American union. [volume] (Morgantown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1855-1859, 1857-01-17
IaaalW HOLL AND. .as. rFg
IT'S MARTYRS AND HEROES.

IT'S MARTYRS AND HEROES.
Holland was nothing, till all Of q
sudden the Gospel made it sublime
The Gospel taught the Hollanders the
worth of their souls, and their direct
accountability to the Most High; and
there is nothing which makes man or
people SO free as a sense of response
bility to the King of kings, and nothing
(which makes either so brave as tho a.
bidmg remembrance, Thou God seest
me-. These old Dutchmcn we're firm
believers, and that made them brave
warriors they were God-fearing Chris
ttians, u that made them freemen whom
no tyrant could ,enslave. Into the cal
EQUATIONS of their statesmen an unusual
element entered they thought of eter-
nifty, and seeking first the Kingdom of
heaven & its righteousness, they were
ready for bold strokes at which common
heroism falters. Rather than deny
Christ's name, they could seriously
prepare for a national migration to an
other continent, and rather than see it
again profaned by the footsteps of An
tichrists, they could make up their
minds to break down embankments, the
work of industrious centuries, and res
tore to the bosom Of ocean, still free
and unpollutcd, the dear land of their
fathers. hq.t
7 For such people, God himself in.
terposed. Their public fasts and their
prayers were more successful than their
embassies to Paris and London, & the
help which came from heaven was more
decisive than all their levies. Often
might the forlorn Hollander say -
rs There is none that figheth for us but
only thou, 0 God; but by series of
marvellous interpretations, which brought
to remembrance Gideon's host &c Sen
nachreb's army,the Lord subdued their
enemies under them and in the great
churches, victors, as devout as they
were valiant, sang, For his own right
/ hand and his holy arm have gotten
Him the victory"
i The contrast between Professionalism
| and Patriotism on the one side, and
1 serVility1 and superstition on the other,
/ was strikingly displayed in the inverse
| progress of Belgium and Holland.HI In
the days of Luther, Belgium was the
martof Europe, and the great focus of
) manufacturing industry but in those
days Holland was still weak and poor.
However, Holland, embraced the Cos
pei, Belgium let it slip. Belgium sub
mitted to the Pope and the Spaniard ;
! loyal to the Bible, and to the Lord Of
the conscience, Holland fought for civil
and religious freedom, and with a great
price earned the blessing. And when
, Belgium was lamenting its commerce
and its decaying industry when the
docks of Antwerp were shipless, and
the houses in Ghent, Mechlin & Broges
were tumbled into ruins; when the
great traders had carried away their
capital to happier lands, and wolves
we're prowling through the uncultivatcd
fields of Flanders and Brabit; when the
crushed and abject country produced
no hero and no sage, 4 Louyain, which
used to boast six thousand students,
had become mere factory Of monks,
a dcrmifory for drowsy friars--the
Dutch coast was expanding into one
great harbor, and the Dutch merchant
navy was fast absorbing into itself the
traffic of both hcmispheres; the ocean
was alive with Dutch fishermen, Dutch
East Indiamen, Dutch men of war; the
wharves of Rotterdam and Amsterdam
were groaning with rich fruits, from
Guiana and the Cape, as we'll as the
republics vast possessions in either In
dies and the Chinese seas; Van Trump.
! De- Ruyter and De Witt were filing
! the ocean with their fame; Grotius was
| founding the science of international
Jurisprudence, and was shedding over
abstrusest themes the charms of poetry
and the lights of universal knowledge.
Boerhavo was expounding medicine Il
botany to the greatest crowd that ever
focked round an academic chair, and
was receiving visits sfrom kings and en-
pcrors Leuwenhoek was opening the
! path of microscopical, research, into
which the present day has sent so ma
/ ny followers, and was pioneering the
way for the modern science of animal
| physiology; Teniers, Rcmbrant, and
Paul Potter were adorning with the
effusions Of their matchless pencil the
halls Of wealthy guilds and the palaces
of merchant princes; Cocceius, Mar
.ckius, De Moore Spanheim, Vitringa,
VeDema, Witsius, those Justinians Of
theology, to whose systomatizing labors
the Protestant divine pays roverent
homage, we're raising their mighty mon
uments Of Christian scholarship and