the people of Leyden became accustomed to much worse fare than that when, during the great siege of 1574, the Spaniards were trying to starve them into resubmission to Roman Catholicism. But those conditions no longer exist, and the idea of eating horse flesh as a regular thing is not one which commends itself to our feelings.

Haarlem.

This place, seventeen miles from Leyden, also had experience of the tender mercies of the papal soldiery when, in 1573, after a gallant defence of seven months, it fell into the hands of the Spaniards, and the entire garrison, the Protestant ministers of the gospel, and two thousand of the townspeople were executed. Haarlem is now, and has been for two hundred and fifty years, famous for its horticulture. It supplies bulbs to every part of the world, and in the spring the nurseries around the city are ablaze with the brilliant blooms of the tulips, hyacinths, crocuses and lilies, whole fields of them in every variety of color, like vast natural flags of the brightest hues, lying on the flat surface of the country, and the whole atmosphere is impregnated with their delicious fragrance.

A Flower Boom.