Religious Life and Thought
The Dutch are a thoroughly religious people. Religious sentiments and
introspective inclinations were bound to develop and prosper in the Low
Lands, where vast plains of fertile land are only limited by the endless
sea below, the unfathomable blue of heaven above; where man feels himself
an atom, lost in the vastness of creation, yet safe, because he is placed
there by the will of a beneficent Maker.
Introspective, personal, individualistic, self-centred are their painters
and their poets. These were greatly so when Holland's fleets ruled the
seas, and when Holland's influence and power were felt far beyond ils own
narrow frontiers; and they are still so in our days.
This individualism accounts for the many sects found among the Dutch
Reformed. The Roman Catholic Church, the only episcopacy in Holland,
numbers only two sections: those--the majority--who admit the
infallibility of the Pope, and those--a small minority--who, although
recognizing the Pope as chief of the Church, do not agree with the
decisions of the Vatican Council of 1870, proclaiming this papal
infallibility. The Roman Catholic Church is a tolerably prospering
institution, thanks to the absolute freedom which it, like all the sister
Churches, enjoys in Holland, where, ever since the revolution of 1795, a
State Church has been an unknown thing. On the whole, however, its growth
is not keeping pace with the increase of the population. A former census
indicated that the Roman Catholics numbered two-fifths of the whole
population, but the latest puts them down at only one-third, and in the
Second Chamber of the States General there are only twenty-five Roman
Catholic members out of a total of a hundred representatives. Their
present organization dates from 1853, when the Liberals agreed to the
appointment by the Pope of one Archbishop in Utrecht, and four Bishops in
Haarlem, Bois-le-Duc, Breda, and Roermond. The bishoprics are divided in
decanates, and in 1858 the Pope completed the organization by instituting
chapters, each governed by one provost and eight canons. The Archbishops
and Bishops do not officially participate in political life in Holland,
although, as a matter of course, nobody can help noticing their influence
upon the electorate; the minor clergy as a rule are less discreet in this
matter than their chiefs, whereas the political leader of the Roman
Catholics in the Second Chamber is Dr. Herman Schaepman, a priest, a
professer at the Seminary of Rysenburg, a statesman, an orator, and a
poet, whose quintuple attainments are equally admired, although his
scientific importance is not generally considered to be quite as weighty
as the rest of his remarkable personality.
Far more significant for Dutch religious life are the other two-thirds of
the population, Protestants to the back-bone. The former State Church, the
Netherlands Reformed Church, was left in a most awkward position when, in
1795, disestablishment was forced upon it. Up till 1848, when Jann Rudolf
Thorbecke saved Holland and the Royal House from another revolution, by
imposing a Liberal constitution upon the reluctant King William II, the
Netherlands Reformed Church had no sound, well-regulated status; but not
before 1870 was the last tie Connecting State and Church severed. The
State now no longer exercises spiritual or other supervision, but merely
pays a yearly allowance to the various clergymen, without vindicating or
claiming any rights in return.
On the other hand, the State no longer pays or appoints University
professors to teach specific reformed theology; every Church of every
description looks after this on behalf of its own students, and whereas
the Roman Catholic clergy are educated at the Seminaries, the General
Synod, the supreme governing board of the Netherlands Reformed Church,
nominates two professors for each of the four Dutch Universities at
Leyden, Utrecht, Groningen, and Amsterdam.
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.
[Illustration: 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.
[Illustration: Utrecht Cathedral.]
These 'Modern' Protestants came to the fore during the last fifty years.
The University of Groningen taught a humanism, which created a reaction
towards the ancient confessors of the creed, the 'reveal,' or awakening.
Subsequently modern cosmosophy tried to adjust its opinions to modern
science and the results of modern research in every branch of human
knowledge. This was a great blow to the ancestral faith and the venerable
Confession. In those days Coenraad Busken Huet published his 'Letters on
the Bible,' popularizing the scientific criticisms of the Sacred Book.
Gradually Leyden's University took the lead, Johannes Henricus Scholten,
Abraham Kuenen, and the Utrecht philosopher Cornelis Willem Opzoomer
assisting the new movement by their profound knowledge, their irresistible
logic, their brilliant style, and their high enthusiasm. In those years
Holland went through ail the throes accompanying the appearance of new
life; it was a time of intellectual stress and strain, a time of
controversial storm in which unrelenting criticism and critical research
carried away everything that could not exist in the light of exact science
and exacter thinking.
Jacobus Izaak Doedes, Johannes Jacobus van Oosterzee, Chantepic de la
Saussaye, the successors of Guillaume Groen van Prinsterer, Jan Rudolf
Thorbecke's greatest opponent, and Isaäc Da Costa, Willem Bilderdyk's
famous pupil, defended the ancient creed, but the General Synod was
'Modern' and the 'Orthodox' had a difficult time.
In numbers of places the 'dominees,' or preachers, were Orthodox, and in
order to provide their own followers with spiritual fare, the 'Moderns'
established in 1870 the 'Nederlandsche Protestantenbond,' or Netherlands
Protestant League. This League sees that all over the country 'Modern'
sermons are preached, 'Modern' Sunday Schools instituted, meetings of
Protestants arranged, and everything is done that can support or promote
religious life.
Besides these two large bodies of Protestants, the Orthodox and the
Moderns, Holland has a good many Lutherans, Baptists, or Mennonites, and
Remonstrants. Of the Lutherans the most numerous are the Evangelical
Lutherans, who faithfully maintain the Augsburg Confession, while the
Moderns, known as Reinstated Lutherans, abandoned that organ of doctrine.
There is not, however, much animosity between the two sects at the present
time, neither making a strong point of dogma, but both giving a prominent
place to the demands of Christian practice.
The Mennonites--so called after the Dutch reformer Menno Simons
(1496-1561)--were in olden times the most persecuted Protestants of all.
Roman Catholics, Lutherans, and Calvinists were equally hard upon them,
and many of them lost their lives on account of their convictions. They
have no test, no church, no rite, no clergy. They have fraternities, and
in these the minister is the 'voorganger' (guide or leader), though his
education, social position, and general duties are the same as those of
all other Protestant ministers. In Amsterdam they have their own Seminary,
and the names of Professors Samuel Muller, Sytske Hoekstra Bzn, Jacob
Gysbert de Hoop Scheffer, and Jan van Gilse are honoured in the country
and outside the 'General Baptist Society,' as their central body is
called. Their teaching and preaching appeal not only to the religions, but
very strongly to the ethical and moral tendencies of humanity.
The Remonstrants (formerly Arminians) came upon the scene towards the end
of the sixteenth century. Dirk Vorlkertsz Coornhert had written a very
able refutation of the dogma of predestination. The Town Council of
Amsterdam ordered Jacob Arminius to Write a book against Coornhert's work.
But behold! when Arminius settled down to the task, and read Coornhert's
argument carefully, he came to the conclusion that the other was right,
and from an opponent he turned into a powerful ally. This happy lack of
bias has ever been the particular feature of Arminian doctrine, and, like
the Mennonites, the Remonstrants hold that the value of religion is
determined by its beneficial influence on ethics. Considering the ethical
or social fermentation which Holland, like every other country, has
witnessed during the last decades, it is not surprising to find a great
many 'Modern' members of the Netherlands 'Hervormde Kerk' joining the
Remonstrant fraternity, which affords absolute liberty as regards dogma
and confession, and at the same time satisfies their altruistic
inclinations.
It is one of the commonest contentions of the age that ethics and religion
can exist in one being independently of each other. One very advanced sect
of modern Dutch Protestants--not yet, however, numbering a great many
adherents--does not go quite to this extreme, but in the 'Vrye Gemeente,'
or 'Free Community,' they represent religion as a thing complete in
itself, a thing purely pertaining to the individual, personal spiritual
life. This 'Free Community' was established in 1878 by two Amsterdam
ministers, Pieter Hermannus Hugenholtz and Frederik Willem Nicolaas
Hugenholtz. They neither observe Ascension Day nor Whitsuntide; they
abolished Baptism and the Eucharist; and, however charitable the members
may be in their private capacities, the Free Community, as such, does not
practise poor-relief or charity in any form.
In this connexion it is interesting to add a few words about Dutch Free
Masonry. The Dutch Free Masons of the present day are not so much
moralists as ethicists. The well-being of the commonwealth based upon the
well-being of every member--spiritually, intellectually, and
materially--is their threefold aim. They feel and express profound
admiration for every form of religious life, utterly indifferent as to the
existence or non-existence of any dogma accompanying it, since they freely
realize how strong a motive religion is to ethics; they admit Roman
Catholics, Orthodox or Modern Protestants, Jews, Buddhists, Mohammedans,
Atheists and Agnostics into their fraternity, no confessional test
whatever being put to any one; they only require faithful co-operation
towards the general betterment of human society as a whole.
The Hebrew Church has also enjoyed perfect freedom ever since the
constitution of 1848 made the right of congregation absolute and
incontestable. But after being fettered during so many centuries, it took
even this energetic and tenacious race some twenty years to shake itself
free from the lingering influences of long-protracted restraint. It was
only in 1870 that the Netherlands Israelitic Congregation was established;
the Portuguese Jews in Holland have a separate governing body. Modern and
ancient views clash here, as everywhere else, but the consciousness of
their illustrious history, not sullied, but adorned with greater
brilliancy by centuries of persecution, becomes gradually more powerful in
the mind of the Dutch Jew, and invigorates his natural and national
tendency towards the ancient rites and doctrines of his classic creed.