Calvin Synod Herald, 1984 (84. évfolyam, 1-6. szám)
1984-06-01 / 3. szám
CALVIN SYNOD HERALD — 5 — REFORMÁTUSOK LAPJA body to appease your hunger, but expect no surrender so long as I remain alive.” From the battlements daily sounded the irritating cry of the Spaniards into the famishing city: “You rat-eaters and dog-eaters! Your Prince of Orange cannot pluck the stars from the sky as well as to bring the ocean to the walls of Leyden for your relief!!” The time had now arrived when only God alone could help. “Oh God! Send us a westerly wind! Make the ocean tide rise Save Leyden! Save us! Break the yoke of Spain and Rome! Save our church of purity and truth!” Thus rose the desperate and fervent prayer in every church of the two leading “Sea Provinces”, Holland and Zealand, that were patriot and Calvinist to the core. That prayer was more desperate and more fervent in the church of Delft than anywhere else. The whole populace of Delft was inside the church: women with their beautiful, large head-dresses, men in their coarse gray cloaks made after the fashion of those used by the beggars with the wallet and the bowl at their girdles. It was a costume adopted by all patriots, regardless of rank and occupation, who had fought against the despotism of Spain and the bigotry of Rome since Count Barlaymont had so foolishly assured the Court of Brussels eight years before that there was no reason to fear “from such a band of beggars”. Beggars insignia, worn as trinkets, were seen everywhere. All eyes were fixed on the spare pale man, sitting in the first row facing the pulpit. He had just got out of his sick bed, after having recovered from a violent swamp fever. He was of the sort that “sleep not at night, and think too much”. All patriots and Calvinists throughout the seventeen provinces looked toward this man at this time of danger, as to the Savior of the nation and true religion. Although he was only forty, he had been affectionately named the “Father of his country” by the patriots. In contrast he had been called an “arch heretic” and the “monster of public pest” by Philip of Spain, who, in order to introduce into the Low Countries the Tridentine Decrees for the extirpation of Protestantism, had slaughtered Dutch Calvinists by the thousands through his infamous Duke of Alva and other unscrupulous agents. Philip had proclaimed him an outlaw, and Alva had confiscated all his possessions. Not quite a year before the Spaniards had made a perfect effigy of the Prince with a small head, brown eyes, hair, and beard which they had carried through the streets of Uttrecht in a procession and then had broken upon the wheel and burned on a stake. Because Philip had offered money to anyone who would assassinate him, his agents continually plotted to end this noble life by a bullet or by a knife. The sturdy Dutch burghers of Delft, however, kept a close watch over their beloved leader, who upon the divine right of resistence had led the great and justified revolt of a little but brave nation which had flown to arms as one man to defend the noble rights of national and religious freedom. Although he himself had been a Provencal Prince and a German Count of the House of Nassau, he had become the truest and sturdiest of Dutch and had identified himself with the interest of his adopted country in such a measure as had no born Hollander ever before. When, through his Catholic heritage, he had become acquainted with the secret plot of the Spanish and French courts to extinguish the Protestants of both countries, he had broken with the throne and fought as a Catholic for the freedom of Protestantism. Few Protestants themselves, had fought with such a zeal as he. Exactly a year before in this same church of Delft he had changed his religion, openly declared himself a member of the Calvinist Church, and had become a champion of his adopted Church such as no born Calvinist ever had. Thus Protestant Truth, that first had been imported into his young heart by Queen Mary of Hungary at her court, had borne fruit in the age of the darkest bigotry and persecutions. There he sat, the parent and “guiding star" of a brave nation, the defender and restorer of true religion, “the Taciturn”, “the Silent”, who had fought for the lofty principle of toleration in the century of the bitterest intolerance. William of Orange sat in his row with a heavy heart today, dressed in a loose surcoat of gray frieze cloth with a high ruff encircling his neck from which hung the emblem of the “Beggars”. Not long ago he had been struck to the earth “with the blow of a sledge hammer” when he had received the news of the inhuman massacre of St. Bartholomew. His hopes were in Coligny and his Huguenots. Recently “the sledge hammer” had struck again when he had lost the battle of Mookerheyde, where two of his brothers, Lewis and Henry, had laid down their lives. Lewis, “le bon chevalier”, had been his right hand on the battlefields. Would the “sledge hammer” strike again? Would Leyden be lost and with it everything he had lived and fought for till now? Though his heart was heavy, his soul was ardent, full of hope, trust, and assurance. He had long ago placed himself and his cause in the hands of God; he trusted to a higher power than man with a sincere and firm confidence. And now when everything was in the hands of God, could He forsake him who fought for a cause that was God’s as well as his and his people’s? Pastor Villers, the Prince’s intimate friend, clad in the scholar’s black gown, thundered upon the pulpit with unfaltering conviction: “It was twelve years ago that we submitted to King Philip the Confession of Faith of our Reformed Churches in the Netherlands. In the address sent with it to the king, we solemnly declared that we would “offer our backs to stripes, our tongues to knives our mouths to gags, and our whole bodies to the fire” rather than deny the truth expressed in our Confession. “Since then men, women and children have been striped for praying alone in their closets in spirit and in truth; the tongues of many hundreds have been torn out by the roots for worshipping God instead of “Holy Mary” and the saints; thousands have been dragged on hurdles, with their mouths closed with iron gags for the “crime” of not going to Mass; and thousands upon thousands have been burned alive in the fire for the “crime” of not kneeling to a wafer.” The congregation shivered. Many women wept. There were very few among the worshippers who had not had kin executed by these Spanish ways of the horrible Inquisition. For them the sermon was not the history of the past, but the living experience of the present. “Our days are the days of never-ending sacrifice! Flames and smoke are of daily appearance throughout the villages of the Netherlands. The death bells have been tolled hourly for years all through the whole of our land.” (Duke Alva's superhuman promise to his master, the King, had become a horrible reality. The blood torrent had been flowing through the Netherlands, in order that the promised golden river a yard deep, should flow to thirsty Spain. The golden river, two yards deep, that had flowed from the land of America to the Court of Spain, had not been enough for the expenses of Philip’s inhuman scheme to extirpate Protestantism in many countries of the West.) “But we have stayed faithful to the truth of our Confession,” continued the pastor, raising his voice. “The man who boasted of having tamed “people of iron” before, could not crush us, the “men of butter” as he despisingly called us. Nine months ago he was recalled to Spain.” Then quoting from the Confession of Faith in a tone of deep conviction, he went on: “The Holy Church is preserved by God against the rage of the whole world, though it sometimes for awhile appears very small, and seems in the eyes of men to be reduced to nothing, as during the perilous reign of Ahab, the Lord reserved unto Him seven thousand men who had not bowed their knees to Baal.” A gleam of veneration glistened on the preacher’s face as he
