a bigot, always gentle, at last a Christian, in Holland and in Zeeland, where for years he was almost military dictator, these principles of tolerance were put to severest test.  Fortunately for the world, they were sufficiently strong to stand the strain.  The people about him had been the sad victims of a horrible persecution which had furrowed their soil with graves, and filled their land with widows and orphans.  We know what is human nature.  But Dutch nature is a little more generous than ordinary human nature.  A Dutchman’s heart is big, a Dutchman travels on a broad-gauge track; a Dutchman can forgive and forget an injury; a Dutchman has no fears and few frowns; a Dutchman is never icebergy, nor sullen, nor revengeful.  He may make mistakes from impulse, he never wounds with intention; he will never put his foot twice in the same trap, nor will he take any pleasure in seeing his enemy entrapped.  All of a Dutchman’s faults come from an over-indulgence of a Dutchman’s virtues.  He is not cold, nor calculating, nor cruel.  Generally happy himself, he desires others to be happy also.  If he cannot get on with people, he lets them alone.  He does not seek to ruin them.

Such are traits of the Dutch character.  When, after driving out the awful, vindictive, bloodthirsty Spaniards, the Dutch came into power, it was but natural to think of retaliation:  banish the Papists, or persecute the Anabaptists, suppress their paganism, or crush their fanaticism, would have been most natural.  Against any such ideas the nation as a whole set its face like a wall of adamant.  Very soon the sober convictions of the people were triumphant.  And after the most atrociously cruel war, in which these men had suffered untold agonies, they became an example to the oppressed, the like of which the world had never witnessed since the Son of God and Saviour of men cried out from his cross, “Father, forgive them:  they know not what they do.”  When the union was formed between Holland and Zeeland, it was provided that no inquisition should be made into any man’s belief or conscience, nor should any man by cause thereof suffer injury or hindrance.  Toleration for the oppressor by the oppressed, full forgiveness of enemies by the victors, became thus the corner-stone of the republic, under which all sects of Christians, the Roman Catholic Church, Jews, Turks, infidels, and even heretics, throve and prospered.

Now, do you need anything said after thus showing Holland to have been the teacher of a lesson to oppressors, and the example to the oppressed, to show that she has ever been the sanctuary for the rights of mankind?